Farmington Hills Zoning Ordinance: Districts, Variances, and Permits

The Farmington Hills zoning ordinance, codified in Chapter 34 of the City Code and published as the “Clearzoning” document on the city’s website, controls what you can build on your property, what activities you can run there, and how the city reviews your plans before issuing a permit.¹ Every parcel in the city sits in a zoning district, and that district’s rules decide almost everything else: whether your project is allowed by right, needs special approval, requires a variance, or is off the table entirely.

Find Your District First

Before anything else, look up your property’s zoning classification on the city’s GIS system or through the Map Gallery on the Farmington Hills website.² Residential districts like RA-1 and RC-1 cover lower-density housing. Office districts such as OS-2 and OS-3 accommodate professional offices, medical clinics, and banks. Commercial designations like B-1 and B-2 are for retail and service businesses, and industrial districts separate manufacturing and warehousing from residential areas. Specialized districts exist too, like the ES Expressway Service district for gas stations, hotels, and restaurants along the highway.¹

Each district has a Schedule of Regulations setting minimum lot size, maximum building height, required setbacks from the front, side, and rear property lines, and a cap on how much of the lot can be covered by buildings and pavement. Minimum lot sizes range from several thousand square feet in denser residential areas to multiple acres in lower-density districts. If your project exceeds any of these dimensional limits, you won’t get a building permit without a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

If the zoning map and the written ordinance appear to conflict, the text of the ordinance controls.

Fences, Sheds, and Small Additions

Backyard fences in residential areas can be up to 6 feet tall. Front yard fences are capped at 3 feet and must be ornamental in style, such as aluminum, and cannot extend past the front corners of the house. On a corner lot, keep the fence at least 1 foot from any public sidewalk and preserve a clear sightline triangle near your driveway.

Sheds and small accessory buildings of 200 square feet or less go through zoning review directly. Anything larger, including home additions and detached garages, gets reviewed by the Planning Office and requires a full site plan.³ Either way, the structure still has to meet the setback and lot coverage rules for your district.

Site Plan Review

Most construction beyond a small shed runs through site plan review. You’ll need professional site plans showing building locations, parking, and landscape buffers; a topographical survey for drainage and grading; architectural drawings with exterior dimensions, heights, and materials; and a landscape plan showing compliance with screening and green space standards. You also fill out the application from the Planning and Community Development Department and include the tax identification number and legal description for the parcel. Larger commercial or multi-family projects may also need environmental assessments or traffic studies.

After you submit, the Planning Department issues initial staff comments within about three weeks. You revise and resubmit, and this cycle continues until the City Planner, with input from the City Engineer and Fire Marshal, is satisfied the plans comply. Only then does your project go on a Planning Commission agenda, generally the third Thursday of the month.⁴ The commission evaluates infrastructure and traffic impact and votes to approve, deny, or approve with conditions.

Review fees for commercial and industrial projects track the construction value. The minimum is $250. For projects valued up to $500,000, you pay the valuation multiplied by 0.0015. Above $500,000, the fee is $750 plus 0.0005 for each dollar of valuation over that threshold. A single-family home plan review costs $590. Garages, additions, and accessory structures carry a $50 application fee with the balance due before permit issuance.⁵ Expect the full timeline from first submission to Planning Commission approval to run several months, longer if your plans need multiple revisions.

Variances

When something about your lot makes it impossible to meet the dimensional standards, you can ask the Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance. The board has seven members plus two alternates, appointed by City Council, and handles variances, appeals of administrative decisions, and temporary use approvals.⁶

Dimensional Variances

Most variance requests involve setbacks, lot coverage, or building height. Michigan law calls these non-use variances, and the standard is “practical difficulty.”⁷ You have to show that something about the property itself, like an unusual shape, steep terrain, or wetland encroachment, makes strict compliance unreasonably burdensome. The difficulty must come from the land, not from a situation you created. The board also considers whether you’ve asked for the minimum relief necessary, whether the request fits the spirit of the ordinance, and whether it’s fair to your neighbors.

Use Variances

A use variance lets you operate something the district does not normally allow. The legal standard is higher: “unnecessary hardship” rather than practical difficulty. Michigan law restricts use variance authority to cities and villages, and approval needs a two-thirds vote of the board.⁷ They are rarely granted.

