Land use controls are the limits on what an owner may do with land: public ones from the government’s four powers, zoning included, private ones from deed restrictions, CC&Rs and association rules. It is the smallest of the ten national sections on this site: Pearson VUE gives it 3 of 80 scored questions and PSI 5% of its national portion.
Updated Oct 24, 2026 · Not affiliated with any state commission or test provider.
3of 80 scored, Pearson VUE
5%of the PSI national portion
12questions on this page
The four government powers
Every public control traces back to one of four powers, memorized as PETE:
Police power: regulation for health, safety and welfare. Zoning, building codes and subdivision rules. The owner keeps the land and is not paid.
Eminent domain: the government takes private property for public use and pays just compensation, as the Fifth Amendment requires. The legal action is condemnation. When the government takes or ruins property without filing one, the owner sues for inverse condemnation.
Taxation: property taxes and special assessments, which become liens ahead of other liens.
Escheat: property of an owner who dies without a will and without heirs goes to the state. For real property, the state where the land lies.
The question to ask on each item: does the owner lose title (eminent domain, escheat, a tax sale) or only some of the uses (police power)?
12 land use questions
0 of 12 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A city amends its zoning ordinance to prohibit all commercial billboards. Existing billboards are permitted to remain but must be removed within five years. Which of the following legal concepts BEST describes this municipality's action?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: Eminent domain takes title with compensation; the city is regulating use, not acquiring the signs.
Incorrect: Exclusionary zoning keeps out groups of residents, such as through large-lot rules, not billboards.
Incorrect: A conditional use permit allows a listed use on conditions; this ordinance phases a use out.
Correct: Letting existing billboards stay for a set period before they must come down is amortization of a nonconforming use.
Incorrect: Deed restrictions are private covenants in deeds; a zoning amendment is public regulation.
Question 2 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A local government constructs a new public dam to create a municipal reservoir. After completion, the normal operation permanently floods ten acres of a privately owned farm upstream, rendering that land entirely unusable. Which legal action is most appropriate for the landowner to pursue?
Answer and explanations
Correct: Permanent flooding by a government project is a physical taking without formal condemnation, so the owner sues in inverse condemnation for just compensation.
Incorrect: Quiet title settles ownership disputes; the owner's title is not in question.
Incorrect: A variance relaxes zoning rules; it cannot make flooded land farmable or pay for the loss.
Incorrect: There is no contract to enforce, so specific performance does not fit.
Incorrect: Rezoning to commercial does nothing for land that is under water.
Question 3 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A coastal city enacts a regulation prohibiting all new construction within 100 feet of the shoreline to protect against erosion. An owner's beachfront lot is entirely within the 100-foot zone, and the regulation eliminates any economically viable use of the property. The city did not initiate formal condemnation proceedings. Which legal remedy is MOST appropriate for the owner?
Answer and explanations
Correct: A regulation that wipes out all economically viable use is a taking, and without formal condemnation the owner sues in inverse condemnation for compensation.
Incorrect: A variance from the city could allow limited building, but it does not compensate for the taking the owner already suffered.
Incorrect: Public nuisance is a claim against harmful conduct, not against a regulation that takes value.
Incorrect: Rezoning for non-construction uses leaves the owner without the economic use the rule destroyed.
Question 4 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A city intends to build a new public library and needs a privately owned vacant lot. The city initiates a formal legal proceeding to acquire title to the lot, paying the owner fair market value. This government action is BEST described as:
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: Inverse condemnation is the owner's suit when the government takes without starting proceedings; here the city did start them.
Correct: A government taking private land for a public use in a formal proceeding, paying fair value, is eminent domain.
Incorrect: Escheat transfers land to the state when an owner dies without heirs, which is not this case.
Incorrect: Police power regulates use without paying; this city is acquiring title and paying for it.
Incorrect: Dedication is an owner's voluntary gift of land to public use, not a forced purchase.
