Where's the best city to relocate a business? Northeast? Southwest?
Would it make sense for a client to expand their facilities on their existing site ... or just 20 miles down the road in another state, county and city? Does the city of operation limit or promote business growth?
Good questions, but the answer can be hard to pin down when your research comes to municipal codes. Now the LexisNexis® services is greatly expanding its municipal codes coverage-complete with many of the browsing, searching and refining features legal professionals and law librarians are comfortable using.
You'll now find municipal coverage from all 50 states-nearly 1,100 municipal codes, with code updates or new municipalities added frequently.
Why is This Important?
Municipal codes provide local rules and regulations covering a wide variety of topics, most commonly - zoning, land use, waterways, harbors, airports, construction, fire, public works & utilities. These codes are provide critical information for commercial real estate, energy, construction, urban planning and maritime practices. This information can also be a critical for firms who advise corporate clients in business establishment and expansion decisions.
Where Can I Find Municipal Codes?
Municipal codes from a specific state are located on that state's page, for example, available California Municipal Codes are at Legal tab > California. You'll also find all available municipal codes via the Legal tab > Legislation & Politics - U.S. & U.K.
Municipal Code Research Basics:
●Browse the ETOC and get a document -
Select a state's municipal codes, and an electronic table of contents (ETOC) displays automatically. All available municipalities for that state are listed alphabetically.
Often researchers are looking for a specific section in a specific jurisdiction, so browsing or searching the ETOC is efficient. Expand the state ETOC and view any municipality's code. Just rest your cursor on the +. A pop-up box will allow you to open as many levels as you'd like. (Collapse levels by selecting the - next to ETOC levels.)
To view a full-text section, click its link. (You only pay to retrieve the document as you would with Get a Document.) Once you view a full-text section, you can print, download* (*according to the terms and conditions of your LexisNexis agreement) or email. You can return to the ETOC; just click TOC in the View display.
Or you can use the Book Browse feature to move to preceding and succeeding code sections-no charge! For example, click the Book Browse link at the top of a full-text section. Use the arrows on either side of the citation at the top of the page to move to preceding or succeeding sections. To leave the Book Browse feature, click Return to Search Results.
●Search the ETOC: One municipal code or codes across the state -
Not sure if your topic is covered in one or many sections? Or maybe you're not sure if your topic is covered. You can browse through the ETOC for that jurisdiction ... or search that jurisdiction's code. For example, you're looking for parking requirements for business in Alameda County, California. You can browse the ETOC. To search that jurisdiction's code for all sections pertaining to parking:
SOURCE: California Municipal Codes
CLICK: The checkbox next to Alameda County Code of Ordinances. This limits your search to that jurisdiction.
ENTER: parking
If you're researching the tax rates across the state to help clients looking to expand their operations, you can search the ETOC for all of the state's municipal codes at once.
SOURCE: California Municipal Codes
ENTER: tax! /5 rate /5 business
Your results screen shows an abbreviated ETOC with your search terms highlighted so you can move directly to chapters and sections with your search terms, i.e., TOC Hits. Move to a specific code section or a specific title or chapter or more browsing. To return to the abbreviated ETOC with your search terms, click TOC Hits. When you're ready to return to the full ETOC (without search terms), click TOC.
You can also search all full-text code sections and receive documents with your search terms anywhere in the document, i.e., even brief mentions. Your results screen shows individual documents with search term hits. To search full-text code documents, click the Full text of source documents button under the source's
search box.
●Search all available states or across specific states -
If you're working on a large project-perhaps a client or management wishes to identify jurisdictions with municipal laws favorable to business expansion, such as the availability of reimbursement for infrastructure expansion- you can research a topic across all available municipal codes simultaneously. Select the
Municipal Codes source.
SOURCE: Municipal Codes
PATH: Legal tab > States Legal - U.S. > Combined States > Find Statutes & Legislative Materials
CLICK: Search ALL MUNICIPAL CODES
ENTER: infrastructure / 10 reimburs!
When you select this group source, no ETOCs display, just the search box for searching all full-text documents. Your results display in alphabetical order by state. You can use the FOCUS® feature to refine the topic or number of states.
Or you can use the HEADING segment in your original Municipal Codes search to restrict your search to specific states. For example:
SOURCE: Municipal Codes
CLICK: Search ALL MUNICIPAL CODES
ENTER: Heading(california OR colorado OR nevada) AND infrastructure /10 reimburs!
The HEADING segment is also a convenient way to restrict your search to specific titles, chapters, articles, etc. of the codes, e.g.:
SOURCE: Municipal Codes
CLICK: Search ALL MUNICIPAL CODES
ENTER: HEADING(florida or georgia) AND HEADING(telecommun!) and zon! /5 residen!
Questions or want to see a live demonstration? Kindly contact your LexisNexis representative today!
Happy Researching!