Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
I realize that this would not impact construction but would instead impact entitlements. However, in this town anything can happen before you have that building permit in hand. It's not unheard of for Aldermen to yank previously approved zoning if they don't like something about the project.
|
This is usually very shaky legal ground and even most of the Socialist aldermen are not dumb enough to do it.
Remember, despite the tradition of aldermanic prerogative it still takes a vote of City Council to revoke a zoning change, and if a move is legally questionable then often the other aldermen will not play ball - the Zoning chair may refuse to put the revocation on the agenda, for example. They don't want to waste taxpayer money fighting a pointless court battle.
Still, sometimes an alderman will use the threat of revocation as leverage against a developer. They also put in sunset clauses on most zoning amendments, so they can use the renewal of zoning as leverage as well.