Standard zoning map colors

[ktaylor]

You don't happen to work in AZ do you?? CF is that YOU???

haha, that would make SO much sense.

Sorry about the necroposting. but actually was wondering if any of the standards are in place for sub-categories? I'm putting together a GIS map that goes from agricultural, state, federal to residential, multi-family etc etc...broad to complex.

Already looks at all the info provided, just haven't found anything that specifies different sub-category colors... all the sub-categories seem to have the same RGB color as the categories.

oh so much fun....

[B'lieve]

How about less zoning districts?

Thank about it for a moment. It could be as simple as:

Yellow – Single Family Residential
Brown – Multiple Family Residential
Red – Commercial
Grey – Industrial
Green – Recreation or Agricultural
Purple – Mixed Use

Instead our community has 19 different zoning districts listed on the “official zoning map” and 6 of them are single family.

Michaelskis beat me to the punch. Why so many seperate districts? I'm not a planner, but I understand and mostly agree with the logic behind defining zones for certain major categories of use. I can see that a swath of land between a railroad and main highway is better suited to industrial uses than a sites far out on narrow dirt roads, or in a wetland, and it sounds pretty reasonable to ban big box stores from a densely-built or historic residential neighborhood that would be overwhelmed by a business of that scale. But I don't understand the point behind entirely seperate zones for duplexes and single-family houses, or 18 distinct industrial zones. Why not narrow the zones to 5 or 6, with one subcategory in the commercial, residential, mixed use and industrial zones to cover higher intensity levels of those uses, and then add a handful (just one handful) of regulations to cover special cases like historic sites and hazmats?

OT:How old does a thread have to be before posting on it is an act of voodoo?

[Tresmo]

Since I originally asked this question months ago, found an answer, and then ignored it until today at work, this thread popping back up has to be an act of...something.

I was instructed to standardize our zoning map colors (all our planners were using different color schemes for our GIS maps in presentations, which started to get annoying for everyone viewing them). I used colors for the major land use categories outlines here and then used darker shades grey, light industrial=light grey.

[natski]

In NSW zoning map colours are standardized for all Councils. So people know when they see pink on a zoning map it means residential etc etc

[Gedunker]

Michaelskis beat me to the punch. Why so many seperate districts? I'm not a planner, but I understand and mostly agree with the logic behind defining zones for certain major categories of use. I can see that a swath of land between a railroad and main highway is better suited to industrial uses than a sites far out on narrow dirt roads, or in a wetland, and it sounds pretty reasonable to ban big box stores from a densely-built or historic residential neighborhood that would be overwhelmed by a business of that scale. But I don't understand the point behind entirely seperate zones for duplexes and single-family houses, or 18 distinct industrial zones. Why not narrow the zones to 5 or 6, with one subcategory in the commercial, residential, mixed use and industrial zones to cover higher intensity levels of those uses, and then add a handful (just one handful) of regulations to cover special cases like historic sites and hazmats?

If you think about land use categories in broad terms, then fewer colors are okay. But, some places do not allow outdoor storage in some industrial districts while it is permitted in others (light industrial v. heavy industrial, for example). Seeing that graphically depicted can head off trouble when Ms. Developer walks into the planning office and wants to build an upscale subdivision cheek by jowl with a heavy industrial land use.

=B'lieve;419468]How old does a thread have to be before posting on it is an act of voodoo? If it creaks when you open it, it's too old. Seriously, if you read a thread that is years old and the names of the members don't ring too many bells, it'd probably be better to start a new thread rather than revive a dusty old one. A three or four-month old thread is not stale by any means. Thanks for asking!

[Dan Staley]

I use ArcView and the standard land use colors found here: http://www.planning.org/lbcs/Publica...onventions.pdf .

You can change your colors in Arc manually to these, or standarize similar colors. I know that if I see a color that is way off standard, I get confused.

DS

[jaj121159]

Make the colors as different as possible and NEVER put green next to red. You should never use gradients of color either. Why do I say this, because I am red/green color blind and have trouble distinguishing shades of other colors even if the map is the size of a football field. I like to use hatching simply because it is easier to tell the difference for me.

[BWharrie]

http://services.land.vic.gov.au/maps/pmo.jsp
These colurs used across Melbourne and Victoria, Australia demonstrate a recognition from back in the 1954 withy the origianl iterium development control plan for Melbourne.

Starting with the largest land use being Residential then looking from aircraft one would see a predominence of red tiled roofs, there a red colour was selected, then because of the large areas involved the red became pink.

Proposed residential areas ( known as reserved residential 'C' were crosshatched in 0.25mm black.

For many years into the 1990's the pink remained. In the mid 1980's prefixes were added to the panning sheme maps (96 maps of scale 800 feet to the inch 1:9600) along with outer Melbourne of 46? maps at a scale of 2000 feet to the inch 1:24000) due to a total reprint of the colur maps which were A2+ size with no lot boundaries!!! Zone labeld were added ie R1, R2 IN1 IN2 C1 etc.
Then they were converted to 1:10,000 maps with lot boundaries - yahoo!

Industrial represented dirty places so it was attached the colour brown. Special uses such as schools, hospitals and the like were yelow.

Main roads were megenta, secondary roads were strong orange, business was purple (like Old Kent Street in Monopoly)

Rural being large areas those days was light orange or sand colour.

Open space was strong green (of course)

Conservation Zone was a dirty green

The new Heritage Overlays (in 1980's) were red 0.5mm outline

A variety of 5mm stripes was used on proposed public purpose, and proposed public open space.

Proposed Main Roads were white striped 90 degrees across the colured area as were proposed secondary roads.

Proposed road widenings were strong blue.

Waterways were light blue, as they should be! We did have the large Port Phillip Bay to include!

There were four highly skilled officers in drawing Amendment Maps to the Melbourne and Metropoliatan Planning Scheme which involved using a black & white open street base and colouring the zone amendment in colur using printer's ink or enamel paint depending upon the map being used.

NB: The first Council in Melburne of which was then made up of 52 Councils, to be converted into digital form using a Sun Computer system was Prahran City Council.

[RockyMtnGuy]

Make the colors as different as possible and NEVER put green next to red. You should never use gradients of color either. Why do I say this, because I am red/green color blind and have trouble distinguishing shades of other colors even if the map is the size of a football field. I like to use hatching simply because it is easier to tell the difference for me.

I'll just toss this in because I used to design color graphics systems for oil field operators, the vast majority of which are men. (And the few who are women use language that would make a longshoreman blush.) Seven percent of men are color blind.

Fortunately, only 0.49 percent of women are color blind. Why? Because it's on the X chromosome and women have two of them. 0.07 x 0.07 = 0.0049

Notwithstanding that, I once took a color graphics course from a woman who was color blind. She walked around the class saying, "Can you tell me what color that is? I'm not sure."

In other words, don't assume that the people who look at your maps can distinguish red from green from yellow.