San Dimas Zoning Attorney

Find the right Zoning Planning & Land Use attorney in San Dimas, CA

Zoning Planning & Land Use Law in California

The laws governing how land can and cannot be used in San Dimas, California are fairly difficult, and can be confusing to laypersons. This should provide a basic overview.

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

Zoning serves many different purposes - but it its main 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 simply convert his property into a steel mill, your property's value as a residential lot would decrease substantially.

Zoning also serves the interests of industry, as well as residents. By ensuring that there are places where heavy industry can take place, well-planned zoning regulations will ensure that industrialists are free to practice their trade, and that residents will not be disturbed by those activities, which makes industry more efficient by helping it avoid costly nuisance lawsuits.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in San Dimas, California

If a condition on your property violates the local zoning laws of San Dimas, California, there are a few different solutions.

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

However, it isn't always practical or affordable to correct a minor violation of a zoning law. For example, 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 San Dimas, 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 particular provision of a zoning law to a single violation. These aren't always granted, but typically 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.

Furthermore, if the zoning laws covering your property have changed, and some aspect of it is now violating the new rules, these changes can typically not be enforced against you, because it would be unfair to apply a new law retroactively.

What Can A San Dimas, California Attorney Do?

If you want to make improvements to your property, apply for a variance, or contest a zoning regulation as being applied to you retroactively, you have a right to do so, including some constitutional protections. However, your chances of prevailing in a zoning disagreement will be markedly improved if you hire an accomplished San Dimas, California real estate attorney to help.

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Life in San Dimas

San Dimas, California is a city in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County. It has a population of about 36,000 people, as of a 2004 Census estimate. San Dimas is a mostly-residential suburb of Los Angeles, and many people who live in San Dimas work in LA.

San Dimas, and much of what is now considered the greater Los Angeles area, was originally populated by the Tongva tribe of Native Americans. The first Europeans to explore and colonize the area were Spanish missionaries, who set up Mission San Gabriel in the 1700s.

When the Santa Fe railroad arrived in San Dimas in 1887, the natural mud springs of the area were mapped. During this time period, modern medicine was still in its infancy, and water available in the rapidly-growing cities of America was often polluted and unsafe to drink. This led to many small towns which had natural springs of drinkable water to market themselves as health resorts. San Dimas was one of those cities, and health tourism by wealthy visitors played a big role in the early development of its economy.

Modernly, San Dimas' economy is largely driven by the huge city of Los Angeles.

If you live in San Dimas, California, and need an attorney, you're in luck. Thanks to its presence in a major metropolitan area, and relatively affluent clientele, San Dimas, California lawyers are well-equipped to handle a wide range of legal problems. If you need legal services, a San Dimas, California lawyer is the person to call.

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