Can a city change my property zoning without my permission?

Yes, a city can change your zoning classification without your permission. Legally speaking, zoning is an exercise of what is known to be police power. It does not happen often, and we’re not saying it is a fair practice. But it is possible.

“Police power” is used in the sense that a city's general powers under state constitutions can do what they think is necessary for general safety, health, and welfare.

The most common case of rezoning is when a property owner, or a future land purchaser, asks for a more advantageous classification. In many cases, this is called a rezoning petition. 

Usually, cities do this when they have some kind of policy goal to maximize. For instance, they might have decided that a specific part of town needs more or less residential density (which means housing units per acre). However, If the rezoning makes your property less valuable, this could be a downzoning. You might want to research that idea.

Will zoning amendments negatively impact what you can do with your property or your ability to refinance, enlarge, or sell it? Can You Be “Grandfathered” into the Old Zoning?

Typically, these amendments increase minimal dimensional requirements, or they decrease the kinds of uses permitted on the property. These regulations can severely restrict existing owners’ use of their land.

Accordingly, municipalities can often protect the owners from difficulties caused by zoning amendments by “grandfathering” current building lots. The local zoning bylaw may provide that the new requirements for specified uses will not be required for building lots that complied with code before the zoning amendment went into effect.

Different states may apply this protection in different ways. Make sure to check online or with your municipal or town clerk to get a complete list of special conditions that may limit the scope of your local “grandfather” provisions.

What to Do If the Change in Zoning Isn’t Grandfathered

If a change is not covered by its grandfather provisions, your only solution may be to ask the local board of zoning appeals for a variance from the new regulation.

Boards are usually sympathetic to claims about a zoning change that is not grandfathered because it imposes a real hardship on existing property owners who could not have predicted the more restrictive regulation when they bought it. 

Also, if just one property is being rezoned in a negative way - yours - you might have a case where the city is proposing a spot zoning. It may be illegal in some circumstances, and you should definitely use that argument if the property is the only one that is up for city-initiated rezoning.

This spot zoning argument would be legitimate in the case of a small property. However, the bigger the plot, the less likely it is that a court might see the city's actions as capricious or arbitrary - two words that courts use to stop rezonings that don't seem to have a rational connection to legitimate policy goals.