Zoning, Part I: Zoning is an Expression of a Community’s Values

This article was prepared by Glennon Sweeney, Senior Community Outreach Representative at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. This editorial was prepared in her personal time in her personal capacity as a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of city and Regional Planning at The Ohio State University. The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the view of Building Worthington’s Future or its members. However, the author reports important and critical points that we feel are valuable and worth reviewing considering the City of Worthington and our mission to develop the future of Worthington positively and respectfully.

Glennon also serves on Worthington’s Community Relationship Commission as Vice Chair. She grew up in Worthington and is a graduate of Worthington Kilbourne High School. Her comments continue the dialogue that started in 2022 when Building Worthington’s Future participated in the Building Inclusive Communities initiative.

Glennon is a scholar and activist residing in the Worthington School District. She works as a senior community outreach representative at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. Her research expertise lies at the intersection of land use and development policy and metropolitan segregation with an emphasis on the role that suburban municipalities played and continue to play in creating and maintaining segregation. A parent of two teenagers, Glennon is a lifelong school district resident. Glennon currently serves on the Worthington Community Relations Commission and sits on the board of directors for Erase the Space1.

Zoning is an Expression of a Community’s Values

A zoning code is one of the most important pieces of legislation that a municipality can pass because zoning codes are statements of a community’s values. Zoning codes are value statements in the sense that they dictate what is welcome in a community. What people are being welcomed to live in a community, what businesses are being attracted to thrive in a community, and what people are being invited to visit and spend money in a community. Likewise, zoning codes set the foundation or blueprint for possible income tax revenues, and income taxes are the primary mechanisms that fund Ohio municipal governments. City revenues provide city services and the suite of services a city offers is also a reflection of what its residents value. Zoning is fundamentally about values.

Good planning practice encourages comprehensive planning processes every 5-15 years in coordination with a comprehensive review of the zoning code and with regular updates to the zoning code and a comprehensive plan in between. In Central Ohio, this hasn’t really been the practice. For example, Worthington’s zoning code hasn’t been updated comprehensively since the 1970s while Columbus’, for comparison, hasn’t been updated comprehensively since the 1950s, though Columbus does have an update currently underway. While zoning codes are representative of a municipality’s values, oftentimes, the code hasn’t necessarily kept up with the residents and may be a bit out-of-date; a situation most Central Ohio municipalities – Worthington clearly included – face.

So, what does Worthington’s zoning code say about the city’s values? Well, on a positive note, it tells us that this city valued fiscal responsibility when this code was created. To understand why this is, we need to understand how critical income taxes are to city finances in the state of Ohio. In Worthington, for example, 73.44% of the city’s budget comes from income taxes according to the city’s most recent financial report. And in practice, people are only paying income tax to the city where they work, paying the difference (if there is one) to the city in which they live. This means that it is businesses or jobs located within city limits that provide an overwhelming share of each community’s tax base in this state, with some cities more reliant than others.

Cities that rely on single industries or job sectors can suffer if that industry faces hardship, cities with a diverse mix of industries or job sectors represented tend to weather recession and hardship better. Worthington, for a landlocked inner suburban municipality, has displayed a commitment to fiscal stability through a diverse array of (income tax) revenue-generating land uses within its small, approximately 5.63 square mile boundaries in its aged zoning code.

What else can we learn about what the community valued in the 1970s? Well, Worthington most certainly valued exclusivity. Nearly 59% (2,987 acres) of the city is zoned residential. Of that residential portion of the city, 93.5% or 1,952 acres are zoned in categories R-10 and R-16, low and very low-density single-family, respectively. Single-family use restrictions are perhaps the most prolific exclusionary zoning component in the United States today because they require a prospective occupant to have the ability to afford a unit with a larger lot and square footage than a multi-family dwelling typically offers, creating a higher price-per-unit and lower density community. Such communities frequently struggle to attract certain amenities like public transportation and provide an environment that enables restaurants and other retailers to thrive unless there is an intense focus on attracting visitors to and expanding existing retail attractions.

