Zoning Disputes Here, There, and Everywhere

This is a "Read it all and make up your own mind"-type post. The Show-Me Institute’s Dave Roland just wrote a new op-ed about the issue of zoning and property rights in Missouri. To put the op-ed into today’s context, here are two ongoing major zoning disputes in Missouri, neither of them related to the "Village Law." In Kansas City, the Star is reporting on a dispute involving the proposed expansion of a prominent museum. Just north of there in Platte County, the St. Joseph News-Press reports on a subdivision dispute — the kind typical in many fast-growing areas. (Or, at least, areas that were fast-growing before $4-a-gallon gas, but that’s another issue.)

Not to put words in his mouth, but Dave Roland would say that both the museum and the subdivision developers have the right to develop their property however they want to, and no city or planning commission or neighbor has the right to prevent that. Subsequently, if those developments harmed the neighbors’ property values, the neighbors should be compensated for that harm via civil action. I encourage you to read it all (particularly the op-ed), and come to your own decision.