August 2000

By James Lawlor

Georgia: Reform begins. The chapter's top legislative priority in the upcoming months will be to draft planning enabling legislation to present to the 2001 legislature, says Jerry Weitz, AICP, vice-president for legislative affairs.

Most of the local zoning and subdivision regulations now in effect in Georgia are based on the 1957 Planning and Zoning Enabling Act, which, in turn, derived much of its content from the model planning and zoning acts of the 1920s. But the new state constitution adopted in 1983 could be read as making the '57 law irrelevant. It states that "the governing authority of each county and of each municipality may adopt plans and may exercise the power of zoning." That plain language seems to give local governments authority to enact any laws that could reasonably be construed to relate to zoning or planning, without regard to prior statutes.

The 1989 Georgia Planning Act adds a further twist. It authorizes local governments to engage in comprehensive planning, a power they presumably already had under the new constitution. It also authorizes local governments to coordinate planning efforts, a power possibly not contemplated by the 1983 constitution.

The 1998 report of the Growth Strategies Reassessment Task Force concluded that existing laws were not up to the job of growth management. In part, Weitz notes, that's because local governments fear allowing the use of innovative tools like transfer of rights without specific legislative authority. That could come either piecemeal or through a comprehensive reform of the planning enabling laws.

Utah: Annexation hot. Chapter legislative chair Wilf Sommerkorn, AICP, reports that reform of the state's confusing annexation law is again a front-burner issue. A group of planners and city managers has been working on a draft bill for several months, and their work has been favorably reviewed by a subcommittee of the state's Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations and the League of Cities and Towns. The next step will be a discussion with the legislature's Political Subdivisions Interim Committee in July.

Utah adopted its first detailed annexation law in 1979. Before that, landowners could simply petition a city to annex their land, a process that had led to conflicts between cities. The 1979 law worked reasonably well for 15 years, Sommerkorn says. Then, in 1995, the Utah Supreme Court reviewed a case involving the incorporation of a new municipality in Salt Lake County. The court ruled that conflicting amendments to the incorporation law enacted by previous legislatures seriously tainted the law.

The search for a solution led to the enactment in 1996 of a hastily cobbled together compromise measure governing annexation. The new law proved to be virtually unworkable because of inconsistencies, unclear procedures, and provisions that could be easily manipulated by landowners. The following year, the house speaker pushed through his own "fix," which was only a modest improvement over the existing law, Sommerkorn says.

Since then, the law has been tinkered with so much that it was beginning to look like a patched-up old inner tube, Sommerkorn says. In the 2000 legislative session, he and other planners and city officials argued before various legislative committees that fundamental reform was needed. The legislators agreed that something had to be done, noting in one of the "patch" bills that it was only a first step toward resolving the many problems connected with the existing annexation law.

The bill drafted by the reform group would require each municipality to put in place an annexation policy plan covering its 20-year projected growth areas. The bill would bar urban development in counties within a half-mile of existing city boundaries. It would also reestablish standards to guide the state boundary commission in hearing protests to annexation policy plans.

Illinois: Smart growth bill dies. Legislative committee member Eric Waggoner reports that Illinois lawmakers killed a bill that would have aided localities drafting smart growth ordinances. H.B. 3287, drafted with help from APA, would have authorized the state Department of Commerce and Community Affairs to make demonstration grants to counties and municipalities to prepare comprehensive plans, subdivision controls, zoning ordinances, and other regulations that advance the goals of sensible growth.

Chapter representatives testified in favor of the bill before a house of representatives committee, which voted unanimously for approval. But the bill died on the house floor, apparently, Waggoner says, because of an organized opposition campaign by the real estate industry. The opponents claimed the bill would have allowed the Commerce and Community Affairs Department to interfere in local planning decisions. The bill's sponsors say they will try again next year. Waggoner says the chapter plans to support the measure vigorously.

Meanwhile, a bill authorizing the Illinois Housing Development Authority to make grants for employer assisted housing passed the house unanimously. Under H.B. 4074, now in the senate, the authority could help employers, municipalities, counties, and nonprofit housing organizations build housing in areas of high employment growth.