Bureaucratic incompetence in zoning harms our economy. Should taxpayers foot the bill?

Recently, Rio Grande Foundation helped discourage San Juan County from adopting zoning. We believe that Houston’s model is far superior and it is no accident that in a city (within a state) that lacks overweening government regulations, Houston has one of the strongest economies of any city in the nation.

Compare that to the following zoning horror story from Albuquerque in which an incompetent (or 2 or 3) government bureaucrat who has no skin in the game and faces no real personal cost for some terrible decisions, has put a local man out hundreds of thousands of dollars. As much as I hate as a taxpayer for us to have to cover for this egregious mistake, it would seem to be the least we could do to make this right (Kudos to KRQE 13 for the excellent reporting):