Offices in Americus, GA and Columbus, GA

Zoning Technical Assistance 

Planning

Zoning Technical Assistance

As our communities grow and develop, sometimes the need to change land use for different purposes arises. While zoning is a great way to make the best use of land, it can be a challenging undertaking. The RVRC offers Zoning Technical Assistance to all local governments and communities within the River Valley Region.  

What is Zoning? 

For almost a century zoning has been the local government practice of concentrating land uses with similarities in size and purpose into areas separate from land uses with inherently different purposes. This reduces the potential for conflicts. 

Neighborhoods of owner-occupied, single-family homes with garages on one-acre lots and tree-lined streets constitute an environment different from a three-story, renter-occupied apartment complex with a large asphalt parking area fronting the building. Neither residential area is compatible with the noise, activity and after-hours lighting of a commercial area, nor with an industrial building serviced by transport trucks and with grounds and employee parking secured by chain-link fencing. 

Zoning ordinances differ between communities because of preferred variations in, and various densities of, four primary land uses: agriculture, commercial, industrial and residential.  Enforcement can protect and retain existing land uses, and encourage specified types of new development in designated areas as preferred by the community.  Other types of zoning have evolved in recent decades which are based on performance or physical form or appearance, but ordinances based on land use are predominant throughout the region and across the nation. 

RVRC Zoning Assistance Services 

RVRC can work directly with communities to help solve their zoning needs. This includes everything from comprehensive plan updates to meeting facilitation to zoning map creation. For more information on zoning technical assistance please contact Rick Morris or Gerald Mixon at 706-256-2910 or 877 819-6348.