Performance Zoning: A Silver Anniversary Evaluation

Performance zoning has been with us now for twenty-five years. Although initially hailed as a much-needed, innovative replacement for traditional Euclidian zoning, it has, to date, failed to revolutionize planning and zoning as some had predicted. Although apparently failing to ignite a land-use revolution - a distinction it shares with several other early 1970s innovations, such as statewide planning and exclusionary zoning litigation - performance zoning should not be considered a failure on its Silver Anniversary. Performance zoning has been retained, in some form, in the majority of communities which adopted it in the past and is still being adopted by communities today. Its greatest achievement, however, lies in the degree to which its concepts have been integrated with, and served to improve, more traditional forms of zoning