Property Rights Foundation criticizes Land-Use “Reform”
Resolution proposed by the Albany and Pace Law Schools is platform
for New York State growth management law
Background brief available
Over several years the Albany Law School and Pace University Law School with others have co-sponsored conferences to promote state-wide zoning and growth management in New York. In 1995 Professor John R. Dolan, Director of the Land Use Center at Pace, observed that Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Jersey have established State-level uniform and regional use controls, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are considering them.
At their October 13 conference at Albany Law School Government Law Center a new Land Use Law Reform Resolution was offered. The resolution states “some initial steps that state government can take now to begin the reform process.” In the resolution, “intermunicipal cooperation” (which is already perfectly legal and feasible) is the catalyst for state-level regional controls. The carrot is “technical and financial assistance” from the State, administrated by a State “plan.”
The finely tuned resolution expresses concern for municipalities who want to encourage development. It lacks most red flags that would warn readers of the goal of its framers to establish state-level regional zoning. In fact, the words are so artificially chosen to emphasize the local level, that the first resolution begins with the legal non-sequitur, “The land-use system needs to be restructured so that strategic planning and regulation are centered at the local level.” (emphasis added) Why would one ask for change to a legal structure that already exists? By home-rule, zoning powers are now based in local municipalities except in the Adirondacks and the Long Island Pine Barrens.
From this beginning, the resolution traverses to the area of intermunicipal land-use plans and the need to create regional development and ecosystem controls stimulated by state financial, technical, legislative and Administrative support. Even with the skill of its writer to make the resolution outwardly innocuous, however, phrases like “ecosystems of the state” and “economic regions” were not exorcised.
A telling phrase in this effort to make state-level growth management seem benign is this reference to the role of “country, state and federal agencies... to coordinate the enforcement of their regulations with locally developed, intermunicipal plans for development and conservation” (emphasis added). This is growth management - ironclad regional plans for land-use mandated on a state level, which are enforced locally through detailed plans that have been drawn according to state law to meet tight state requirements.
The choice not to have zoning is gone, as in the Adirondacks. Local zoning agencies have the flexibility of administrative divisions of the state. There is only an appearance of local control. The State gives financial and technical assistance, possibly through the regional zoning entity, as has been the preservationists’ long sought goal in the Adirondacks, to smooth the process of transition and make it financially desirable.
In all these euphemisms of step-wise State control, references to home-rule and private property rights are absent. The resolution’s goal is revealed in the clause which states:
“Guidance should be taken from New Jersey and the nine other states that have adopted such state-wide land use policies.”
The Albany Law School Government Law Center is the national center of development for the Public Trust Doctrine to supersede private property rights.
In an effort to open this forum to critical discussion, the Property Rights Foundation has offered a two-page critique of the Albany-Pace Law School Group’s resolution. Instead of the path they wish to pursue, the direction the Foundation envisions is for reforms in New York’s land-use law to move away from State-imposed regionality and weakening of property rights.
Please request the Land-Use Reform Resolution background brief.
| Back to: | |
|
|