Fees and Notice

Filing a variance application costs $475 for residential properties and $565 for commercial, with an additional $75 for each variance beyond the first.⁸ Michigan law requires notice to all property owners and occupants within 300 feet of your property at least 15 days before the hearing, plus newspaper publication.⁹

Special Land Uses

Some activities are allowed in a district only after case-by-case approval. These are special land uses, sometimes called conditional uses. In the OS-2 office district, for example, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and parking structures are listed as special approval uses rather than permitted by right.¹ A special land use is not a variance. You are not asking for an exception; you are asking for approval of a use the ordinance already contemplates but wants to review.

Under Michigan law, the ordinance must specify which uses qualify, the applicable standards, and the required submission materials. Any property owner or occupant within 300 feet can request a public hearing. The reviewing body can approve, deny, or approve with conditions, and has to explain the basis for its decision.¹⁰

Running a Business From Your Home

Home occupations in Farmington Hills must be registered under Section 34-4.15 of the zoning ordinance. The initial registration fee is $150 if approved, with a $75 annual renewal after that. The ordinance lists specific conditions a home business has to meet. If your business doesn’t fit those conditions, you can still apply to the Zoning Board of Appeals for approval under a separate set of standards.¹¹ The full conditions are in the Clearzoning document or at the zoning counter in City Hall.

If Your Property Was Legal Before the Rules Changed

Property that was being used lawfully before a zoning change generally keeps that right. Michigan’s Zoning Enabling Act protects these nonconforming uses: a building or business that was legal when it started doesn’t become illegal just because the surrounding rules changed.⁹

The protection has limits. The city can set conditions for how nonconforming uses may be completed, resumed after inactivity, restored after damage, or expanded.⁹ Expanding a nonconforming structure, like adding to a building that sits closer to the property line than current rules allow, usually requires a dimensional variance. The city can also acquire nonconforming properties through purchase or condemnation, though that is uncommon.

Where Federal Law Overrides the Ordinance

Some zoning disputes don’t actually turn on the ordinance because federal law restricts what the city can do.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act bars the city from imposing a zoning rule that substantially burdens religious exercise unless the rule serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of achieving it. The city also cannot treat a religious assembly less favorably than a comparable secular assembly, discriminate between denominations, or exclude religious assemblies from any part of its jurisdiction.¹²

The Fair Housing Act requires the city to make reasonable accommodations in its zoning when needed to give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to use and enjoy housing.¹³ In practice, the city cannot use zoning to keep a group home for people with disabilities out of a residential neighborhood, or impose occupancy limits on group homes it would not apply to other unrelated people living together. The accommodation has to be reasonable and does not have to impose an undue financial burden or fundamentally alter the zoning framework.¹⁴

The federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 prevents the city from banning cell towers and other wireless facilities outright. Local zoning can regulate placement and appearance but cannot reject a facility based on radiofrequency emissions as long as it complies with FCC standards.

What Happens If You Skip the Process

Building without a permit, ignoring setbacks, or operating a business in a district that doesn’t allow it exposes you to enforcement. Michigan law lets the city treat zoning violations as municipal civil infractions, which means fines rather than criminal charges in most cases. Each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense, so the total adds up quickly if you ignore a notice.

If you don’t respond or pay, the city can file a citation in district court, and failing to appear results in a default judgment. Beyond fines, the city can seek a court injunction to stop unauthorized construction or force removal of a noncompliant structure, and Michigan law also allows abatement, where the city fixes the problem and bills you. Checking with the Planning and Community Development Department before you start is far cheaper than correcting a violation afterward.

1
City of Farmington Hills. Farmington Hills Zoning Ordinance – Clearzoning
2
City of Farmington Hills, MI. Maps, GIS and Zoning
3
City of Farmington Hills, MI. Site Plans – Accessory
4
City of Farmington Hills. Application for Site Plan Review
5
City of Farmington Hills. Fee Schedule
6
City of Farmington Hills, MI. Zoning Board of Appeals
7
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 125-3604
8
City of Farmington Hills. Board of Zoning Appeals Application
9
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Zoning Enabling Act – Act 110 of 2006
10
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 125-3502
11
City of Farmington Hills. Home Occupation Info
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC Chapter 21C – Protection of Religious Exercise in Land Use and by Institutionalized Persons
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604
14
United States Department of Justice. Joint Statement of the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development