This Chapter is adopted with the purpose of protecting and promoting the public health, safety, morals, comfort and general welfare. The fulfillment of this purpose is to be accomplished by seeking:

(a)

To establish adequate standards for the provision of light, air, and open space.

(b)

To zone all properties with a view to conserving the value of buildings and land and encouraging the most appropriate use of land throughout the city.

(c)

To minimize congestion on the public streets.

(d)

To facilitate the provision of adequate transportation and of other public requirements and services such as water, sewerage, schools, and parks.

(e)

To avoid hazards to persons and damage to property from inappropriate development of lands and provide for adequate drainage, curbing of erosion, and reduction of flood damage.

(f)

To avoid undue concentration of population, and to prevent the overcrowding of land, thereby ensuring proper living and working conditions and preventing the development of blight and slums.

(g)

To foster a more rational pattern of relationship between residential, business, commercial, and industrial uses for the mutual benefit of all.

(h)

To protect residential, business, commercial, and industrial areas alike from harmful encroachment by incompatible uses and to ensure that land allocated to a class of uses shall not be usurped by other inappropriate uses.

(i)

To isolate or control the location of unavoidable nuisance-producing uses.

(j)

To establish reasonable standards to which buildings and structures shall conform, and to encourage reasonable flexibility of development design through appropriate innovation.

(k)

To provide for the regulation of nonconforming buildings, structures and uses.

(l)

To prevent such additions to, and alterations or remodeling of, existing buildings or structures as would not comply with the restrictions and limitations imposed herein.

(m)

To define the powers and duties of the administrative and enforcement officers and bodies.

(n)

To prescribe penalties for any violation of the provisions of this Chapter, or of any amendment thereto.

(o)

To implement the objectives of the City comprehensive plan, as well as protect all appropriate existing structures and uses.