New Article: “Overparticipation: Designing Effective Land Use Public Processes”

New Article: Anika Singh Lemar, Overparticipation: Designing Effective Land Use Public Processes, 90 Fordham L. Rev. 1083 (2021). Abstract below:

There are more opportunities for public participation in the planning and zoning process today than there were in the decades immediately after states adopted the first zoning enabling acts. As a result, today, public participation, dominated by nearby residents, drives most land use planning and zoning decisions. Enhanced public participation rights are often seen as an unqualified good, but there is a long history of public participation and community control cementing racial segregation, entrenching exclusion, and preventing the development of affordable housing in cities and suburbs alike. Integrating community engagement into an effective administrative process requires addressing the various ways in which existing public participation processes have failed to serve their purported goals. This Article critically examines how public participation operates in land use planning and approvals. It then proposes a new model, drawing lessons from other administrative processes, in an effort to balance public input, legal standards, and expertise.

Note: This might seem a bit removed from “poverty law” but I think it has a lot of relevance when it comes to both racial segregation and affordable housing.