Law Commons^™

Empower The Neighborhood And Save The City; Why Courts Should Permit Neighborhood Control Of Zoning, Kenneth A. Stahl

Kenneth Stahl

Whether cities should delegate zoning authority to neighborhood groups is one of the most hotly contested issues in municipal politics, yet it is also essentially a moot point. Since a bizarre series of Supreme Court cases in the early twentieth century, it has been largely settled that cities may not constitutionally delegate the zoning power to sub-municipal groups, at least where the power is delegated specifically to landowners in a certain proximity to a proposed land use change.

This article argues that courts have erred in prohibiting cities from devolving zoning control to proximate landowners, a scheme I designate a …

The Artifice Of Local Growth Politics: At-Large Elections, Ballot-Box Zoning, And Judicial Review, Kenneth A. Stahl

Kenneth Stahl

Municipalities throughout the nation are plagued by a seemingly unresolvable conflict between development interests and homeowners’ groups who oppose growth near their neighborhoods. This paper uses southern California as a case study to examine the problem of local growth politics and the judicial response to it. As I argue, local politics in southern California are structured in such a way that fosters an artificial dichotomy between pro-growth and anti-growth positions, subverting the possibility of compromise and suppressing a wide range of views about growth and other issues. On one hand, the prevalence of at-large voting systems in southern California municipalities …