The South Carolina House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would allow hog farms next door to subdivisions, 10-story hotels on Sullivan's Island, and invite industrial facilities into our neighborhoods. The bill that has now moved to the Senate would take away one of our major weapons in fighting sprawl. All of this in the name of protecting property rights when in actuality it will have a devastating impact on property values statewide.

House Bill 4503 would require county and municipal governments to pay landowners if the zoning decisions they make prevent landowners from obtaining the full speculative value of their property. Thus, if a coastal community zoned to prevent 10-story hotels or other communities zoned to prevent industrial facilities or hog farms next to homes, they would have to pay off the developers using our tax dollars.

The South Carolina real estate lobby heralds H4503 as protecting the rights of landowners, but it does just the opposite by preventing the vast majority of South Carolina landowners from protecting the value of their homes from incompatible and unwanted adjacent uses. If the bill is enacted into law, municipalities and counties simply could not risk undertaking zoning and other land-use controls that might make them liable for millions of dollars in speculative development value. H4503 would even make the local governments liable for the developers' attorney fees and litigation costs in bringing the compensation lawsuits.

Ironically, zoning spread rapidly beginning in the 1920s and has remained in continued, widespread use for the very purpose of protecting landowners' property values as well as the community's quality of life. The added value that zoning brings to the vast majority of landowners is not recoverable under state law in a lawsuit by the local jurisdiction. Nor should it be. But surely the reverse should not be enacted into law that developers are allowed to collect millions in taxpayer dollars because they are denied an incompatible use.

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Local government is a core component of our democracy and much of what it deals with involves land use. When environmental legislation of almost every type passed the U.S. Congress in the 1970s, the one notable exception was in the land-use area. Such legislation was proposed, but failed because of the overwhelming sentiment that land use should remain in the hands of local government. The S.C. House bill would take away this local authority and place land-use decisions in the hands of any individual who cares to operate completely at odds with the will of the community.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming local government's right to condemn property for economic revitalization has rightfully alarmed many policymakers. But the General Assembly shouldn't use that as an excuse to radically weaken our zoning laws. While it is doubtful that local governments even have this right of condemnation in South Carolina, just to make sure, the General Assembly is passing legislation to guarantee it. This legislation has nothing to do with H4503's speculative compensation requirement that would essentially end zoning and land-use regulation.

The proponents of H4503 claim it is a "takings bill" that protects against the takings of private property. In fact, it is a "takings bill" only in the sense that it takes away the authority of our democratically elected local officials to protect the rights of the vast majority of landowners.

Only one other state in the country, Oregon, has passed this radical compensation law. In their eagerness to adopt this special interest legislation, the South Carolina proponents of H4503 included certain language that was peculiarly applicable to Oregon. Meanwhile, an article by Portland's daily newspaper states, "Three months into Measure 37 (Oregon's compensation law), people on both sides of the new property rights law agree on one thing: Oregon is a state in chaos." South Carolina would be best served by the Senate rejecting the House bill and sticking with the approach of the other 48 states.

While there are many of us who sometimes lack faith in our local government leaders, ask yourself if you'd rather have developers and real estate companies doing the planning for your community. Behemoth beach-front hotels and pig farms are lining up at the state's borders.