Enabling statute

Arizona

Arizona Revised Statutes — Title 9 (Cities and Towns), Ch. 4, Art. 6.1 "Municipal Zoning"; and Title 11 (Counties), Ch. 6, Art. 2 "County Planning and Zoning"

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Summary

Arizona is a delegated-authority (Standard State Zoning Enabling Act lineage) state: the state legislature does not zone directly but grants the power to two tiers of local government. Incorporated cities and towns receive zoning authority under Title 9, Chapter 4, Article 6.1, with the core grant in A.R.S. § 9-462.01(A), under which a municipality's legislative body "by ordinance, in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety and general welfare, may" regulate land use, building dimensions, lots, parking, setbacks, and similar matters. Counties hold zoning authority over unincorporated land under Title 11, Chapter 6, Article 2, with the core grant in A.R.S. § 11-811(A), authorizing the board of supervisors to "adopt a zoning ordinance in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety, convenience and general welfare." Both grants require zoning to be consistent with the locally adopted general/comprehensive plan, and municipal zoning supersedes county zoning within incorporated boundaries. Arizona has no general home-rule zoning power independent of these enabling statutes (though charter cities exercise local control within them), so the structure is best characterized as county_and_municipal authority delegated by the state.

The delegation

A.R.S. § 9-462.01 (Municipal zoning regulations) — Subsection A: "A. Pursuant to this article, the legislative body of any municipality by ordinance, in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety and general welfare, may: 1. Regulate the use of buildings, structures and land as between agriculture, residence, industry, business and other purposes. 2. Regulate signs and billboards. 3. Regulate the location, height, bulk, number of stories and size of buildings and structures, the size and use of lots, yards, courts and other open spaces, the percentage of a lot which may be occupied by a building or structure, access to incident solar energy and the intensity of land use. 4. Establish requirements for off-street parking and loading. 5. Establish and maintain building setback lines. 6. Create civic districts around civic centers, public parks, public buildings or public grounds and establish regulations for the civic districts. ... " (subsection A enumerates additional powers including conditioning rezoning on public dedication of rights-of-way (par. 7), floodplain and hazard-area regulation, historic-district preservation, age-restricted/retirement zones, and transfer of development rights). Subsection C: "All zoning and rezoning ordinances or regulations shall be consistent with and conform to the adopted general plan of the municipality, if any...." ---------- A.R.S. § 11-811 (County zoning ordinance) — Subsection A: "A. Pursuant to this article, the board of supervisors may adopt a zoning ordinance in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety, convenience and general welfare. The zoning ordinance and all rezonings and zoning regulations amendments adopted under this article shall be consistent with and conform to the adopted comprehensive plan." Subsection A further provides that the ordinance shall, among other things, designate, regulate and restrict the location and use of buildings, structures and land for residence, business, industry and other purposes; provide for setbacks and off-street parking; regulate the percentage of a lot that may be occupied; consider access to incident solar energy; permit age-restricted/retirement community zones; and regulate adult-oriented businesses. Subsection B: the board "may adopt overlay zoning districts and regulations applicable to particular buildings, structures and land within individual zones."

Verification

A verification pass checked this record against the source and filed corrections; the citation above is shown as extracted.

Corrected citation

Ariz. Rev. Stat. §§ 9-462.01 (municipalities) & 11-811 (counties); see also §§ 9-461 et seq. and 11-801 et seq.

Read the verification audit

Verified the citations, statutory text, and authority model against the official Arizona Legislature site (azleg.gov), cross-checked with Justia/FindLaw/elaws. (a) Both statutes are real and current (2024/2025 editions): - A.R.S. § 9-462.01 "Zoning regulations; public hearing; definitions" exists in Title 9 (Cities and Towns), Ch. 4, Article 6.1 "Municipal Zoning." Confirmed subsection (A) opening text matches the claim verbatim: "Pursuant to this article, the legislative body of any municipality by ordinance, in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety and general welfare, may:" - A.R.S. § 11-811 "Zoning ordinance; zoning districts; definitions" exists in Title 11 (Counties), Ch. 6, Article 2. Confirmed subsection (A) matches: the board of supervisors "may adopt a zoning ordinance in order to conserve and promote the public health, safety, convenience and general welfare." (Note the county grant includes "convenience" — the claim correctly reproduced this.) (b) These are genuinely the zoning enabling authorities. § 9-461 et seq. is Article 6 "Municipal Planning" and § 9-462 et seq. (Art. 6.1) is "Municipal Zoning"; § 11-801 et seq. (Art. 1) is "County Planning" and § 11-811 et seq. (Art. 2) is "County Zoning." Both require consistency with the adopted general/comprehensive plan, consistent with the SSZEA lineage described. (c) Authority model county_and_municipal (delegated by state) is accurate: state grants zoning power to two tiers of local government via these enabling statutes; charter/home-rule cities operate within these grants, not independent of them. MINOR LABELING ERROR (not affecting verification): The claimed title field describes Title 11, Ch. 6, "Article 2 'County Planning and Zoning'." "County Planning and Zoning" is actually the name of CHAPTER 6, not Article 2. Article 2 is correctly named "County Zoning" (Article 1 is "County Planning"). The citation, statute, and authority model are all correct; only the article label in the title metadata is imprecise. Corrected title provided.