PERSPECTIVE ON MINNESOTA LAND USE

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Chapter 3

PROBLEMS AND REMEDIES

Land use issues and problems grow out of the day-to-day changes in the land use pattern - changes in ownership, market status, the mix of uses in neighborhoods or larger regions. Generally, a land use problem exists when the actual trend of land use change is diverging from widely held goals of the community. The land use pattern is changing almost constantly in response to changes in technology, in population growth or migration, and in social or economic priorities. So the relation of trends to goals is unstable; and problems almost always exist. In general, resolution of the problems depends upon either reversing the land use trends or changing the goals of the community.⁷

The following table suggests five broad problems which fit the foregoing definition (Table 10). Each problem is a direct result of the configuration of land uses or the operation of the land market as it is affected by the land use pattern.

For each problem the table suggests several types of background events which commonly lead to the problem, and it also suggests several basic programs of information and analysis which are necessary to change the course of events.

A closer look at the problems leads to some important inferences.

Viewed in the context of the process of land use change, all of the problems appear to center on one critical point: the criteria for selection of future use of any parcel of land. The following table indicates how each of the broad land use problems from Table 10 can be defined in terms of erroneous perceptions of accessibility or site quality on the part of one or more of the agents making land use decisions or affected by them (Table 11). In some cases, correction of these errors would change the behavior of those who make land use decisions and, thus, alter the errant trends in the land use pattern. In other cases, correction of erroneous perceptions would modify community goals. In any case more and better information and analysis would ameliorate the problem.
Both the responsibilities for producing the problems and the risks of being unfavorably affected are fragmented among numerous agencies and individuals (Table 12). Examination of Table 12 suggests:
- Bystanders (some limited part of the general public) are most often unfavorably affected, yet have the least direct responsibility for causing the problem.
- Public agencies and bodies most frequently have direct responsibility for the problems and have the least direct risk of the consequences.
- Lenders-buyers-developers frequently have substantial responsibility. This is offset by frequent risks. For their own developments are vulnerable to sub-sequent irresponsible action by their neighbors or themselves. Members of this group are, more often than not, unfavorably affected by problems, along with the general public.
The actions of injured bystanders are most likely to be directed toward governmental planning and regulating agencies to encourage programs to remedy the problem (Table 12). (These public actions are fragmented because the bystanders affected at any one time tend to be in relatively small groups, not closely related in the location, timing, or specifics of their problem. They might be residents of a local neighborhood in one case, residents of a different and far-removed neighborhood in the next case, feed-lot operators in another case, lakeshore cabin owners in yet another case, hunters, fishermen, boaters, canoeists, or others. Only the generalized activist groups under such banners as "environmental protection", "conservation", "good planning", or "regional development" are likely to appear repeatedly at different places and times. As a result, the interests of those generalized groups may appear desultory and unfocused, but in fact their concern is consistently with one or more of the five broad land use problems listed in Table 11.)
Since the lenders-buyers-developers have both significant responsibilities and significant risks, their central concern may well be that the public agencies clarify and enforce the rules of the game and provide accompanying information. Clarification and enforcement with adequate information may well be more important then the specifics of what the rules are.

⁷ An attempt at the comprehensive treatment of much of this process is the subject of the book by Marion Clawson, Suburban Land Use Con-version in the United States, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press for Resources for the Future, 1971.

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Table 10 - Five Broad Land Use Problems (Trends Which Diverge from Community Goals) Compared with Typical Background Events Which Cause the Problems, and some Remedies

