Politics & Government

The Challenge: Making Town Codes 'User Friendly'

A round table discussion on guiding residents and commercial property owners through town zoning codes.

Reading up on town zoning codes can feel intimidating for laypeople, with statutes and definitions that can seem like a foreign language.

A round table discussion on Code Organization shared ideas on making the document easier to navigate and understand during a Thursday night public hearing on updating the town's zoning regulations and codes.

Town Councilman Nick Kapoor, the spokesperson for the table, said having a table of contents, page numbers and tabs were among the ideas to make the codes more "user friendly".

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During the hearing, which was sponsored by BFJ Planning and the Monroe Planning & Zoning Commission, everyone broke up into three groups for round table discussions. The other two groups were District and Supplemental Regulations.

Among the suggested improvements to make Code Organization easier were:

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  • Telling people how to use the codes in the introduction
  • Having a section explaining the definitions and what the articles mean
  • Efficient and easy cross referencing
  • Including online compatability
  • Adding substantive issues such as watersheds


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