76-05-A5
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Land Use Planning
TranscriptOne thing about government controls, every time a new law is passed it's almost certain to create at least as many new problems as it's been designed to solve. I'll be right back. Land use planning, the ultimate state and federal control over the use of private land is one of those concepts which has been defeated in legislation before, but which keeps coming back like a song, and it'll probably be back in Congress under a new name again next year. Demands for land use controls usually seem quite simple and public spirited. There's much talk about public access, about environmental protection and preventing developers from ruining natural assets, but these demands tend to ignore the impact of land use restrictions on individual property owners and to ignore the fact that those owners have rights. In fact those making the demands most often insist that only their interpretation of what is right for the land has any merit at all, but does it? Who gains and who loses when land use controls are imposed on a broad scale? Basically, such controls restrict the uses to which an owner can put his land. They restrict the building of homes apartments and stores and it limits the cutting of trees, drilling for oil and so forth. Each restriction, whatever other merits it may seem to have at the time, makes something more scarce, less available than it otherwise would be under such government controls. Less housing is built, fewer trees are harvested, and less oil refined and that will tend to drive up the price of such things. Now the homes in a region may not decline in total number but with controls they'll be kept out of some areas and may be built in less desirable locations. Controls in fact will increase the cost of all activities that are related to land use. Some scholars are concluding that the heaviest burden of land use controls tends to fall on low income and minority citizens. Let me give you an example. In the California coastal plan, a critique done for the Institute for Contemporary Studies, Daniel Orr an economist at the University of California in San Diego concluded that this one state's plan would prevent construction along California's long coastline. As a result, many low-income people would be prevented from improving their housing conditions. But low-income housing isn't usually built in scenic coastal areas you say? No but Dr. Orr points out that even if the home that is prevented from being built is an upper income one, low-income citizens will suffer. Here's how. Housing moves have a domino effect. In order to move into a more expensive home, a family vacates its present one. That home, in turn, becomes available for a second family and so on. The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan estimates that every new construction causes an average of three and a half moves by individuals and families seeking to improve their housing. Many environmentalists are quite open about their desire to protect land from people. Protecting the environment is an important value, but not the only one. Protecting land from people really means preserving it for the privileged at the expense of others. The answer of course is in a balanced approach. The potential land planner may not know it but every proposal he puts forward may be the lid of Pandora's Box. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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