Land-Use Regs: Learning the Ropes

LAND-USE REGS: LEARNING THE ROPES by Paul DeBaggis An introduction to the tangled thicket of regulations you’ll need to know to play the game Once, the development game was simple. Until the early 1900s, speculators bought land, slapped up buildings, and sold them for hefty profits. Then, in 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court validated local zoning. Since that decision, cities and towns have churned out laws faster than rabbits make rabbits, and today’s building regulatory network consists of a confused public, frustrated developers, and hypertensive law enforcers, all languishing in layers of legalese. The Supreme Court acted rightly. And the building industry should not really gripe with the lawmakers, either. Certainly, a few towns have concocted some witless zoning bylaws, trying to use them to stop building