Improving Compliance with Regulations: Choices and Outcomes for Local Government

Abstract

Several recent reviews of development and environmental management programs have found shortfalls in compliance. In this article, we examine the critical choices planning administrators must make to improve compliance. We also offer suggestions about what they can do to ensure that contractors, builders, and developers follow the regulations once they have been adopted. Using data collected from a national sample of cities and counties, we find that improving compliance is not simply a matter of enhancing the capacity to detect and correct violations. We show that it also entails steps to increase the willingness of the private sector to comply with regulations voluntarily. Such steps include making greater use of incentives and employing techniques to facilitate compliance.