Business, Economics and Consulting

Most of us have heard about zoning as a development tool, but perhaps only very few have a clear understanding on how zoning can bring about physical growth. As a development tool, zoning ordinance – the output of zoning – is expected to put physical order to a given community, most especially the urban core.

Based on academic literatures, zoning is broadly defined as a process of dividing a city into zones and districts and prescribing the use regulations for each zone or district. The Local Government Code of 1991 as well as the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions provide bases for the authority of the local government to undertake zoning. Perhaps many of us would question this authority of the local government to designate and prescribe the use or uses for each zone when in fact the lands being delineated are not owned by the state but are mostly private property.

The underlying principle that I would cite as the basis of this authority of the local government is the principle of social responsibility in property ownership where the State is empowered to regulate the “ownership, acquisition, use and disposition of property and its increments.” The power of the State to regulate land uses is summarized in Article XII, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution, “The use of property bears a social function, and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good. Individuals and private groups… shall have the right to own, establish and operate economic enterprises, subject to the duty of the State to promote distributive justice and to intervene when the common good so demands.”

This particular duty of the State was delegated to the local government units through Section 20 of the Local Government Code, wherein they are directed to “continue to prepare their respective comprehensive land use plans enacted through zoning ordinances which shall be the primary and dominant bases for the future use of land resources.” Aside from its very nature as a development tool, it is singled out in the Code as the principal instrument for implementing the CLUP.

Taking the matter further, the Code, through Sections 447, 458 and 468, accordingly directs the legislative bodies (Sanggunian) to “prescribe reasonable limits and restraints on the use of property within their territorial jurisdiction.” The acceptable basis for reasonable prescription of limits in land use is, and it should be, the comprehensive land use plan, and the instrument for enforcing those limits and restraints according to the CLUP is the zoning ordinance.

In essence, the zoning ordinance is the instrument used by the State (through the local government units) to regulate the use of land within the LGU territory. The manner by which this regulation should be effected is to “prescribe reasonable limits and restraints” on the way landowners use their property. This particular paradigm is what most private property owners cannot understand, or deliberately refuse to understand and accept. Many land owners believe that once they possess their land title certificate, their right to develop, use and dispose their property is absolute.

It should be pointed out that while land ownership is exclusive, it is not absolute because it should always be limited by the overall interest of society as administered by the State. Given this, the whole process of zoning has more profound political than technical and procedural implications.

When the local Sanggunian enacts a zoning ordinance (the output of the whole process of zoning), the legislators must understand that they are exercising their political power to withdraw from the bundle of rights possess by property owners one basic right which is the right to develop or use their property. Since the right to use has been transferred from the individual owners to society at large, the property owners can no longer decide on their own what use to make of their property. The implication is that a landowner has to secure clearance from the local government being the administrators of socialized rights on the use of the land each time he wants to use his land. Given this and to be fair to individual landowners, the local Sanggunian members should realize the serious political and social implications of zoning. They should ensure that their zoning ordinance and the comprehensive land use plan are the product of social consensus.

I will discuss the various concerns, perspectives and views on zoning – the multi-dimensional development exercise - in succeeding articles.