Suburban Growth Controls: An Economic and Legal Analysis

Suburban Growth Controls: An Economic and Legal Analysis left to be built must suffice for all time and thus represents a "blanket quota."Instead of placing numerical restrictions on the supply of housing, Eden might impose burdensome development standards to inhibit housing construction.Many American suburbs employ severe zoning restrictions on mobile homes, apartments, and modest single-family houses.These measures may be supplemented with onerous design specifications in subdivision ordinances and building codes.Eden can also raise the costs of supplying housing by levying development charges.These fees may be made either payable in cash-as in the case of building permit fees, connection charges, or construction taxes -or payable in kind, as when a subdivision approval is conditioned on the dedication of completed tangible improvements.Rather than raising the costs of supplying housing, Eden might instead choose to limit growth by dampening demand.Thus some suburbs have begun to specify the age 9 and family' 0 characteristics of households permitted to reside in various neighborhoods.Eden's remaining basic alternative for limiting its growth is to acquire the development rights of landowners, either through eminent domain or through arms-length purchases."Municipal acquisition of greenbelts and open-space easements by both these means is not unknown in the United States." 2 It should not be surprising, however, water become available).A Florida court has held the Boca Raton scheme violative of state and federal guarantees of substantive due process.Bocas Villas Corp. v. Pence, No. 73-106-CA-(L)-01-F (Cir.Ct. of Palm Beach County, Fla., Oct. 1, 1976) (Schotts, J.). 9. See, e.g., Duggan v. County of Cook, 60 Ill.2d 107, 116, 824 N.E.2d 406, 411 (1975) (condition in special-use permit that families with children can occupy no more than 25% of development's units violated state's public policy); Shepard v. Woodland Township Comm.& Planning Bd., 71 N