Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Marisa Lago announced a round of improvements to the agency’s popular Zoning and Land Use Application. ZoLa is a mapping tool that provides simple ways to research zoning regulations. The updates further increase the webtool’s transparency, customization and usefulness for all New Yorkers.
“Increasing transparency and enhancing public engagement are in DCP’s DNA. It’s vital that we build new, easy-to-use and free digital tools, and improve existing ones. DCP’s new ZoLa is faster, sleeker and niftier than the original. For example, ZoLa now lets you create and print custom street maps, and the new and improved ZoLa is chock-a-block full of hands-on ways to learn about zoning on your block, in your neighborhood, and anywhere throughout our city,” said DCP Director Marisa Lago.
Through the mobile-friendly website, you can find the zoning for your property, discover new land use proposals in your neighborhoods, and see the location of everything from historic districts to waterfront access plans. ZoLa’s usefulness is reflected in its popularity, receiving more than 300,000 hits per month.
ZoLa 2.0 adds in a bevy of helpful, requested features, such as custom printing options, allowing the creation and use of more professional, customized materials. You can now print nicely formatted profiles of zoning and tax lots, and include a legend with your map to make it more helpful for meetings and presentations.
Street widths, originally found in our NYC Street Map, have now been incorporated into the ZoLa map. This feature is useful for property owners to understand what can be built on their site, which varies based on the street width.
If you want to know what a special zoning district means, such as FRESH (encouraging development of supermarkets) or a Transit Zone (areas near public transit that have lower parking requirements for affordable housing), you can now find out with a single click.
The update adds a link to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Building, Registration, and Violation system. When users click on a building to view further information, such as owner, year built, lot depth and more, they will be able to click through to see if there are landlord violations or other tenant related issues associated with a property.
Other improvements to ZoLa include:
- Faster performance and loading times;
- Improved compatibility with different web browsers;
- New indicator under the lot profiles if a site is subject to waterfront zoning.
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