LAND USE PROBLEM	BACKGROUND EVENT	BASIC REMEDIAL LAND USE PROGRAM
1.Too much or too little land in current inventory for urban development.	Misperception of current urban growth, and resulting rate of change in demand for new urban land, by sellers, financers, buyers, developers.	Carry on a continuing inventory of resources, land use, land value, and land ownership, with frequent, periodic summary and analysis.
2. Basic street and utility improvements in high-density settlement put into place too early (over a large area which lags in development) or too late {after high density development has occurred).	Misperception of necessary site improvements or amount of ultimate development in neighborhood, by buyers, developers, financers, or regulators and planners.	Continuing inventory, analysis, and projection of development frontier and urban land value frontier. Incorporate development performance standards into definition of each major land use type.
3. Failure to protect natural or historical legacies.	Failure of public agents to set performance standards for each land use type to protect renewable resources. Failure to set performance standards for protection and maintenance of historical legacies. Failure to set criteria and priorities for historical preservation. Failure of public agents to purchase critical areas in advance of development.	Incorporate environmental performance standards into definition of each land use type; so conformance with the land use plan is tantamount to meeting environmental impact restraints. Set criteria for historical preservation; establish priority locations and sites for historical preservation; and incorporate these criteria and priorities into land use definitions. Set criteria and priorities for public acquisition of land for preservation.
4. Incompatible neighboring land uses.	Failure of public agents to set priority, where same parcel has high suitability for two or more uses. Failure of public agents to adopt a general recommended pattern for land development. Misperception of the actual location and site suitability of a given parcel by one or more of the parties selecting future use. Failure of public agents to set performance standards, for each land use, to control noxious emissions from any parcel of land in that use.	Determine suitability of each land parcel for each major class of development, and priority of each-possible major class of development on that parcel. Incorporate environmental performance standards into the definition of each land use type; so conformance with the land use plan is tantamount to meeting environmental impact restraints.
5. Cost of external improvements not charged to beneficiaries of those improvements.	Diversion, to seller, of profits from sale of land whose value was increased by external improvements which were publicly financed. Urban line improvements (paved roads, utilities) pro-vided at average prices which are below cost in areas of sparse settlement, with no accompanying program of development to lower costs. (Resulting tendency to use land lavishly because access to line services is underpriced.)	Carry on a continuing inventory of resources, land use, land value, and land ownership, to monitor land prices, sales, subdivision, improvements and utilization. Use frequent, periodic analyses to: Determine appropriate special tax rate on income from real estate sales; so revenue from that tax may be applied toward defraying cost of public improvements inside the urban land value frontier. Determine actual cost of providing roads and utilities for settlement of different densities; so either price or quality of the improvements can be set to reflect the cost.

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Table 11 - Land Use Problems Defined as Erroneous Perceptions of Location and Site

LAND USE PROBLEM (from Table 10)	PROBLEM DEFINED IN TERMS OF "CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF FUTURE LAND USE" (Table 9)
1. Too much or too little land in current inventory for urban development.	Erroneous perceptions of the changing accessibility of (demand for) given parcels because of different perceptions of the rate and direction of urban growth.
2. Basic roads, streets or utilities too early or too late.	Erroneous perceptions of changing accessibility or demand (as above).
3. Failure to protect natural or historical legacies.	Erroneous perceptions of the abundance or rarity of land with given accessibility, historical legacy or physical site conditions; hence inability to agree on priorities to allocate limited funds or write environmental regulations in terms of land-use, site, and location. Widely varying degree of recognition that the quality and quantity of land with different site values, in different locations, can or should be considered in setting environmental standards.
4. Incompatible land uses.	Erroneous perception that either or both of the incompatible uses must be in their incompatible setting, when alternative sites and locations exist.
5. Misallocation of costs of external improvements.	Superstitious belief that land values simply rise, through time, in some magical way, in absence of information on the role of external investments by others in the community - both individually and collectively, private and public.

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A number of different, undesirable background events can be remedied by the same program of data collection, analysis, or definition of standards. Hence four basic programs appear repeatedly in the right-hand column of Table 10.
- Continuing inventory of resources, land use, land value, and land ownership, with periodic summary, analysis, and projection.
- Incorporation of environmental performance standards into the definition of each land use category; so conformance with a land use plan is tantamount to meeting restraints on environmental impact. That is, conformance with the plan should be equivalent to submitting an acceptable environmental impact statement. If the plan is based upon adequate data of resources, use, ownership, and value, it should protect
- A state land use plan - that is, maps based on criteria for rating any parcel of land according to its suitability for each major class of development and the relative priority of that parcel for development. Criteria should include measures of (a) site characteristics (e.g., soil, relief, water, current use, highway availability) and (b) accessibility to population, jobs, and markets. These are the criteria needed and used to select future land use of a parcel throughout the process of land use change (Table 9). Rating all parcels according to their suitability and priority for development, using site and location data, is the essence of any land use plan - local, regional, state, or national. There is only a difference in the size of parcel and scale of analysis (generality of policy) among these different levels of government planning responsibility. At the state level, maps should show suitability and priority of land for development in major use categories, by 40 acre parcels - the basic units in the land survey system. Such maps are essential to any state land use plan that is more than empty rhetoric.
- Criteria and priorities for the public purchase of land to protect natural and historic legacies. Note that natural protection areas will appear in the state land use plan, along with their relative suitability and priority for purchase and preservation. One or more of these four basic programs is needed to carry out every land use action authorized in recent years by the Minnesota legislature. These four programs are essential not only to the current battery of agency work items stemming from that legislation, but also to any land use actions that might be authorized in the future.
  Table 13 shows which basic land use programs contribute to each of a dozen current major work items in several state agencies.⁸

