U.S. Federal Public Lands Policy

Introduction

Zoning is by far the most common form of land use regulation in the United States. With its roots in the Standard Zoning Enabling Act, published by the Department of Commerce in 1924 (and in revised form in 1926), zoning spread rapidly throughout the nation during the middle part of the twentieth century and now represents the cornerstone of the American system of land use governance (Popper, 91).

The institutionalization of zoning is important to recognize because, although it is often taken for granted, local governments are, in fact, endowed with the authority to regulate land use. However, even though home rule dominates, local powers may be stripped away by revisions at the state level—a move that has become increasingly common in recent years, with the rise of statewide growth management and smart growth initiatives (Bollens, 21). With this in mind, the most salient aspects of zoning are its legal foundations, its constitutional constraints, its role in local governance and the land use patterns that it has produced, and the evolving role of state governments in altering the path of local land use regulation.

Legal Foundations

Zoning is derived from the police power and is intended to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of communities—generally by separating “nonconforming” land uses, such as industrial activities in a residential area. This foundation was set in place by the Standard Zoning Enabling Act, and upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1926 case of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Company. That decision cemented “Euclidean zoning” as a legitimate exercise of the police power and placed single-family housing at the top of the land use pyramid (Fischel, 69).

Under this system, communities are divided into zones designating both the type (for example, residential, commercial, or industrial) and bulk (density) of appropriate ...