Editorial: Smart zoning could help neighborhoods

Thursday, Dec. 10, 1998 | 10:45 a.m.

There were several suggestions offered by the county's staff and a county consultant that would help improve neighborhood aesthetics, bettering the quality of life. As the Sun's Adrienne Packer reported, one proposal would require minimum landscaping standards for businesses so adequate buffers are created between them and homeowners. Some businesses have been known to plant Charlie Brown Christmas trees that provide no genuine buffer. "They can just stick a few sticks in there and that's it," county planner Lebene Ohene noted.

Another plan would be to apply the same setback requirements to commercial businesses that apply to hotel-casinos, so that the higher the building is, the greater the setback that would be required. This could help alleviate the feeling of a homeowner that someone sitting in an office in a high-rise always is peering down at him.

The final draft of the zoning overhaul is a year away, and buffers and setbacks are just two parts of the overall picture. These two improvements may seem modest, but if enacted they could go a long way in helping make our neighborhoods more livable, minimizing the impacts commercial developments have on homeowners.