Zoning Variance

A zoning variance is an administrative exception that lets a property owner use land in a way the underlying zoning ordinance would otherwise forbid. Because zoning is a municipal exercise of the police power in most common-law jurisdictions, variances are granted by a local body — typically a Board of Zoning Appeals, Zoning Board of Adjustment, or equivalent planning commission — rather than by a court or legislature.

Two types are commonly distinguished:

• Area (or dimensional) variance: relief from physical requirements such as setbacks, lot coverage, building height, or minimum lot size.
• Use variance: permission to put the property to a use not allowed in the zone at all (e.g., a small commercial office in a residential district). Some U.S. states, notably Pennsylvania and New Jersey, allow use variances under strict tests; others, such as California, prohibit them by statute.

To obtain a variance, an applicant generally must show that strict application of the ordinance would cause unnecessary hardship or practical difficulty unique to the parcel (not self-created, not merely financial), that the hardship arises from the property's physical characteristics, and that the variance will not substantially impair the comprehensive plan, public health, or neighboring property values. The seminal U.S. framework was articulated in Otto v. Steinhilber, 282 N.Y. 71 (1939), which set out a three-part test still cited across jurisdictions.

A variance differs from a special use permit (or conditional use), which authorizes a use the ordinance already contemplates subject to conditions, and from a rezoning, which is a legislative amendment to the map or text itself. Variances run with the land, not the owner, unless conditioned otherwise. Decisions are typically subject to judicial review under an arbitrary-and-capricious or substantial-evidence standard.

For researchers, variance data is a useful proxy for tracking land-use conflict, NIMBY activity, and housing-supply constraints in comparative urban policy work.