A Final Note on The Misuse of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions for Legislative and Judicial Responses

The Baker criticism of my article is flawed in several major respects. First, while tacitly accepting the basic premise of the article that impermissible exclusion may be achieved by local misuse of a wide variety of facially permissible land use control tools, Ms. Baker argues that merely because the article did not demonstrate a sufficient degree of misuse in Maine, the corrective measures suggested are unwarranted. But a full reading of the article makes clear that no such exhaustive indictment of Maine towns was intended. The article was not an empirical study. The article intended to point out a widening variety of ways in which local land use control powers are capable of being abused. In so doing, it cited numerous case examples both within and out of Maine evidencing that impermissible exclusion is not merely a theoretical possibility but an all too unfortunate reality in many parts of the country, including Maine.