Opinion ID: 1201899
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legal Contract Zoning

Text: The foregoing analysis implies that one form of contract zoning is legal: a unilateral contract in which a party makes a promise in return for a municipality's act of rezoning. In this situation, the municipality makes no promise and there is no enforceable contract until the municipality acts to rezone the property. See 1 Corbin, supra, § 21, at 54. Because the municipality does not commit itself to any specified action before the zoning hearing, it does not circumvent statutory procedures or compromise the rights of affected persons. Cf. Kennedy, supra, at 837 (in a unilateral contract to zone, municipality makes no binding promise and there is no abrogation of the police power). Some courts have nonetheless condemned this form of contract zoning on the ground that the contracting party's promise provides improper motivation for the municipality's rezoning action. See, e.g., City of Knoxville v. Ambrister, 196 Tenn. 1, 263 S.W.2d 528, 530 (1953); see also Wegner, supra, at 979 n. 122 (The distinction between bilateral and unilateral agreements seems problematic on policy grounds, however, because even unilateral agreements can serve as an incentive to government action.). We do not find this reasoning persuasive. Private interests are inherent in any zoning matter; therefore, it is disingenuous to condemn a method of zoning because it benefits private interests in some way. Moreover, any potential misconduct that might occur through unilateral contract zoning may be corrected through judicial review if the action of the zoning authority is improper. See Singleterry v. City of Albuquerque, 96 N.M. 468, 472, 632 P.2d 345, 349 (1981) (reviewing court upholds decision of zoning authority if not fraudulent, arbitrary, or capricious); see also Kennedy, supra, at 834.