Oliver Wendall Holms once said "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." So too is the case with our land. In America, we often tout our history of private property rights, that a "man's home is his castle." Yet, our property rights have never been absolute. Our right to use our land in a way we see fit only exists to the extent that our use doesn't harm our neighbor's land. In the past, when most people lived on large farms, this wasn't so important. But even then, courts recognized the need to balance between competing property interests. If a smelting company damaged the trees of another, they must pay. If a farmer built a reservoir that caused flooding on another property, they must pay. Because of the distance between neighbors, it was possible for lawsuits to address the competing property rights.
However, as towns and cities grew, our neighbors became closer and more numerous. Lawsuits could not address all of the problems of competing land interests. Tulsa early on recognized the need for government to lay out restrictions on property for the good of the community. Thus in 1906, twenty years before zoning was accepted by the Supreme Court, the city prohibited drilling within the city limits. Such a step recognized that, while it may have deprived some of a property right, it ensured the ability of others to use and enjoy their land. Later, like most of the United States, Tulsa took this a step further by adopting a zoning code. This laid out broad restrictions on our land, regulating uses to certain areas in an attempt to ensure the value of all land. Zoning laws are based on an idea of reciprocity—we all give up a bit of our rights because we recognized the benefit we all achieve. For decades, Tulsans have lived with zoning laws that restrict our property right, yet are designed to enhance the value of our land.
Any time there is a change in zoning laws proposed, you always hear a few who decry that the change would "infringe on my property rights." It reminds me of my kids at the pool, when a summer shower once broke out. My youngest started yelling, "Hurry, we have to go in before we get wet." In a sense, we are already wet—as long as we have zoning laws, our property rights have already been infringed upon. Changes to the zoning laws will affect what you can and can't do with your property. But the idea that somehow the city can never change zoning laws, or that the property rights that you have right now are immutable, is silly. To move forward as a city, we must be able to adapt in our approach to land use, making changes to address new problems and new opportunities. After all, it wasn't until oil was discovered that the city needed to restrict drilling. And the Supreme Court has made clear that cities have the right to regulate land as they see fit, just so long as it isn't arbitrary and doesn't deprive a property owner of all viable economic use. That of course doesn't mean we shouldn't debate the merits of any zoning code change. No one wants to pass an ordinance that hampers growth or harms neighborhoods, so we must always listen to the pros and cons of a zoning code change. But, when someone says we can't change a zoning code because it "infringes on my property rights," we should recognize the argument for what it is—nothing but a red herring.
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