In 1918, the Louisiana legislature passed Act 27 authorizing municipalities with over 50,000 residents to define and regulate the kind, style and manner of construction of buildings within their limits and to permit or prohibit the establishment and operation of businesses within designated areas. Subsequent legislation in the next few years extended the power for comprehensive zoning to all municipalities over 5,000 in population and provided for the creation of planning and zoning commissions to establish municipal guidelines for construction in residential, commercial and industrial districts. By the mid-1920s, the authorization to zone was firmly established by state law and by court rulings in various suits brought to test the new legislation. Prior to 1918, New Orleans had passed several hundred "piecemeal" zoning ordinances governing construction of buildings or operation of businesses in certain blocks, streets or areas. By the 1920s, the result was a confusing, sometimes contradictory assortment of regulations, inconsistently enforced. In 1923, in response to this confusion and to a "plan movement" developing nationwide, the Commission Council established the City Planning and Zoning Commission (Ordinance 7353 CCS) to act in an advisory role to the Council on planning and zoning matters.

The first comprehensive zoning ordinance was created and passed in 1929. Supplementary revisions and zoning ordiances would be addeed to the comprehensive zoning ordinance in the intervening years between official CZOs. Comprehensively revised zoning ordinances were issued in 1953, 1970, and 2015.