Sherwood Boehlert: “Mr. Chairman, the supporters of this bill keep claiming that the bill is different this year, but those differences are…”

“Mr. Chairman, the supporters of this bill keep claiming that the bill is different this year, but those differences are more apparent than real and some of them change the bill for the worse. None of the language about appeals at the local level means anything, because the threat of Federal courts will still loom behind them. The appeal process will not encourage a developer to negotiate, as current rules do, because the developer will know that he can just bide his time and then threaten to take the municipality to Federal court. Under the bill, the developer can simply submit the exact same proposal three times, remain intransigent, evade all the existing local and State forums, and threaten to go to Federal court. I urge my colleagues not to be fooled by the procedural scaffolding that has been added to hide the real intent and impact of this bill. There is a fundamental principle guiding our actions, and that fundamental principle is simply this: local zoning matters should be the purview of local government.”