New Development Legislation Aims To Create Better Balance Between Developers And Governments

A new bill designed to put more burden of proof on the developer could be more costly for developers.

Putnam Regional Planning Director Kevin Rush said the bill prohibits regional and municipal planning commissions from requiring certain things from developers as conditions of approval. He said he believes the intent of the bill that went into effect in July of last year was to create a more balanced relationship between developers and governmental entities.

“If a developer were to be planning a large subdivision for example,” Rush said. “And a county government were to say we want you to build a senior center on the other side of the county, there’s no rational basis for his development to be tied to that requirement to do a senior center. I think the code was amended to reflect that if we require a developer to do something, there has to be proper justification.”

Rush said the challenge becomes proving it. He said that includes requiring an essential connection between what a developer is required to do and development needs, and a rough proportionality of what the developer is required to do. Rush said it is difficult to prove what exactly is “roughly proportional.”

Rush said the planning commission is looking at adding new requirements in hopes of adding that proof of what is proportional. For example, said they are considering requiring a traffic study for large developments to show evidence that a sidewalk is needed or a road needs to be widened.

“The changes that we’re having to make are not things the planning commission necessarily wanted to do but our hands are tied right now,” Rush said. “Basically, for example, if a road will not support development on it, we cannot require a developer to upgrade a road and they cannot allow a developer to volunteer to upgrade a road. We have to have some kind of documentation to show what is required and what is not. So for certain developments, our hands are tied with what we can and cannot do with the way the law is right now.”