"Local Control of Land Use: Profile of a Problem": Comment

Abstract

v. local question appear to be irrelevant in local decisions about land use policy. In a study of one of the programs examined in the Geisler and Martinson article (shoreland zoning). we found that counties adopted and, in some cases, strengthened a state-mandated program in which counties were required to pass and administer three types of land use control ordinances containing minimum standards set by the state. In our study of the Wisconsin Shoreland Protection Act (conducted at the same time as the Geisler and Martinson study) we found that the c unty response to a mandate to regulate unincorporated shorelands according to certain standards was the adoption and enforcement by most counties of controls over unincorporated land, not just shorelands [Weber and Peroff 1977]. While there was some initial resistance to the new law, counties have passed ordinances which meet the minimum standards for regulating unincorporated shorelands and have set up administrative structures to enforce these ordinances. Furthermore, most counties went far beyond the mandate and adopted controls for unincorporated areas of the county and which contain higher standards than those set by the state. There is limited evidence, furthermore, that these are not merely paper regulations, but that counties will go to court if necessary to enforce regulations which started out as a statemandated program [Weber and Peroff 1977]. One can argue that if local people were opposed to intervention in local decisionmaking, per se, they would not have supported local participation in a state-mandated program. They certainly would not have gone beyond the minimum requirements of the law unless they saw this as being in their own interest. Thus, even if Geisler and Martinson's results were not flawed by the simplistic distinction implied in 114 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.231 on Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:02:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Weber: Local Control of Land Use: Comment their question and the phrasing of the question itself, I would be inclined to argue that their question is the wrong one: that it is not state v. local but rather the effect of zoning, for example, on local perceptions of community interest which determines local attitudes and behavior regarding zoning. Geisler and Martinson infer from their data that to land use planning is not broadly focused on encroachments on traditional property rights, but is definitely aimed at the level of government where land use planning is to occur [pp. 377-78]. While the first part of this statement is probably correct, the second part is probably not correct. When there is local opposition to an assertion by the in land use control, this is probably because the restrictions which are opposed adversely affect local economic interests, not because the has intervened. Evidence cited above shows that a high level of intervention in the planning and regulatory process does not necessarily run counter to local perceptions of local interest or imply an unacceptably high level of restriction on local property rights. Future research into local attitudes regarding land use should probably not follow Geisler and Martinson's lead in exploring the perhaps spurious relationships between local attitudes toward the regulating level of government and those regarding the substance of land use regulations. Research might better be directed at the underlying relationships between local attitudes toward specific controls and the effect of such regulations on local perceptions of community interest. Because of their emphasis on the vs. local control issue, their policy implication focuses on what I believe to be the wrong issue: compreh nsive land use planning, frequently rejected when imposed from the and federal levels, has a chance of succeeding if local discretion is integrated into its management [p. 380]. This type of statement, along with their unfounded and apparently incorrect assertion that compliance [with such programs as shoreland and coastal zoning] occurs begrudgingly, if at all [p. 373], reinforces the strawman that state-mandated programs necessarily run counter to local interests, and it focuses concern on the relatively unimportant question of state v. local rather than on the more important issue of the substance of the regulation.