Village Law § 7-700, Town Law § 261, and General City Law § 20(24) grant basic land use authority to local governments and allow them to regulate the details of land development and building construction and alteration. This may be done for "the purpose of promoting the health, safety, morals or the general welfare of the community."

Village Law § 7-702, Town Law § 262, and General City Law § 20(25) authorize local governments to divide the community into zoning districts and to regulate the use, construction, and alteration of buildings and land within those districts.

Village Law § 7-704, Town Law § 263, and General City Law § 20(24) & (25) provide that zoning and land use regulations must be in conformance with the locality's comprehensive plan. The purposes of such zoning regulations are to achieve are to lessen congestion, secure safety from fire and flood, prevent overcrowding, facilitate the provision of infrastructure, and to encourage "the most appropriate use of land throughout such municipality."

Section 10(1)(ii)(a)(11) of the Municipal Home Rule Law states that a municipality may adopt local laws for the "protection and enhancement of its physical and visual environment."

Section 10(1)(ii)(a)(14) of the Municipal Home Rule Law states that a municipality may adopt local laws as provided in the Statute of Local Governments.  Section 10(6) of the Statute of Local Governments authorizes cities, towns, and villages to adopt zoning regulations.

The plaintiffs in Wike v. Herms (1946), challenged the building of a proposed filling station and garage contending that repair shops were a prohibited use in the zoning district. Minor vehicle repairs would be done on the premises, but the court concluded that the operation of the filling station and garage was permitted in the zone and that "all operations incidental to the conduct of a garage business are impliedly authorized." Therefore, the station and its repair shop were permitted.

In commercial zoning districts, accessory uses must be limited to tenants, patrons, or occupants of the commercial building to ensure that accessory uses remain incidental to the primary use. If, in an office building, an accessory snack stand, for example, serves people from other office buildings, it is no longer incidental. Instead, it takes on the properties of a primary use and cannot be considered accessory.

The Town of Lewisboro, in Collins v. Lonergan (1993), granted single-family homeowners a permit to construct a skateboard ramp upon certain conditions. The Zoning Board of Appeals determined that the ramp qualified as a recreational use of the property that was customarily incidental to the permitted principal use of the residence. The test used was "not whether other landowners in the municipality are engaged in similar activities, but whether such accessory use can be deemed to be normally incidental to the residential use." The Board's determination that a skateboard ramp is a permitted accessory use because it its customarily incidental to the primary use, much like a tennis court might be, was considered to be valid.

The use of a boarding house as an accessory use to a hospital, for example, may be customary. In one case, a hospital owned two houses adjacent to its medical facility in which it housed medical staff. The local law did not set out what is or is not accessory to a hospital, but hospitals customarily provide living accommodations for at least some personnel, thus it was permitted.

In Osborn v. Planning Board of the Town of Colonie (1989), the court concluded that it is not unusual for a home occupation to be operated on a full-time basis as an accessory use of a residence. The defendant's zoning law permits "any profession or customary home occupation, provided that the same is carried on in the dwelling occupied as the private family residence." The court concluded that the plaintiff's proposal to create a full-time office in her home did not change the character of the residential use of the property and was therefore allowed as an accessory use.

In Baker v. Polisinelli (1991), the court concluded that the intensity of use involved in a home occupation may determine whether the use is customary and permissible. The court sustained the zoning board's determination that a dance studio for 160 students, operating five days a week, was not a customary use within that district. The court held that it was rational for the board to find that the petitioner's operation was more extensive than what was intended to be permitted under the law as a home occupation.

The Town of Brookhaven in Kasper v. Town of Brookhaven (1988), adopted an accessory apartment law that required applicants for accessory apartments to be owners and residents of the single-family residence in which the apartment is to be created. The landowner wanted to establish an accessory apartment but did not reside in the home and was denied a permit. He challenged the owner-occupancy requirement, arguing that it violated the equal protection and due process guarantees of the constitution. The court held that the defendant did not exceed its legislative authority by enacting the accessory apartment law. The town had the authority to limit eligibility to owners who occupy their homes. The purpose of the law was to protect "those homeowners who may be of modest means and who will be better able to retain ownership of their residences and to maintain them in aesthetically acceptable conditions by leasing the available, unused living space in their homes."

Nonconforming uses are usually allowed to continue so that the zoning law is not challenged as having confiscated property owners' investment.

The local zoning law may prohibit the restoration of a nonconforming structure that suffers significant physical damage and require that any reconstruction conform to the zoning law. Significant physical damage is usually defined as damage that exceeds a certain percentage of the structure's value. Typical standards range from 25% to 50%. These provisions are premised on the theory that owners do not have a right to reconstruct a nonconforming building after it suffers significant damage because their property rights were destroyed by the disaster, rather than by the zoning law. The owner, therefore, is in a situation similar to the owner of a vacant lot and must comply with the applicable zoning restrictions.

A property owner's right to continue a nonconforming use may be lost by abandonment. Local zoning laws frequently stipulate that any discontinuance of the nonconforming use for a specified period constitutes abandonment. Where the established period is reasonable, discontinuance of the use for that time amounts to an abandonment of the use.

