AICP Top 25 Significant Planning Laws

Question 1

Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery Act (1978)

Answer 1

To address the needs of inner city recreation, Congress passed the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act in 1978, authorizing $725 million to provide grants and assistance to economically distressed urban communities. The program authorizes federal aid to urban localities for rehabilitation of recreation facilities. The law encourages systematic local planning and commitment to continuing operation and maintenance of creation programs, sites, and facilities. UPARR, though not funded by the Bush administration, continues to stand as the only federal program that supports local parks.

Question 2

Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (1980)

Answer 2

Passed by Congress largely in response to the contamination disaster at Love Canal, CERCLA established the Superfund cleanup program and refined the legal framework governing liability for these toxic sites. CERCLA, along with the earlier NEPA and RCRA laws, form the core of federal statues guiding environmental planning and remediation of toxic sites.

Question 3

Farmland Protection Policy Act (1981)

Answer 3

This legislation marked the beginning of federal programs aimed at farmland conservation. The bill directed federal agencies to avoid projects that would convert prime farmland. Subsequently, the federal government has expanded its role in this area particularly in the 1985, 1990, 1996, and 2002 Farm Bills. These bills created an array of federal land conservation programs.

Question 4

New Jersey Fair Housing Act (1985)

Answer 4

Enacted after the aftermath of the landmark Mount Laurel decision, New Jersey’s Fair Housing Act set a national standard for a statewide approach aimed at combating exclusionary zoning and promoting regional fair share affordable housing. The statue also established the state Council on Affordable Housing.

Question 5

Tax Reform Act (1986)

Answer 5

Known more for is broad changes to federal income tax structure, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 also established the nation’s most widely used and effective incentive for the development of affordable housing: the Low Income Housing Tax Credit.

Question 6

Community Reinvestment Act (1987)

Answer 6

No federal law of the past quarter century has led more directly to renewed investment in America’s low-income and minority urban neighborhood as CRA. The law hold financial institutions accountable for the investments they finance. CRA has helped reduce the practice of “red lining” neighborhoods and opened the way not only to new investment but also greater citizen participation and awareness.

Question 7

Rhode Island Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Regulation Act (1988)

Answer 7

Rhode Island’s update of the state planning enabling statues is particularly significant because it set a standard subsequently followed by many other states pursuing reform. The 1988 legislation was the direct result of a state legislative study commission established the year prior. The legislation is also significant for its aggressive promotion of state-level planning. The legislation overhauled the state’s planning, zoning, and subdivision laws replacing outmoded 1920’s era language with some the nation’s clearest and most progressive standards.

Question 8

American with Disabilities Act (1990)

Answer 8

This landmark law provided new protections and required sweeping new accommodations for people with various disabilities. The law’s section on appropriate accommodations has had a direct and profound impact on the built environment and continues to shape building codes across the nation.

Question 9

Clean Air Amendments (1990)

Answer 9

The original Clean Air Act was enacted in 1963 but a set of major amendments adopted in 1990 made a major and long-lasting impact on planning. The 1990 amendments established the conformity process through which air quality and transportation planning were formally linked.

Question 10

Cranston-Gonzalez National Affording Housing Act (1990)

Answer 10

This housing legislation established two of HUD’s most important homeownership and affordable housing programs, HOME and HOPE. The legislation also increased support for homelessness programs that had been established several years earlier in the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act.

Question 11

Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (1991)

Answer 11

The passage of ISTEA revolutionized federal transportation policy by empowering local communities in transportation planning, bolstering support for transit, establishing the Transportation Enhancements program, and providing for new levels of flexibility and certainly in planning and investments. ISTEA opened the door for a new range of non-highway transportation investments across the United States.

Question 12

Washington Growth Management Act (1991)

Answer 12

Washington’s Growth Management Act is in many ways a historical bridge between the trailblazing work in states like Oregon, Florida, Vermont and California and a later generation of smart growth initiatives in Maryland, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and elsewhere. Although no without its critics, the Washington law set a high standard for state-mandated planning with detailed required plan elements. The law also put in place the extensive use of urban growth areas in the state.

Question 13

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1993)

Answer 13

This year-end appropriations vehicle formally established and funded HUD’s Enterprise Zone and Empowerment Community program. These programs designated specific distressed neighborhoods for a package of tax incentives designed to open new businesses, provide thousands of new jobs, rehab and build new housing and change lives in urban and rural areas.

