Monterey Park Zoning Attorney

Find the right Zoning Planning & Land Use attorney in Monterey Park, CA

Zoning Planning & Land Use Law in California

The laws controlling how land can and cannot be used in Monterey Park, California are fairly complicated, and can be confusing to laypersons. This should provide a basic overview.

Local governments will typically divide the city or town into sections, called "zones," each of which is designated for a specific use, such as residential homes, commercial businesses, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. This process is known as "zoning."

Zoning serves various different purposes - but it its general one is to increase or preserve property values by ensuring that conflicting uses don't result in legal disputes. Obviously, if you bought a house in a residential neighborhood, and your neighbor could just convert his property into a steel mill, your property's value as a residential lot would decrease considerably.

Zoning laws usually acknowledge the necessities of things like factories, sewage treatment plants, and stockyards, but recognize that such activities shouldn't be done in residential areas.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Monterey Park, California

Zoning laws are frequently quite extensive and meticulous, and it's quite possible that your property in Monterey Park, California contains some minor zoning violation that you don't know about. If this happens to you, you have substantial legal protections.

First of all, and most simply, the owner could just fix the violation. If the violation isn't very substantial, and fixing it wouldn't cost very much, this is likely the best and simplest option.

However, it isn't always practical or affordable to correct a minor violation of a zoning law. For instance, suppose you have just spent a large amount of money and effort remodeling a house to turn it into your dream home. You thought you were in total compliance with local zoning laws when you did this, but find out that there is some small, technical violation of Monterey Park, California's zoning laws. In these cases, you have recourse in the form of a variance. You are entitled to petition the local zoning board to grant you a variance, which is an official decision not to apply a certain provision of a zoning law to a single violation. These aren't always granted, but usually have to be granted if the violation doesn't interfere with anyone else's use of their property, and doesn't thwart the purposes of local zoning laws.

You also have substantial protections if a zoning law changes, and you find that the land you've been living on for years is suddenly in violation of the new law. In general, zoning laws cannot apply to structures and uses which were built or commenced before the law was changed. Under the U.S. Constitution, it's not permissible for state or local governments to pass laws which have retroactive effect. You should know, however, that any future changes you make to your property will have to comply with the new zoning law.

What Can A Monterey Park, California Attorney Do?

If you find yourself facing zoning or other land use issues, it's critical to have good legal advice. A reliable Monterey Park, California attorney will help you work within the law to ensure that you are as free as possible to make the use of your land that you want.

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Life in Monterey Park

Monterey Park, California is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is about 10 miles to the east of Downtown Los Angeles, putting it well within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It currently has a population of over 60,000 people.

Monterey Park, California was founded in the mid-1800s. It began to grow heavily in the 1970s, when large numbers of affluent Asian-American families began to move to the area. The city is sometimes nicknamed "Little Taipei," because of the large number of individuals of Taiwanese descent living in the city. In this time period, many businesses from Chinatown in Los Angeles began to open locations in Monterey Park, which provided a major boost to the local economy.

The economy of Monterey Park, California is based heavily on education and retail. The largest employer in the city is East Los Angeles College, part of California's community college system. This college employs nearly 2,000 people, and educates thousands of students every year, preparing many of them to go on to four-year universities. Some of these students go on to become successful Monterey Park, California attorneys.

If you are in need of legal advice in Monterey Park, California, there are plenty of lawyers in Monterey Park who can help you with whatever legal problem you might face.

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