This Ordinance shall be known and may be cited as the LIVONIA VISION 21 Zoning Ordinance.

The comprehensive plan of this Ordinance is for the purpose of promoting public health, safety, morals, convenience, comfort, amenities, prosperity, and general welfare of the community and of a wholesome, serviceable, and attractive municipality. These purposes are attained by having regulations and restrictions that increase the safety and security of home life; that preserve and create a more favorable environment in which to rear children; that develop permanent good citizenship; that stabilize and enhance property and civic values; that provide for a more uniformly just land-use pattern and tax assessment basis; that facilitate adequate provisions for increased safety in traffic and for transportation, vehicular parking, parks, parkways, recreation, schools, public buildings, housing, light, air, water supply, sewerage, sanitation, and other public requirements that lessen congestion, disorder and danger which often inhere in unregulated municipal development; that prevent overcrowding of land and undue concentration of population; that assist in carrying out the Master Plan of the City of Livonia; and that provide more reasonable and serviceable means and methods of protecting and safeguarding the economic structure upon which the good of all depends. In order to more effectively protect and promote the general welfare and to accomplish the aims and purposes of this comprehensive plan, the City is divided into districts of such number, shape, and area, as well as, of such common unity of purpose and adaptability of use, that are deemed most suitable to provide for the best general civic use, protect the common rights and interests within each district, preserve the general rights and interests of all, and to promote improved wholesome, sightly, harmonious, and economic results in civic service, activities, and operations; and by further regulations to limit the location, uses and occupancy of buildings, structures and land to be used for trade, industry, residence or other purposes, and also the location, height, bulk, occupancy, and uses of buildings and other structures, including the percentage of plot occupancy and coverage, street setback lines, sizes of yards, and other open spaces.

This Ordinance shall be liberally construed in such manner as to best effectuate its purpose. In interpreting and applying the provisions of this Ordinance, they shall be held to be the minimum requirements for the promotion of the public health, safety, convenience, comfort, prosperity, and general welfare. Whenever the requirements of this Ordinance impose requirements of lower heights of buildings, or a less percentage of lot that may be occupied, or require wider or larger courts, or deeper yards than are imposed or required by existing provisions of law or ordinance, the provisions of this Ordinance shall govern. Where, however, the provisions of the State Housing Code or other ordinance or regulations of the City of Livonia impose requirements for lower heights of buildings, or less percentage of lot that may be occupied, or require wider or larger courts, or deeper yards than are required by this Ordinance, the provisions of the State Housing Code or other ordinance or regulations shall govern. The provisions of this Ordinance shall be construed, if possible, in such manner as to make such provisions compatible and consistent with each other and likewise with the provisions of all existing and future ordinances of the City of Livonia, and all amendments thereto provided, however, that where any inconsistency or conflict cannot be avoided, then the most restrictive of such inconsistent or conflicting provisions shall control and prevail.

This Ordinance is adopted pursuant to the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act, Act 110 of 2006, as amended; its predecessor statute, Act 208, Public Acts of Michigan, 1949, as amended; and Section I of Chapter II and Sections 11 and 20 of Chapter IV of the Charter of the City of Livonia. Said acts are hereby made a part of this Ordinance just as if they were word for word repeated herein.