State and Local Issues

Reason Study: Making Land-Use Planning Future-Friendly

Fifty years of centralized land-use planning have stymied common sense development and resulted in a maze of regulatory hurdles for property owners and developers. So say researchers Lynn Scarlett and Sam Staley in a recent study from the Reason Public Policy Institute.

The authors make the following points, among others:

  • Today's planners take a static approach to development -- locking their communities into a vision of the future that allows no room for change.

  • Planning boards cannot foresee the impacts of technological developments and the effects they will have on the community.

  • Attempting to adapt the planners' vision of the city to changing conditions is costly and inefficient, and alters an area's comprehensive plan in the process.

One example of how technological change has altered communities is the rise in telecommuting. Telecommunications have increased the number of home offices, but many zoning ordinances still do not allow home-based businesses, effectively forcing self-employed residents underground.

On the other hand, some studies have found city councils and planning boards approve 75 percent to 95 percent of rezoning applications -- bringing into question the need for the procedural burdens of zoning.

  • The authors say future planning should accept and integrate market-oriented principles that recognize communities are always evolving.

  • Also, planning practices should move toward a common law, nuisance-based standard for regulating land development.

  • And the focus should be on those directly and tangibly affected by proposed development.

The study recommends that local governments confine themselves to setting the rules of the game and enforcing them in the least intrusive and most predictable manner.

Source: Lynn Scarlett (Reason Public Policy Institute) and Sam Staley (Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions), "Market-Oriented Planning: Principles and Tools," Policy Study 236, November 1997, Reason Public Policy Institute, 3415 Sepulveda Boulevard, Suite 400, Los Angeles, Calif. 90034, (310) 391-2245.

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