In Darcy v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the City of Rochester (1992), the court upheld a local determination that a nonconforming use was abandoned when evidence showed discontinuance for at least twenty months, well beyond the six-month period specified in the law.

A subdivision . . . in which the applicable zoning law or local law is modified to provide an alternative permitted method for the layout, configuration, and design of lots, buildings, and structures, roads, utility lines and other infrastructure, parks, and landscaping in order to preserve the natural and scenic qualities of open lands.

In Kamhi v. Yorktown (1983), the court ruled that a planning board may not impose a condition on clustered subdivision approval that compels a developer to convey a portion of the land to the municipality for use as a park, without compensation. This does not prevent a voluntary agreement to that effect, where mutually beneficial to the developer and the municipality.

The Town Law delegating cluster authority to town governments, for example, states: "the town board may, by local law or ordinance, authorize the planning board to approve a cluster development simultaneously with the approval of a subdivision plat. These sections contain nearly parallel authority for towns, villages and cities, with the exception that villages can adopt cluster development provisions only by local law while towns and cities can adopt the provisions by law or ordinance." The powers of local governments described are found in Village Law §§ 7-728, Town Law §§ 276, and General City Law §§ 32.

The act of the local legislature giving the planning board authority to cluster must contain sufficient guidelines to assure that similar situations are treated in a corresponding fashion. If the local legislature decides to give the planning board cluster authority on a project-by-project basis, careful monitoring of its application must be done to assure even-handed treatment of applicants.

The planning board must have sufficient information to make a credible judgment as to the density permitted for a conventional subdivision, but does not need to follow all the formal steps required in the conventional subdivision process. If the applicant fails to submit sufficient information and detailed drawings to allow the planning board to perform this function, the board may deny the application.

After the clustered subdivision is approved and formally filed, a copy of the approved plat must be filed with the municipal clerk who is required to place appropriate notations and references regarding the permitted development on the zoning map of the municipality.

Localities must be careful in designing their clustering system to avoid uneven, arbitrary, and discriminatory treatment of applicants for subdivision approval.

The First Amendment right to free speech protects the content of signs, which may only be regulated to achieve a compelling state interest.

The Town of North Hempstead enacted a local law regulating the use of signs that completely banned freestanding political signs. The law made it "unlawful to erect and/or maintain any freestanding political sign in any use district." The law was enforced in People v. Middlemark (1979). Political campaign signs are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. The defendants were found not guilty because the total prohibition of freestanding political signs is an infringement of First Amendment rights. The law also violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection to all citizens. It made an "impermissible distinction between political signs and other signs."

Vagueness: local junkyard regulations are sometimes invalidated for vagueness. The definition of "junkyard" should be definite and clear and the definition must not be too broad or all-inclusive. If this is the case, property owners might not be able to ascertain whether they are violating the law or not. In these situations, courts will consider the law void for vagueness.

As with junkyards, transmission lines may not be entirely excluded from a municipality. Instead, municipalities may impose reasonable regulations that do not amount to a prohibition.

Regulations that prohibit transmission lines from residential areas based on the fact that they are commercial uses will be invalidated.

In Continental Building Co. Inc. V. The Town of North Salem, the Supreme Court of Westchester County found a North Salem ordinance unconstitutionally exclusionary and awarded the attorney's fees in the amount of $426,782.18. The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's decision and increased the award of attorney's fees which, together with interest, ultimately amounted to approximately $750,000.

In McMinn v. Town of Oyster Bay (1985), the Court of Appeals held that a zoning law that restricted the occupancy of single-family homes had no reasonable relationship to a municipality's legitimate zoning purposes. The zoning law in McMinn restricted the definition of family as "any number of persons related by blood, marriage, or legal adoption, living and cooking on the premises together as a single, non-profit housekeeping unit" or "any two (2) persons not related by blood, marriage or legal adoption, living and cooking on the premises together as a single, nonprofit housekeeping unit, both of whom are sixty-two (62) years of age or over, and residing on the premises."

As a result of McMinn, zoning laws that effectively limit the number of unrelated persons living together in a single-family zone, but do not similarly restrict the number of related persons are unconstitutional pursuant to New York State constitution.

To meet the McMinn standard and avoid violating the New York State Constitution, a municipal law cannot differentiate between related and unrelated individuals when defining "family" or occupancy restrictions for single family zoning districts.

Section 41.34 of the Mental Hygiene Law, known as the Padavan Law, defines a group of individuals ranging from four to fourteen individuals as a single family for local zoning purposes, if their home is licensed by the New York State Office of Mental Health or Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. The law requires notice to the affected community and subjects such homes to certain dispersal guidelines to avoid saturation in any particular neighborhood.