Table 12 - Apparent Distribution of Responsibility for Land Use Problems and Risk of Their Consequences among Major Parties or Groups within the General Population

LAND USE PROBLEM (from Table 10)	PARTIES RESPONSIBLE			PARTIES UNFAVORABLY AFFECTED
LAND USE PROBLEM (from Table 10)	Financers- Buyers- Developers	Planners- Regulators	Bystanders	Financers- Buyers- Developers	Planners- Regulators	Bystanders
1. Too much or too little land for development.	*	*		*	*
2. Utilities too early or too late.	*	*		*	*
3. Failure to protect.		*			*
4. Incompatible uses.	*	*		*	*
5. Misallocation of costs.		*			*

Table 13 - Basic Land Use Programs Which Would Contribute to Each of a Dozen Major Agency Work Programs Stemming from Recent Land Use Legislation

LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS AND CURRENT AGENCY WORK ITEMS	BASIC LAND-USE PROGRAMS
LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS AND CURRENT AGENCY WORK ITEMS	Continuing Inventory	Environmental Performance	Guide Plan	Criteria for Purchase
Early Warning System (EQC)	*
Environmental Impact Statements	*	*	*
Power Plant Siting	*	*	*
Transmission Line Routing	*	*	*
Copper-Nickel impact	*	*	*
Water Resources Planning	*	*	*	*
Solid Waste Management	*	*	*	*
Wild and Scenic Rivers	*	*	*	*
Critical Areas Designation	*	*	*	*
Voyageur's National Park periphery	*	*	*	*
Coastal Zone (North Shore of Lake Superior)	*	*	*	*
Shoreland and Floodplain Management	*	*	*	*

⁸ For detailed description and enumeration of these work items, see A Proposed Work Program for Land Use Planning, St. Paul: Minnesota State Planning Agency, December 1973 (mimeographed).

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In summary, the foregoing maps, schematic diagrams, and tables reinforce the often repeated fact that ours is a pluralistic system, with multiple centers of decision about the future use of any land parcel. In such a situation, the role of government appears to be fundamentally to protect resources, historic legacies, and the rights and investments of bystanders.⁹ Such protection, in turn, must require two lines of action.

Widespread information must be continuously available concerning the past, present, and projected accessibility and site conditions for all land parcels. Individuals and agencies at all points of decision in the land use system need the same information. Government is in the best position to collect and disseminate it because of the multiplicity of data series government already collects in connection with taxing, licensing, permit, land acquisition, and land management activities.
Controls (through regulations, permits, or public purchase) are necessary and must be based on current and widespread information about the status of the land, its suitability for major classes of development, and its priority for development. Controls thus based are most likely to be credible, attainable, subject to continuous monitoring of performance, and therefore capable of enforcement and evaluation.

A "state plan", based on maps of land development suit-ability and priority, is compatible with emphasis on a "planning process" rather than a "master plan", and emphasis on a "flexible, dynamic" plan rather than a "rigid, static" one. Reciting the words "flexible", dynamic", and "process" does not remove the need for 1) explicit statements of what the priorities are, 2) where they apply, 3) how they are deter-mined, and 4) the information needed to consider changing them for any given parcel of land.

⁹ This is a central, recurring theme of the Task Force report sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Use of the Land: A Citizens Policy Guide to Urban Growth (footnote 2, above). In his preface the editor asserts that "... land use ... is basically concerned with seeing that conservation and development occur in the right places." (p. 1) And a major chapter deals with "Protecting What We Value".

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