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OPINION
AI-powered zoning tools
Can artificial intelligence offer a solution to make zoning more rational and reasonable?
A t one time or another, most architects and developers have found themselves frustrated by zoning regulations. Zoning is not an element of design, but a tool used to ensure that our cities are built in predictable ways so they can provide adequate services and infrastructure for their occupants, as well as protect the interests of neighboring property owners. However, as our cities and society have grown more complex (and litigious), zoning has likewise grown to be more complicated.
Ben Abelman, AICP, LEED GA
As a result, zoning can place limiting parameters around creativity in design and development. For example, a meticulously crafted site plan can be met with contention from a plan examiner over an interpretation of zoning text, leading to either a significant redesign of the project or a costly legal appeals process. Or, a project’s viability can hinge on minor variances from zoning requirements, such as a setback dimension differing from zoning mandates by a few feet. In such instances, can artificial intelligence offer a solution to make zoning more rational and reasonable? As AI has gained popularity, many groups have developed platforms that developers and architects
can use to automate zoning analysis and iterate design solutions. With these platforms, one can enter a street address and instantly receive multiple design and development options for the specific site. These tools are impressive and useful, but they currently only capture today’s zoning rules, and therefore are not fully harnessing AI’s potential to improve zoning and advance larger city planning goals. In the next generation of AI zoning tools, shifting the target market from architects and developers to cities and municipalities would allow zoning to shift dynamically in real time.
See BEN ABELMAN, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER JUNE 3, 2024, ISSUE 1540
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