I was listening to the radio a few days ago to a news story about a Federal Judge ruling on a decision to allow a pipeline through a Native American Reservation. A group of Sioux tribes were trying to stop a TransCanada gas pipe line from going through their land. The Federal Judge ruled against the tribes allow construction of the pipeline to continue. A brief mention of the story can be found here from the Grand Forks Herald.
This sparked my interest in how widespread comprehensive land use planning is used among Native American Tribes on their reservation. Why?
Well, I’m not a land use lawyer, I’m a planning student, but in a Land Use Law course I took, we learned about the case of Arlington Heights, IL vs MHDC. The case said that Arlington Heights violated the Fair Housing Act because it would not allow an affordable housing unit to be built. Arlington Hts defended that that specific type of use was not allowed in that location because the zoning code which has been in place long before the act did not allow it. The MHDC cried exclusionary zoning, Arlington Height said that discrimination wasn’t the intent of their zoning code. The lower courts agreed with the affordable housing developer, but when sent to the Supreme Court, the ruling ended in favor for Arlington Hts.
This gave me the idea that Native American tribes could use comprehensive planning as a way to protect future land use on the reservation from Federal incursion or use. I don’t know how land use law effects Native American reservations, but the case of Arlington Hts leads me to believe that a solid comprehensive plan can defend even federal acts for influencing land use decisions.
This isn’t gonna answer any of the opened ended questions you have, but I believe that tribes have the same access to federal grant funding that any city, state or MPO is eligible for.
I was reading a grant explanation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who, as part of ARRA, are going to distribute millions of dollars to health departments who will create programs that reduce obesity either through prevention (like education), or “making people move their bodies” (my paraphrase).
The document described who was eligible: cities over one million, cities between one and half million, cities under half million, and tribes. So, bottom line: the federal government will grant tribes money to plan.