Land Use Controls term

Police Power

The government's authority to regulate land use to protect public health, safety, and welfare.

Why Police Power matters on the exam

This term belongs to Land Use Controls. The questions below are real items from Freehold's bank that use it - each one cites its source.

Exam questions using Police Power

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Local governments derive the authority to enact zoning ordinances from which government power?

  1. Eminent domain
  2. Escheat
  3. Police power
  4. The power of taxation
Show answer & explanation

Police power — Police power is the government's authority to regulate land use to protect public health, safety, and welfare. Zoning, building codes, and subdivision regulations all rest on this power, and no compensation is owed.

Source: PSI National Real Estate Exam Content Outline §2 Land Use Controls

Building codes, health codes, and zoning ordinances are all examples of government regulation authorized under the:

  1. Police power
  2. Power of eminent domain
  3. Power of escheat
  4. Doctrine of adverse possession
Show answer & explanation

Police power — Police power lets government regulate private property to protect public health, safety, and welfare, and it is the constitutional basis for zoning, building codes, and health regulations.

Source: PSI National Real Estate Exam Content Outline §2 Land Use Controls

A land-use regulation that goes so far in restricting an owner's use of property that it deprives the land of all economically beneficial use may be considered:

  1. Automatically valid because police power regulations never require compensation
  2. A regulatory taking requiring just compensation, even though enacted under the police power
  3. A form of adverse possession by the government
  4. Enforceable only against nonconforming uses
Show answer & explanation

A regulatory taking requiring just compensation, even though enacted under the police power — Although police power regulations ordinarily require no compensation, courts have held that a regulation depriving land of all economically beneficial use can become a taking, as in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council.

Source: PSI National Real Estate Exam Content Outline §2 Land Use Controls

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