Abstract City councils, mayors, and other local elected officials are consumed by questions of how much development to allow, where that development should occur, and what type of development it should be. In fact, managing and planning for growth are a large part of what local politicians do (Babcock, R. F. and C. L. Sieman (1985) The zoning Game Revisited . Boston: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain.). Many planning and growth management decisions, however, are not made by politicians; instead they are made by unelected planning commissions and professional planning staff (Beito, D. B., P. Gordon and A. Tabarock (2002) The voluntary city; Choice, community, and civil society . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.). Planning commissioners are asked to play two different roles. In the first they assist in developing formal planning documents, and ordinances. In the second role they act as quasi-judicial officials who determine if proposals are consistent with general plans and ordinances. In this study we seek to understand what drives planning commissioners’ quasi-judicial decisions. We begin by assuming that commissioners are driven by three factors, either in combination or individually: staff recommendations, planning commissioners’ own opinions, and public input (Nelson, R. H. (1977) Zoning and Property Rights . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Babcock, R. F. and C. L. Sieman (1985) The zoning Game Revisited . Boston: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain). To explore how these factors influence the decision making process we conduct a quantitative case study of decisions by the Ventura, CA planning commission and draw conclusions for other municipalities.
