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Following a contentious three-year fight, it appears that those supporting the imposition of a zoning code in the currently unzoned, rural, upstate community of Caroline, New York, have secured enough elected offices to get zoning done.<\/p>\n
Incumbent pro-zoning Town Supervisor Mark Witmer, a Democrat, defeated<\/a> anti-zoning challenger Tonya VanCamp, running on the independent Connecting Caroline ticket, with 53 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n Pro-zoning incumbent Democrats Kate Kelley-Mackenzie, Tim Murray, and Michele Brown also won their races for the three town board seats for which elections were held, defeating anti-zoning candidates Meghan Slatoff-Burke, Kathryn Mix, and small business owner Shari Conover. Anti-zoning incumbent town board member Carl Snow was not up for reelection.<\/p>\n As Reason <\/em>covered in a lengthy story<\/a> back in March, Caroline’s fight over whether to adopt a zoning code began in early 2020, when the town board adopted a building moratorium in response to a proposed Dollar General development.<\/p>\n The moratorium successfully killed the Dollar General project. It also kicked off an intense debate about what would come next.<\/p>\n Slow-growth residents of the town (many of whom are current or retired faculty and staff from nearby Cornell University) argued that a comprehensive zoning code was necessary to stop future suburban sprawl from taking over the town.<\/p>\n On the other side were many of Caroline’s business owners and farmers, who liked the freedom afforded by the town’s lack of zoning and saw the proposed code as a threat to their ability to make productive use of their land.<\/p>\n “People are going to lose their freedoms on their properties,” anti-zoning wedding venue owner John Morse told Reason <\/em>earlier this year.<\/p>\n Since 2021, the town government dominated by pro-zoning members has been at work producing a draft zoning code littered with restrictions on residential construction and commercial development.<\/p>\n In response, anti-zoning residents started a grassroots resistance effort\u2014hosting rallies, writing op-eds<\/a>, posting yard signs reading “Grandma Hates Zoning” and “Zoning Kills Dreams,” and eventually running a slate of anti-zoning candidates.<\/p>\n The town’s zoning board, created to draft a zoning code, finished its work in March 2023. The decision on whether to adopt the code was then in the hands of the town board.<\/p>\n A persistent demand of Caroline’s anti-zoners was to put off any final decision on a zoning code until after the 2023 municipal elections. Those elections have now happened, and pro-zoning forces won a close but commanding victory.<\/p>\n That likely means Caroline will soon follow the example of most other communities in the country by adopting a zoning code.<\/p>\n While the town is becoming more typical, it’s also bucking a trend.<\/p>\n Across the country, communities are increasingly looking for ways to loosen their zoning codes to allow more housing and businesses. A collection of Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) candidates looking to liberalize zoning restrictions won their races in neighboring Ithaca<\/a>.<\/p>\n “So much of what’s in this code is stuff other cities are trying to get rid of,” said Nolan Gray, the author of the anti-zoning book Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It<\/em>, at a rally in Caroline in November 2022.<\/p>\n Soon enough, Caroline might adopt a zoning code. And soon after that, they might be looking for ways to roll it back.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n