Comprehensive Planning - Legal Basis

Legal Basis

The basis for comprehensive planning comes from the government's ability to protect the health and welfare of its citizens. The power for local governments to plan generally comes from state planning enabling legislation; however, local governments in most states are not required by law to engage in comprehensive planning. State statutes usually provide the legal framework necessary for those communities choosing to participate while allowing others to disengage themselves with the process. The legal provision for comprehensive planning comes from what is called the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act which was written by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1920s. This act was never passed by the United States Congress but was rather a law written for state legislatures to willingly adopt. Many states did choose to adopt the act which provided local governments with the framework to engage in land use planning. Because the act never gave a clear definition for comprehensive planning, the Department of Commerce wrote another act, the Standard City Planning Enabling Act of 1928, which defined more precisely what a comprehensive plan is and how it should be used.

In states that do not require local governments to plan comprehensively, state governments usually provide many incentives to encourage the process at the local level. In Georgia, for example, the state government gives many incentives to local governments to establish comprehensive plans to guide development. Today, almost every county in Georgia has established a plan voluntarily.

However, a comprehensive plan is not usually legally binding. A community's ordinances must be amended in order to legally implement the provisions required to execute the comprehensive plan.