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Tip : A Master Plan offers more than a Comprehensive Plan
Posted: 3/16/08 :: By: Neil Erwin
Why the difference in the use of "comprehensive plan" in zoning regulations and "master plan" in planning regulations? What is the meaning of the test that zoning regulations shall be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan? (Standard State Zoning Enabling Act.)
Blame the fact that the standard act enabling zoning regulations (1924, final version in 1926) predated that for enabling planning regulations (1928). Since most states adopted the standard state enabling acts verbatim, some courts have been forced to conclude that a "comprehensive plan" that was authorized by a law adopted prior to a law addressing a "master plan" could not be forced to meet the requirements of the subsequently adopted act.
Blame also simply some indistinct legal reasoning on the part of courts trying to reconcile the two different and often (as in Louisiana) separated statutory provisions that fail to synchronize zoning and planning.
So why adopt a "master plan," when the existence of a "comprehensive plan" (which some courts have found in the entirety of the zoning ordinance itself) may do? The answer is to strengthen the legal standing of zoning decisions. Why? Start with the end in mind, which is upholding a local government's zoning decision in the face of a challenge winding up in court. The test to be applied by the courts of most states, including Louisiana's, is: Zoning decisions, as an exercise of a local government's inherent police powers, must be reasonably related to the health, safety, morals, or general welfare of the community. (See La. R.S. 33:4721.)
If there is no master plan adopted as the comprehensive plan with which the zoning decision is required to be measured as being in accord:
1. It is more difficult (although not impossible) to meet the evidentiary test of proving a reasonable relationship of the zoning decision to health, safety, morals, or the general welfare of the community. On the other hand, a zoning decision which has been analyzed prior to adoption by the local government as being in accord with a master plan presents a strong foundation to a court for upholding the decision.
2. It may weaken the judicial deference otherwise granted by courts to zoning decisions by local governments.
In conclusion, therefore, there seem few reasons not to adopt a master plan (at least in addressing its adoption in stages or by community geographic targets, like a downtown district), while failure to adopt one simply leaves zoning decisions more vulnerable to judicial challenge (although not fatally so, as long as there is a "comprehensive plan" that may be proven to a court's satisfaction).
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