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Zoning or the power of pull

By George Baumler

  "Not in my backyard" is the battle cry of the zoning zealots, who view themselves as lords of all they survey.  The central planning bureaucrats churn out a plethora of complex rules and regulations that constitute zoning laws, which are supposed to keep business out of certain neighborhoods and prevent excess business competition in others.  A couple of Louisville entrepreneurs, Clark Watts and William Clark, thought that they had all their T’s crossed and I’s dotted, when they tried to purchase a piece of property for the purpose of constructing a car wash, and legally they did.  The property, located at 1545 Baxter Avenue in Louisville, had the required zoning, and the building plans more than exceeded all local codes, but alas that matters not at all when the power of pull is exercised.

  A few activist neighbors objected to the plans for constructing a car wash on the site of a long time Standard Oil filling station and took their grievance to Alderman Bill Allison.  Allison, who was seeking a seat on the new metro council (he lost the election), seized the opportunity to grandstand the issue, in order to keep his name in the media, hoping that it would translate into votes.  The Louisville Board of Aldermen, led by Mr. Allison, passed a highly questionable moratorium on the issuance of any permits on that particular piece of real estate.  The board did this with the knowledge that it wouldn't hold up in court, but, for the property owners, it would mean an expensive and time consuming court battle.  The legal run-around and delays tied up the property for over six months, during which time the building inspector’s office sent notices to the property owners threatening huge fines for weeds, graffiti, loose paint, rough pavement etc.  The real-estate contract expired, and the property was sold to another buyer.  Mr. Clark and Mr. Watts were deprived of their rights and were damaged financially by the Board of Aldermen's heavy-handed actions. 

  In a free society, the property owners decide the best uses for their possessions, and they are not absolved from responsibility for any damages that may occur as consequences of those uses.  In a socialist society, the government seizes the means of profit and production and takes them out of private hands altogether.  Any profitable enterprise is a government enterprise.  In communist societies, the government owns all property and decides the disposition of all property.  (Who lives where, what is built or razed etc.)  One last social-economic system, fascism, maintains the façade of private ownership, but the government decides the manner in which the property can be used.  A quote from Adolf Hitler:

 "I want everyone to keep the property he has acquired for himself according to the principle: the common good takes precedence over self-interest.” 

  In other words you own the property, but the government decides how you may use it for the common good. 

  The question of the week is:

Which type of social-economic system are we living under? 

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