Worthington’s zoning code also includes some rather large setbacks, with 30-foot rear and front setbacks in most zoning categories, all of which also include lot size requirements, the smallest of which is 8,750 for single-family dwellings and 4,500 square feet for multi-family dwellings2, found only in zoning categories making up 4.4% of residential land in the city. The R-10 category (low density), which makes up 83.6% of residential zoned land in Worthington requires a 10,400 square foot lot and the R-16 (very low density), making up 10% of the city’s residential land requires 16,000 square foot lots. All of the single-family zoning categories limit structures to 2.5 stories and “medium density apartments” (AR-3) (4 stories in height, maximum) is the densest zoning category in the city’s zoning code3.

Finally, all multi-family zoning categories include lot coverage requirements, limiting the percentage of the lot that upon which dwelling structures may be built, requiring much larger lots for more units, and in Worthington’s zoning code, the maximum amount of the lot that can be covered with dwellings ranges between 20-30%, increasing as density decreases. By limiting most of the residential development in the community to single-family, large-lot homes, the city excludes many other housing types which allows more diversity in a community. But Worthington has a very exclusionary zoning code which has resulted in a relatively exclusive citizenry.

Let’s examine the demographics in the City of Worthington today. Over 90% of the population in Worthington is white. African Americans make up the second largest racial/ethnic group, at 3.1%, followed by Asians at 2.5%, people identifying as two or more races at 2.5% and finally, Hispanic or Latino residents at 1.8%, making Worthington one of the least diverse communities in Central Ohio. Now, you may be thinking, what about the school district? The school district is much more diverse and Building Worthington’s Future is concerned with the school district, including the Columbus and township portions! And this is a fair thing to question. But the topic today is zoning, a policy that occurs at the municipal level in the State of Ohio. The story of why Worthington’s school district is so much more diverse, both in terms of the municipalities and student identities that feed into it than the city of Worthington, is really a fascinating story and one of my favorite ones to tell. It is a story for another blog, one I will write upon request.

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Worthington’s lack of diversity appears in an array of areas, including educational attainment. Nearly 70% of the city’s population possesses a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 38% in Columbus, 76% in Bexley, and just over 56% in Westerville.

Worthington’s history of exclusionary policies has resulted in an exclusive city. One with a population that is overwhelmingly white with high educational attainment and high incomes. The average household income in Worthington is $150,618, compared to $75,482 in Columbus, $183,168 in Bexley, and $111,625 in Westerville. But within Worthington, the average white household income is $157,108 while the average Black household income is $67,503, a difference of $89,605, much starker disparities than those found in Columbus, Bexley, or Westerville. Worthington has a high average income, and a low poverty rate of just 2.4%, with an additional 7.4% of the population living below 200% of the federal poverty line5 compared to an 18% poverty rate in Columbus, 4.4% in Bexley, and 5.5% in Westerville. Worthington is exclusive.

Now, you may be thinking, well, what’s wrong with exclusivity? I like the fact that my home value continues to rise, and I like the fact that we have a low crime rate in Worthington and my kids attend great schools and my neighborhood is quiet! Why are single-family neighborhoods and zoning being criticized in this blog? Does single-family zoning inevitably result in exclusivity and a lack of diversity? And these are fair questions, some of which are easier to answer than others. First, no. Single-family housing doesn’t always lead to exclusivity and a lack of diversity. There are many other factors at play, many of which involve the role of federal policies, local implementation, and real estate and development practice… and a more holistic understanding of the history of metropolitan development to fully understand. I suppose exclusivity may be permittable in a system that is fair and just, where everyone has similar starting points and access to opportunities. But, as I will lay out in the next part of this series, that is most certainly not the case in the United States of America. Most of what you will read in part two of this blog series will help folks connect the dots between historical truths to which they were already aware. For others, this may all be new. As always, I am happy to sit down with folks and discuss these topics in good faith.

1 Erase the Space is a wonderful nonprofit facilitating non-voyeuristic classroom exchanges in Central Ohio premised on fostering public discourse across differences by identifying problems we share and “work to do together.” Erase the Space is currently working with the Worthington School District, Libraries, Historical Society, and high school students to create additional Worthington-focused panels for the UnDesign the Redline Exhibit at the Worthington Library in September 2023.

2 This excludes the Senior Citizen zoning category.

3 With the exception of some Senior Citizen housing and PUD zoned development, two of the least used zoning categories.

4 All data included in the following analysis was taken from 2021 American Community Survey five-year estimates.

5 This means those households can receive assistance at the Worthington Resource Pantry or other area food pantries.