June 1998

By James Lawlor

Vermont: Saving downtown. The legislature enacted an ambitious plan this year to strengthen central business districts throughout the state. Although the initial impetus for the measure, H. 278, came from the state office of historic preservation, the Vermont Planners Association was active in drafting the bill and testified in favor of it, legislative liaison Sharon Murray reports.

Aimed at promoting public and private investment in downtowns, the law establishes a state downtown development board to administer its provisions, sets up procedures for establishing downtown development districts, and offers property tax credits for the rehabilitation of downtown buildings that are more than 15 years old.

The law also authorizes planning grants for assessing contaminated sites, for adaptive reuse of historic structures and for marketing programs. The development board may award municipalities grants of up to $250,000 a year, along with loans and loan guarantees, for transportation capital improvements and for the underground relocation of utility lines. In addition, the new law reallocates sales tax receipts from the sale of certain building materials used for rehabilitation to finance local infrastructure improvements.

Louisiana: Reform in the air. Legislative committee chair Robert Becker, AICP, reports that the chapter is cautiously optimistic about the chances for modernization of the state's planning enabling laws, following a meeting earlier this year with Mark Drennen, the commissioner of administration. Drennen, the state's top administrator, said that the chapter's proposals fit well with Gov. M.J. Foster's governmental reform stance.

Specifically, the chapter proposes that the governor appoint a commission representing a broad range of interest groups, legislators, and private citizens. The commission would examine current planning legislation, including local laws; look at other states' reform efforts; and study model legislation like that produced by APA's Growing Smart initiative.

Becker says the commission's work might lead to a better definition of "comprehensive plan," a requirement that state plans take local plans into account, mandatory training for planning commissioners, and the encouragement of consistency between the comprehensive plan and implementing legislation.

Arizona: Growth bill runs into trouble. The growth management legislation, now numbered HB 2361, hit a snag in the state senate in late April, when the appropriations committee added a takings amendment, reports Corey Cox, aicp, the chapter's vice-president for legislative affairs. Sponsors are now working to get the amendment deleted or reworded.

The problematic amendment says that, if a city or town passes a growth management regulation that reduces a property's value, it must either compensate the landowner or kill the offending regulation. If this language stays in the bill, county and municipal government organizations almost certainly will oppose it, Cox says, greatly reducing the bill's chance of passage.

Virginia: Vested rights approved. Late in April, Gov. James Gilmore approved SB 570, a bill designed to make it easier for landowners to gain vested rights in a development, legislative committee chair Debrarae Karnes reports.

The legislature did, however, accept the governor's proposal concerning landowners' claims for vested rights that are based on a "significant government action." According to the bill as signed, that action must still be in effect when the vesting claim is made. Thus, for example, a landowner could not automatically rely on a preliminary approval that was subsequently rescinded.

Another law signed at the same time takes a bite out of local land-use control. SB 480 provides that no local ordinance may restrict the height of amateur radio antennas in rural areas to less than 200 feet, or 75 feet in more densely populated areas. The law is in part a response to some rural counties in southwest Virginia that have severely limited antenna height, energizing ham radio operators to push for a less restrictive statewide standard.

Florida: Takings not retroactive. A fairly innocuous takings bill, HB 1899, was passed by the house in April after a committee deleted a proposal that would have made the provisions of the Bert Harris Private Property Rights Act of 1995 retroactive to 1990. As it stands, HB 1899 makes some rather harmless changes to the provisions for setting the value of land "taken" by regulatory action.

Shortly before its May 1 adjournment, the legislature passed a growth management package (SB 1726) that was pushed by the state Department of Community Affairs, with amendments suggested by the chapter. However, an urban redevelopment bill, SB 1740, which would have provided state matching funds to municipalities for infill development, failed to pass.

Both the house and the senate passed measures to extend the Preservation 2000 land acquisition law, the house for 20 years and the senate for 10. The chapter had supported the house version. In the end, however, the two houses could not settle their differences and simply extended bonding authority for another year.