Zoneing?

Yes, Zoneing. I often read here about this or that problem with neighbors, add farms, and so on. Well why is there no zoneing? In RL citys have zoneing laws, this area is commercial, this area is residential and so on. Wouldn't this work in SL?
As in you could buy land in an area designated as residential and not have to worry about your neighbor turning his lot in to an add farm.

A lot of land lords and private island owners have such policies in place. Dreamland is one of the biggest amongst them.

M.

There are some sims that do have zoning. very few all in all, however.

The problem is that LL decrees that once you own the land, you are fit to do with it what you will. Very nice for all the unlimited possibilities, but allows for all the stupidity as well.

To have the zoning requires one person own all the sim and creat a covanent for that sim. All LL land has no covenant.

Why? Easy. LL is too lazy to do all that work. The grid has grown beyond what they could manage with their current personel and from all I've gathered of talks from Philip, LL is not planning on hiring people just to manaage or govern the grid.

We the Residents are supposed to "govern ourselves", which is a bit hard when LL won't give us the tools to do so. *shrugs*

Basically, we're in a catch22. The only way to have zoning is to stiffle Resident rights, but that is an ugly path to start down. Who makes the call as to what build is right for what area? What are the consequences of building outside the code? Would we then have to have all builds pre-approved or buy permits to build?

Chaos causes problems, but not as much as unorganised law.

~Jessy

Meni is right, it is just land you buy on the mainland that does not hvae zoneing or controls. And I think the idea is that the buyer has the freedom to do whatever they want as does anyone who buys the land from them in the future on mainland.

I, for example, bought land on the mainland so that I can have both a shop and my private home all on a shared piece of land. I have tried to develop my land to be as freindly to my neighbors as possible and feel I am quite invested in the quality of the sim. My development though does not work if the land is zoned strictly commercial OR residential.

The problem with zoning is deciding on the particulars of the rules and who gets to/has to enforce them. Estate owners take that on, but LL doesn't.

Because freedom is good and central planning is bad?
Because zoning will drive up land prices?
Because telling someone what they can and cannot do on land they pay for is akin to theft and thus morally wrong?

There is a sort-of zoning in the designation of some regions a PG and others as mature, but that is about as far as it goes on the mainland. And even at that, enforcement of PG standards seems to be lacking.

If you want a place with tighter controls on what your neighbors can do, you'll need to look for land on private sims with covenants, and make sure the covenant isn't going to prevent you from doing what you want to do.

Being able to do what you want on the land you own is a problem?

"Being able to do what you want on the land you own is a problem?" For you, no. But it can be fore your neighbors.

Don't give up totally on estate, Nimue. I zoned Richland Center as mixed residential/commercial with just such scenarios in mind. When I left on vacation it was all was full up, but I have one resident there moving to my newest sim, just ordered (SkyBeam Wood, residential only), as soon as its ready to open.

So anyone looking for someplace combo that also has more zoning rules than the mainland, keep looking. There's probably several estate options open to you out there if that's what you would prefer.

Char

I think LL Imposed Zoning is not really feasable. For one thing it is counter to the whole idea od "Your World, Your Imagination" It becomes "Your land, Our rules" not a very attractive proposition. Also, i could see Zoning driving the price of certain plots of land right through the roof while depressing other areas making the land almost worthless. Not an attractive prospect for people who already own land. "Guess what? you payed X amount of Lindens for your land but now you can't give it away for One tenth of X because it isn't Zoned in a way anyone wants, or needs." Or: "Guess what?, you can't buy a 512 plot for anything less than 50 times X because Residential land is now at a premium because everyone wants commercial and there aren't enough residential zoned lands to go around."

Zoning would simply make the environment Too Anal for the players, and it would create another administrative nightmare for LL to Boot. I just can't see it happening because some people don't want to live next door to "Coyote Ugly".

Angel.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I didn't like estates, just pointing out one problem with zoning strictly residential or commerical. I actually think estates can be great and I like being able to choose to buy and rent in both. Oh, and thanks for the heads up on your development.

The reason why there's no zoning on the mainland, is because they want people to be encouraged to buy land there and to know that they can do what they like with it. If zoning was implemented you'd have horrible situations where someone would buy a 1024sqm to build a house, and then maybe they decide to start a shop, but even though they have the prims spare on their existing 1024, they can't use it because it's in a residential zone.

The same problem occurs for novice or non-artistic builders, nobody really wants an ugly build next to them but unless you are going to ban all non-artists from building anything permanent then someone is going to have to, I'm afraid.

There was an attempt at zoning by the Company with the Shermerville sims... not entirely a success, but then, such things require a *lot* of attention.

When it comes down to it, there isn't anything on the grid other than textured prims, avatars and particles. Code can't distinguish anything more than that.

So zoning as we know it requires human intervention both aesthetic and societal. Lots and lots of human intervention, which by very nature is usually anything but perfect and fair.

I think LL has it right in this case - zoning for the islands, chaos on the mainland. I'm a mainland landowner - I like my land to be pretty, but that took some time to learn. We need the mainland for newbies to learn how to terraform and build, and for the rest of us to help them out when we can. Ad farms are uggley, stupid looking, pathetically unimaginative. But I'm a capitalist, so I think mainland landowners have the right to use their land the way they want to.

In the context of this diuscussion, yes.

Why are builds so cluttered and unorganized? Complete freedom of building.

I did not say it needed to be changed. Just that is the root cause of many of the problems between neighboring plot owners over building disputes.

*hands out cookies and milk to go with the explaination*

~Jessy