Protecting industrial lands

Try Baltimore, MD. The city apparently looked into this issue a few years ago, and a section of its comprehensive plan suggested an industrial mixed-use zone that would allow for carefully controlled commercial uses to support the industrial. I don't know if this was ever implemented, but it was an interesting concept.

Portland and Los Angeles are other communities that has gone through this exercise.

Thanks Cardinal and Mud Princess; I will take a look at those suggestions.

I'm not sure about the mixed-use zoning that Mud Princess mentioned, but there was an article in the Baltimore Sun maybe five weeks ago about an ordinance that protects a long section of the industrial waterfront from incursion, which was recently renewed with amendments. I don't clearly remember, but I believe the old version was stricter in the short term but was set to expire entirely around, I think, 2018. I think the new version loosens up a little now, but still offers partial protection after the current strict provisions expire. You'd have to check the Sun's archives online (baltimoresun.com, I think) to be sure, sometime in March. But definitely check out Baltimore's regs and plans, because as the inhabited waterfront neighborhoods (Canton, Locust Point in particular) grow more popular and populated, they're starting to encroach on the very valued Port, and debate and occasional action have gone on for some time.

I find the tendency to redevelop industrial land with port or rail access to be very short sighted. Fuel costs and congestion are really smacking industry now and some of the new industrial parks created in the hinterlands with only highway access are going to hurt in the coming years. Meanwhile industrial land in/near cities that once had rail access is being gentrified and the rail line pulled up or is now a "problem". Time will tell.

In Burlington, Vermont, we have adopted "symbolic zoning," meaning that our zoning district boundaries correspond to a visual image of the predominant use within the district.

In our Enterprise Zoning District (our principal industrial zone) we have adopted the image of a machine gun (I don't remember the exact make or model) to reflect the historical fact that one of the principal business within the district has long been the manufacturing of guns for military use -- including the historic gatling gun. Currently the largest business within our Enterprise District is General Dynamics Armament Products (click on their Locations link to see the Burlington facility).

The facility is often in the news. See a report, for example, from our local daily newspaper today.

Here are two maps from our comprehensive development ordinance (I added the inset photo as a comparison reference).

As you can tell, we want to send a clear message that we will defend our industrial zone from any change of use!

The land use plans in Wichita-Sedgwick County, Kansas identify the area near McConnell Air Force Base as appropriate for industrial uses in order to prevent the encroachment of incompatible, primarily residential, uses around the base. The local governments here selected the process of unilaterally rezoning privately-owned property to an industrial zoning district to implement the land use plans.

"Down zoning" and nuisance complaints are a problem here too. NJ has "Right to Farm" law. It has a formal conflict resolution procedure. It protects working farms from newbie neighbors using odor and other nuisance complaints driving away the existing farm they just planted their McMansion next to. I haven't heard of a "Right to Industry" law in NJ, but I would imagine the two could have some common features. For additional information on the "Right to Farm" program see http://www.nj.gov/agriculture/sadc/rtfprogram/