In 1972, the Council on Environmental Quality published a report entitled The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control. Presenting several detailed case studies, it documented a strong trend toward the involvement of state and regional governments in a subject traditionally left to local government—the regulation of land use. The report provided support for those seeking federal legislation to aid innovative state programs indeed, a bill that would have authorized some $800 million for that purpose was later given serious consideration by the Congress.
Over the years, federal land use legislation came close to passage, but after its third defeat, in 1975, even its most ardent supporters were reluctant to try again. Yet, as was documented in the RFF study Land Use and the States (1976), state and regional participation in land use issues continued to expand gradually thereafter, even during recession, energy crisis, and a widening of trust of all forms of governmental control. Some states—among them Florida, California, Oregon, and Hawaii—took important steps to extend existing state regulatory programs or to enact new ones.
At present, state land use programs are proving no more resistant than other regulatory programs to the current anti government and economically conservative attitudes of the electorate and state legislatures. That does not mean existing laws are being repealed or even weakened; it does mean that there is little chance of passing "comprehensive" laws affecting all lands in the state or a wide range of types of development. Comprehensiveness may still be preferred by planning theorists, but legislators and environmentalists now seem more comfortable with an incremental approach to land use issues.
Farmlands and coastal zones. A clear example of incrementalism in land use control is the effort to prevent the conversion of agricultural land to other uses. This area of land policy combines several ingredients that now seem necessary to produce legislative action: an easily identified, quantifiable problem; politically potent interest groups (both the agricultural and environmental communities); and a clear national or statewide interest (ensuring adequacy of long-term food supplies). At the national level, bills have been introduced that would establish an Agricultural Land Review Commission to explore means of keeping agricultural lands from being developed. A more controversial feature of the bills is a proposal to spend $200 to $450 million to support innovative state and local farmland preservation programs, some already under way. The bills were defeated in committee in 1978, but their sponsors intend to reintroduce them.
National interest in farmland has also been evidenced by the passage in 1978 of legislation requiring foreign investors in U.S. farmland to report their holdings.
Within the federal bureaucracy, the Department of Agriculture has begun to release new data more accurately documenting development of farmland, as well as a series of maps identifying prime or unique farmlands in individual counties throughout the country. In October, the secretary of agriculture released a revised Statement on Land Use Policy committing the department to intercede in the decision making of other federal agencies on behalf of important farmlands and forestlands, prime rangelands, and wetlands.
At the state level, where action preceded federal action to retain farmland, (i.e. involvement of farmers, who obviously have a vested interest in maintaining land values, has led to support for compensable regulations (payments for loss of land value resulting from regulation), particularly the purchase or transfer of development rights. Several experiments with development purchase are in fact being undertaken by state governments; New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have all launched $5 million pilot programs, following a more ambitious experiment (costing $21 million so far) to buy development rights on Long Island. Such programs would obviously expand if federal funding became available. Voters in King County, Washington (Seattle) last November—the year of Proposition 13—supported by over 58 percent a $35 million bond issue to begin purchasing development rights there. Because bond issues need the approval of three-fifths of voters to become law, the proposal must be voted upon again, perhaps as early as this spring. California's State Coastal Conservancy, created in 1976 and given $10 million in bond issue monies, is charged, among other duties, with purchasing farmlands that had been partitioned into small-lot subdivisions and recombining them into parcels more suitable for farm use.
Coastal lands are also attracting interest. Federal funds from the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act and the 1976 coastal energy impact program are supporting a variety of state programs, much as the farmland law might if it is passed. They range from strong regulatory systems, such as those in California and Oregon, to mere token data-gathering efforts. By 1978 more than a dozen state programs were sufficiently far along to have received federal approval for moving into the "implementation phase." Approval implies not only continued funding, but also means that most federal agency actions within a state's coastal zone must be consistent with state coastal policies.
The states vary in their policies: North Carolina and California have strong coastal measures, but have not acted to protect endangered farmland. Connecticut protects wetlands and Florida reviews major developments, but both states have been reluctant to adopt coastal zone programs of the sort envisioned by the federal law. The menu of innovative land use controls includes far more items than any legislature seems willing to select.
Other developments. During 1978 there were important regulatory developments in four states that had led the quiet revolution. In Vermont, a district environmental commission denied the Pyramid Company's application for a permit to build the state's largest shopping mall in a hayfield outside Burlington, the state's largest city. Citing the costs of sprawling growth and the impact of fringe-area shopping centers on healthy cities nearby—a national problem—the commission rejected development that otherwise complied with rigorous environmental standards. The developer has appealed the precedent-setting decision.
In Oregon, the state Land Conservation and Development Commission survived a second challenge to its powers. The 1978 measure, which would have repealed the commission's list of planning goals and curtailed its regulatory powers, lost by an even wider vote, 61 to 39 percent, than a similar initiative in 1976. The commission, which is charged with ensuring that local land use plans comply with state policy goals, had come under attack for aggressive policies limiting the expansion of towns and cities onto agricultural land.
The Florida supreme court upheld a ruling that found unconstitutional part of a 1972 law that let the state protect "areas of critical concern" designated by administrative means. The governor acted quickly, calling a special legislative session to protect the existing critical areas (including the Florida Keys) by statute, but it is not yet known whether Florida will be able to designate more areas in the future without explicit legislative approval. The other part of the law, which derives from the American Law Institute's Model Land Development Code, provides for regional review of large "developments of regional impact"; it is still in effect, but the number of projects reviewed has fallen dramatically since Florida's building boom collapsed in 1974.
The California Coastal Commission, perhaps the most powerful of all the state-level land use agencies, continued to control development in a 1,100-mile-long swath of shoreline that includes everything from Southern California office towers to lonely north coast ranches. The commission, created by a 1972 ballot initiative, but given permanent authority by the 1976 legislature, has in the last six years been responsible for ruling on more than 37,000 separate development permits, involving projects ranging from single-family dwellings to a $1 billion nuclear power plant. Under the terms of the 1976 law, much of the commission's direct regulatory authority will be turned back to local governments by 1981. But meanwhile the coastal commission is making sure that local land use plans and zoning maps are revised to incorporate strict and detailed coastal protection policies.
This combination of state standards and local implementation, often given the name "collaborative planning," seems to be growing in popularity as a means of ensuring that local land use decisions will be consistent with state-wide interests. Besides California and Oregon, such states as North Carolina, Maine, and Florida have adopted some form of this approach.
Another trend in state planning is an increasing concern for program coordination. As they have implemented the new laws, land use regulators have become sensitive to charges that multi-layer regulatory processes discourage even appropriate development and add to the costs of the final product. When added to widespread concern over high housing prices and a general reexamination of the costs and benefits of all forms of governmental regulation, these concerns are likely to lead to close legislative scrutiny of land use control programs. Ironically, one result may be new pressure to combine existing, single-purpose regulatory programs into some sort of coordinated, comprehensive framework.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1979 issue of Resources magazine.
