How Dick Babcock '40 Played the zoning game

In the beginning it was called "Vermont zoning." You bought several acres and hoped for the best. Then in 1926 the U.S. Supreme Court held that zoning was constitutional. A few years later first-year law student Dick Babcock '40 became interested in the vagaries of this minor legal specialty, land-use law, as it was then being practiced.

Some 40 years later Planning Magazine, the official publication of the American Planning Association, saluted Dick in its August 'B7 issue—from which this brief is derived.

"Troubadour Babcock" went the title, "Storyteller par excellence, lan use lawyer Richard Babcock continues to spread zoning's word."

Dick never lost sight of land-use law as he pursued his career, going from a large Chicago law firm to his own partnership to politics and finally to Ross & Hardies, with whom he spent the next 30 years. His ideas and beliefs exploded in his first book, "The Zoning Game," published in 1966.

"In this volume," writes Planning, "and the three that came after it, Babcock chipped away at the legal mumbo-jumbo to get at the real motives for zoning decisions. In the process he helped put a fledgling legal specialty on the map and nurtured a flock of eager disciples. He made his firm s land-use practice a model for others."

But it wasn't all writing. He enjoyed courtroom battles, both for developers and for municipalities-thinking it a mistake only to represent one or the other. , .

Drafting ordinances that stand up is another pleasure of Dick's, in particular the work he did for New Jersey's Pinelands Commission.

Although he retired in 1982, Dick still spreads the zoning word in his speeches and his teaching—he's been a visiting professor at Dartmouth, University of Vermont, Duke, Florida State. And there's a new book in the works.

If you'd like a photocopy of the complete article from Planning, write to them at 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637