Nearly a year ago, former Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar pleaded guilty to racketeering and tax evasion, admitting that he took over $1.5 million in bribes during his tenure. As representative for the rapidly gentrifying Boyle Heights neighborhood and Downtown Los Angeles, Huizar used his office to shape urban development in line with the interests of corrupt real estate investors. Throughout his seven years as Chair of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, he vouched for developers who paid him bribes, received kickbacks in exchange for favorable votes, and even negotiated with labor unions who threatened to block projects from which he stood to benefit financially. The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California called the Huizar saga one of the most “wide-ranging and brazen public corruption cases” in the city’s history.

Local-level land use decisions are frequently rife with corruption, even in developed countries such as the United States. The elaborate web of regulations that govern zoning and urban planning practices, combined with relatively weak ethical standards for municipal lawmakers, encourage powerful investors to run afoul of the law. The Huizar case stands out as but one glaring example of the corruption that inhabits the world of variances, special use permits, and environmental impact reviews. Faced with mountains of paperwork and political uncertainty, real estate developers are drawn to corruption’s easy fix. Public officials such as Huizar are well-positioned to offer simple and efficient permitting in engage for generous campaign contributions and personal gifts.

While prosecuting corrupt officials like Huizar is necessary, addressing the root causes of this sort of corruption requires significant structural reforms. Three such reforms are particularly important: a reduction in the discretionary authority of political decision-makers in specific land use decisions, the abolition of councilmanic privilege, and the adoption of a universal municipal code of ethics for local lawmakers.

• First, it is imperative that state and local governments expand the range of land use decisions that can be made without political interference. Decisions about whether to “re-zone” property almost always require deliberation by city committees. In gentrifying urban neighborhoods like the Eastside of Los Angeles, much new development requires that a legislative body “up-zone” the parcel. These types of decisions are often contentious, and their relative obscurity opens the door to shady backroom dealings, as was true in Huizar’s case. Minimizing the discretion of local elected officials can be accomplished in several ways. State governments could use their constitutional authority to limit local legislative control over land use matters. (California, for instance, has taken steps to streamline certain aspects of the permitting and licensing process for affordable housing projects.) The state could further preempt local governments’ discretionary authority by restricting their ability to deny permits for so-called “infill projects” in dense urban areas. If it so decided, California could eliminate zoning altogether, or impose a rule that makes all up-zoning presumptively permissible. If it becomes harder for individual local councilmembers to block a proposal, bribery may be less alluring. There are also ways that states can reign in the corruption of municipal legislative bodies without directly curtailing local power. Massachusetts, for example, has a procedural mechanism that allows for flexible implementation of zoning laws to certain affordable housing developments, which provides a streamlined appeal process before a specialized independent state judicial body. Creating a judicial body that oversees local government land use decisions may be a worthwhile compromise, as it preserves some municipal discretion while providing an opportunity for efficient, impartial review. Developers may be deterred from paying bribes if state judges help minimize delays and uncertainty in local land use decisions.
• Second, cities should abolish “councilmanic privilege,” a practice by which the City Council defers to each Member on all land use matters within that Member’s district, rather than engaging in genuine collective decision-making. This practice facilitates corruption by giving individual councilmembers carte blanche to impose their personal preferences in land use decisions. Los Angeles is not alone in having this system. Chicago has “aldermanic prerogative,” most famously asserted by Alderman Ed Burke, who was indicted on bribery charges in 2019. A University of Chicago study cited “real estate issues” related to aldermanic prerogative as among the most common sources of public corruption convictions. Mayor Lori Lightfoot attempted to curb this practice, with limited success. Philadelphia has the “councilmanic prerogative,” and New York’s Tammany Hall was an early example of a clientelist political “machine” where turf-based city politics bred systemic corruption. Some argue that councilmanic privilege—which operates as a type of “gentleman’s agreement” rather than as a legal right—makes for a more responsive local government. But any bolstering of democratic legitimacy is outweighed by the ease with which the city councilmembers’ unchecked authority over zoning, land use, and planning decisions facilitates corruption. If each individual city council district had its own panel of impartial administrators that made land use decisions, perhaps councilmanic privilege could be allowed to stand. But in the absence of such a system, giving one elected politician de facto control over such important decisions invites the sort of unchecked corruption that has been exposed in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
• Third, it is imperative that U.S. cities work to establish uniform rules governing municipal ethics. In cases of especially brazen and extensive corruption, such as those of Councilman Huizar and Alderman Burke, prosecutors have been able to build convincing criminal cases given the mountains of evidence at their disposal. Yet corruption is often harder to catch; clear and convincing evidence of an express quid pro quo arrangement is often lacking. Therefore, prophylactic ethics rules that prevent opportunities for corruption are just as important as criminal prosecution of corrupt actors. One possible approach would be to systematically prohibit real estate developers from involvement in local politics by restricting their ability to make campaign contributions. As it stands, there is nothing that prohibits real estate investors and developers from cozying up to elected officials in the lead up to the development of a particular project. At a minimum, these individuals should be prohibited from making any gifts to city officials. No city should allow its elected representatives to have any type of pecuniary relationship with parties that have a direct financial stake in urban development policy. While many municipal codes of ethics prohibit elected officers from accepting gifts from parties who have a case pending before a city tribunal, a blanket restriction on real estate developers (regardless of whether they have an active case) –– in line with the prohibition on gifts by lobbyists and city contractors –– would be more effective and easier to administer. Beefing up ethics rules may deter city councilmembers from maintaining any type of relationship with real estate developers to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.