Zoning, Property Rights, and the Myth of Benevolent Planners

by Marc Scribner on July 1, 2013  

Dartmouth economics professor Bill Fischel has posted “Fiscal Zoning and Economists’ Views of the Property Tax,” which will be a chapter in a revised edition of Fischel’s classic The Economics of Zoning Laws. Fischel provides a great overview of zoning, development, and property taxes, highlighting the important fact that zoning is fiscal in nature — that is to say, local governments use zoning to “preserve and possibly enhance the local property tax base.”

Fischel goes into much detail and posits that zoning makes the property tax more efficient. But the notion of fiscal zoning is an interesting one, something that is rarely discussed by the public or even members of the real estate press. Contrary the great myth of benevolent city planners getting together and using the best available evidence to scientifically apply land-use regulations that will maximize social welfare, land-use regulations are developed like most government “goods”: through competing self-interested special interest groups fighting over benefits in the political arena….To left-wing environmentalists like Echeverria, all building projects are harmful and all private property should be subject to the whims of people like him.......In reality, land-use regulation is conducted by highly politicized star chambers frequently captured by powerful, self-interested special interests seeking to maximize their private benefits at the public’s expense.........To Read More….