Newport Beach Threatens a “Red Light” to Property Rights with Greenlight II
Property Rights At Risk From Politics
The drafters of the Constitution of the United States adopted the Fifth Amendment protections against taking property without compensation out of a deep concern that popular political sentiments threatened the rights of individual property owners. The Greenlight Initiative in Newport Beach, California is a realization of that very concern.
The new initiative would put even more strenuous limitations on commercial and residential developments, requiring a successful election for anything other than the smallest of projects. The right to develop property consistent with existing land use regulations should not be subject of voter approval. Requiring an election to approve development would have the practical effect of making development impossible.
It is undoubtedly true that the supporters of the initiative are prompted by legitimate concerns about traffic congestion and other overburdened infrastructure, but the solution is not to deny the property rights of individual property owners, whose proposed projects would only make a tiny contribution to the existing uses. Ironically, these initiatives make the problems worse by depriving the local government sources of income that could be used to support additional infrastructure. More basically, it is just wrong to subject the right to develop property to a popular vote. These rights are in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution specifically to protect them against the tide of popular sentiment.