Zoning for Eds and Meds

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Colleges, universities, and hospitals often function as “anchor” institutions. They occupy and manage large amounts of real estate; employ hundreds or thousands of workers; purchase large quantities of local goods and services; and attract businesses, residents, and visitors. For these reasons, the campuses that house major educational and health-care institutions merit special planning and zoning attention.

As campus activity increases or decreases, housing markets, transportation patterns, and economic activity all respond. While stability may be a hallmark of the institutions at the heart of these campuses, they are neither static nor uniform. Campuses expand to accommodate a growing population of users, and in extreme cases, declining usage can force campus downsizing or abandonment.

This issue of Zoning Practice presents a typology of educational and health-care campuses, summarizes key zoning considerations and alternative zoning approaches for those campuses, and speculates about how technological and demographic change may affect the spatial relationship of these campuses to their host communities in the coming decades.

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