Question 14

California Community Redevelopment Law Reform Act (1993)

Answer 14

California’s original Community Redevelopment law is widely considered the first to authorize the use of tax increment financing and was a model for redevelopment statutes in many other states. Again helping lead the way nationally, California updated this law in the early 1990’s in an effort to modernize and improve equity and fairness standards in the redevelopment process.

Question 15

Minnesota Metropolitan Reorganization act (1994) / Community Based Planning Act (1997)

Answer 15

Any discussion of regional planning in the United States includes prominent mention of Minnesota’s Metropolitan Council. The state enhanced its regional planning legacy in the late 1990’s by adopting legislation aimed at establishing a planning process specific to communities, an alternative dispute resolution process, growth boundaries and state funding for planning.

Question 16

Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (1995)

Answer 16

TEA-21 built on the legacy of ISTEA by preserving the earlier law’s fundamental reforms. TEA-21 also sought to improve the linkage between land use and transportation planning through the TCSP program. TEA-21 also provided record levels of guaranteed federal transportation resources.

Question 17

Pennsylvania Land Recycling Act (1995)

Answer 17

Pennsylvania became the nation’s leader in the redevelopment of brownfield sites largely based on the Land Recycling Act adopted in the mid-1990’s. The law was the nation’s first to provide a state framework for voluntary clean-up and set a standard for addressing some liability and remediation issues that was later mimicked by other states. When the federal brownfields reforms law was passed in 2001, President Bush signed the bill in Pennsylvania in recognition of the leadership role played by the state.

Question 18

Maryland Smart Growth Act (1997)

Answer 18

Along with Oregon’s state planning statue passed a generation earlier, Maryland’s Smart Growth Ace remains the nation’s most widely known and debated planning laws. The Maryland legislation was instrumental in touching off a nationwide focus on planning laws and added “smart growth” to the nation’s lexicon. The law used an incentive-based system linking state funding to the identification of priority growth areas.

Question 19

Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (1998)

Answer 19

This legislation formally established the HOPE IV program to demolish blighted public housing projects and to replace them with new, mixed-home neighborhoods. The program has been at the hearts of transformation of public housing in many communities across the nation.

Question 20

California Transportation Funding Suballocation (1998)

Answer 20

In 1998, California took the bold step of mandating that a variety of transportation funding be suballocated directly to metropolitan areas, instead of being controlled by the state DOT. The California law helped established many of the state’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations as national leaders in dealing with clean air and flexing federal dollars from highways into transit. California continues to held up as a model of how to improve federal transportation programs, such as the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program.

Question 21

Tennessee P.L. 1101 “Comprehensive Growth Policy Act” (1998)

Answer 21

While other states may have adopted more innovative or aggressive statewide growth legislation, Tennessee’s Comprehensive Growth Policy Act remains significant. The adoption of the law in 1998 marked the emergence of smart growth as a major issue in the South and helped spur states throughout the region as well as in the West and Midwest to debate similar issues. In addition, the Tennessee statue and the legislation battle that prece3ded it helped identify ways to deal with strong traditions of local control and entrenched agricultural interests. The law also took a progressive approach to mandating local planning with state review and assistance.

Question 22

Georgia Regional Transportation Authority – S.B. 57 (1999)

Answer 22

Facing crippling congestion, air quality problems, and environmental lawsuits, the Georgia legislation took bold action in 1999 to address metropolitan Atlanta’s transportation problems and poorly planned development. The board was given sweeping powers, including the ability to approve local land transportation plans in the region, and for use of federal or state funds for transportation projects associated with major developments such as large subdivisions or commercial buildings, that affect the transportation system. Although implementation has been less than advocates originally hoped, the legislation remains an important model.

Question 23

Disaster Mitigation Act (2000)

Answer 23

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 overhauled federal programs for disaster relief and prevention. One of the most important features of the new law was the creation of a new incentive for communities to formally adopt a plan for hazard mitigation.

Question 24

Religious Land use and Institutionalized persons Act (2000)

Answer 24

RLUIPA marks the federal government’s most significant foray into local land use decision-making. RLUIPA sought to address the problem of discrimination against religious organization by local governments. The bill provided special protections for religious land uses and placed new burdens on local governments seeking to regulate those uses. The full impact of RLUIPA is still unknown with the scope of law being determined through numerous litigation across the nation.

Question 25

Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfield Revitalization Act (2001)

Answer 25

After more than a decade of debate, Congress in 2001 finally approved a set of reforms designed to promote the remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites. The law removed a variety of liability barriers that had long stalled the development of brownfields that plague many urban and suburban area. Additionally, the law authorized record levels of federal support for helping in the identification and cleanup of these critical sites.