In Jennings v. New York State Office of Mental Health (1997), the Court of Appeals dismissed an Article 78 petition and interpreted the facility siting criteria of the Padavan Law. A community residence to be licensed by the New York State Office of Mental Health was proposed to be sited in an Albany neighborhood. The Mayor of Albany objected to the site and requested a hearing without suggesting an alternative site for the facility. At the hearing the State Office of Mental Health provided evidence that there was a significant need for more residential non-institutional programs in Albany County. The City's witnesses argued that: (1) there was an over-concentration of special needs housing (unlicensed and licensed housing) in the Albany neighborhood; (2) property values had been adversely impacted by these existing facilities; and (3) when conducting an over-concentration analysis, facilities located in the area adjacent to the neighborhood should be included.

In Berenson v. Town of New Castle (1975), a landowner attacked as exclusionary a suburban town's zoning law that contained no provision for the development of multi-family housing in any zoning district in the jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals found the Town's ordinance to be exclusionary, stating that the "primary goal of a zoning ordinance must be to provide for the development of a balanced, cohesive community which will make efficient use of the town's available land." The court held that "in enacting a zoning ordinance, consideration must be given to regional housing needs and requirements" and that there "must be a balancing of the local desire to maintain the status quo within the community and the greater public interest that regional needs be met." The court also appealed to the state legislature for help on this matter, noting that zoning is "essentially a legislative act. Thus, it is quite anomalous that a court should be required to perform the tasks of a regional planner. To that end, we look to the Legislature to make appropriate changes in order to foster the development of programs designed to achieve sound regional planning."

Generally, cellular companies desiring to construct cellular transmission facilities must submit an application for a building permit to the local building inspector or department. If the proposed construction does not comply with the zoning law's use or dimensional requirements, the permit must be denied. This denial may be appealed to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which may grant a variance in conformance with state law. A site plan may then have to be submitted and approved before a building permit may be issued for the cellular facilities. Alternatively, local zoning regulations may permit cellular transmission facilities but require cellular companies to apply for site plan approval or a special use permit, in which case the applicant must be referred to the appropriate administrative agency for its review.

Local boards may not adopt moratoria on applications for approval of cellular transmission facilities or restrict or deny such applications simply because of significant citizen opposition. All such decisions must be based on facts on the record of the board's proceeding so that they are not unconstitutionally arbitrary or unreasonable.

Localities must not prohibit the location of cellular transmission facilities within their jurisdiction, but must accommodate them subject to reasonable restrictions.

Local regulation of such facilities may not be based on concerns for human health. Protecting citizens from the health hazards of the radio-frequency emissions from cellular transmission facilities has been prohibited by federal telecommunications law.

Federal telecommunications law also requires that localities not discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services or fail to respond to applications from wireless carriers within a reasonable period of time. Federal law also requires that denials of applications must be in writing and supported by substantial written evidence found in the record of the proceedings.

Local regulations that establish a preference system for the siting of cellular facilities must be careful not to discriminate against types of properties without citing a valid reason for denying them preferences for siting. Where a local law gave preference to siting on town-owned land, the court found no rational basis for preferring town-owned land, in general, over other types of properties on aesthetic grounds.

The authority of local governments to adopt zoning provisions to protect the public safety and welfare "with a view to conserving the value of buildings and encouraging the most appropriate use of land throughout the municipality," is found in Village Law § 7-704, Town Law § 263, and General City Law §20 (24) & (25).

Some adult use businesses involve significant financial investments that must be respected by laws that require their relocation or cessation. Amortization periods that allow the owners of such businesses time to recoup their investments are often found in laws that regulate adult uses.

Hyde Park, New York prepared a report relying on studies conducted in municipalities across the country and assessing the impacts of adult uses on its rich history and tourist trade. In 1996, following this report, Hyde Park enacted adult use regulations.

Adult use laws should not be adopted simply in response to community opposition. The use of empirical and anecdotal evidence has been approved by courts to show the adverse impacts of existing adult businesses in communities. The evidence was provided by business owners and community leaders at public hearings held prior to the law adoption. Whenever possible, this type of evidence should be supported by factual information such as crime statistics and real estate sales or rental data.

References to moral objections to adult uses in local laws may be enough to spark a constitutional challenge. Laws concerning themselves with the "objectionable" nature of adult businesses or requiring that applicants for adult use permits be of "good moral character" are particularly vulnerable to attack.

Municipalities must be careful not to aim their prohibitions and restrictions at the content of the expression found in adult business services and to limit their proscriptions to regulating the secondary, adverse effects of adult use businesses.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a local zoning law requiring adult motion picture theaters to locate 1,000 feet from any residential zone, family dwelling, church, park, or school in Renton v. Playtime Theaters, Inc. (1986). Following American Mini Theaters, Inc., the court allowed the adult use regulation to impose time, place and manner restrictions. The court reinforced American Mini Theater's holding that "preserving the quality of urban life" is a substantial government interest, and that interest may be justified by factual studies exposing adverse secondary effects associated with adult businesses. The court found further that the law was narrowly tailored to affect only the group of uses producing the unwanted secondary effects. It also held that the availability of five percent of the entire land area of the town for relocation was reasonable and that adult business owner must "fend for themselves in the real estate market" because economic impact is not a viable First Amendment argument.