Question 5 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A homeowner wishes to operate a small daycare center in a neighborhood zoned exclusively for residential use. The zoning ordinance allows daycare facilities in this zone if specific parking and noise conditions are met. To legally operate the daycare, the homeowner should apply for:
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: A map amendment rezones land, which is unnecessary when the use is permitted by permit.
Incorrect: Spot zoning is an improper rezoning of one parcel, not something an owner applies for.
Incorrect: A nonconforming use certificate covers uses that existed before the zoning changed, not a new daycare.
Incorrect: A variance relieves a hardship from dimensional rules; daycare is a use the code already allows with conditions.
Correct: When the ordinance already lists the use as allowed on conditions, the owner applies for a conditional-use permit.
Question 6 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A city council rezones a single, small parcel of land from residential to commercial to allow a council member's friend to build a gas station. The surrounding area remains entirely residential. This zoning action is highly vulnerable to a legal challenge because it:
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: A regulatory taking concerns loss of value to an owner; this rezoning helps the owner rather than taking anything.
Incorrect: Exhaustion of remedies limits when a challenger can sue; it does not make the rezoning itself invalid.
Correct: Rezoning one small parcel against the surrounding plan to benefit a particular person is spot zoning, which courts strike down as arbitrary.
Incorrect: An environmental impact statement is not the defect described; the problem is the favoritism and inconsistency with the plan.
Incorrect: There is no federal constitutional rule against rapid downzoning, and this was an upzoning.
Question 7 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A developer proposes a planned unit development (PUD) with mixed residential and commercial uses, reducing minimum lot sizes in exchange for dedicating 30% of the site as public open space. Which statement regarding approval of this PUD is most accurate?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: A PUD approved under the ordinance's own procedures is planned flexibility, not spot zoning.
Incorrect: PUDs adjust density and lot rules as part of one approval, not lot by lot through variances.
Correct: PUD rules let a planning body approve a whole development with flexible lot sizes and mixed uses when the plan gives benefits such as open space.
Incorrect: Smaller lots are the point of a PUD; its provisions are designed to waive the standard minimums.
Incorrect: Conditional-use permits do not override zoning, and PUD approval is a discretionary review, not automatic.
Question 8 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A property owner subdivides a large lot into two smaller parcels, leaving one parcel with a street frontage that is narrower than the local zoning minimum. The owner applies for a variance. What is the strongest legal justification for denying it?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: Spot zoning is about rezoning a parcel; this is a variance request.
Correct: The owner created the narrow lot by choosing to subdivide, and a self-created hardship is not grounds for a variance.
Incorrect: Vacant lots can receive variances; the issue is who caused the hardship.
Incorrect: Nothing here is a nonconforming use; the lot was created after the rule existed.
Incorrect: A special permit is not a prerequisite here, and the denial rests on the hardship, not on exhaustion.
Question 9 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
An individual legally domiciled in State A dies intestate with absolutely no living heirs. The decedent owned a primary residence in State A and a vacation home in State B. Under the doctrine of escheat, which government entity claims ownership of the vacation home?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: There is no interstate probate court; each state handles land within its borders.
Incorrect: Escheat runs to a state, not to the federal government.
Incorrect: The county is not the escheat recipient for land; the state is.
Incorrect: State A takes personal property and the home located there, but not land in another state.
Correct: Real property is governed by the law of the state where it sits, so the vacation home escheats to State B.
Question 10 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A municipality designates farmland as 'sending areas' and urban zones as 'receiving areas,' allowing developers to purchase development rights from farmland owners to obtain density bonuses in the urban core. Which of the following best describes this mechanism?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: A conditional-use permit approves a use on conditions; it does not move development rights between parcels.
Incorrect: A nonconforming use is a use that predates zoning, not a farmland preservation tool.
Incorrect: No hardship relief is granted to the farmland owners, so this is not a variance.
Incorrect: Developers buy the rights voluntarily; the government does not take them by eminent domain.
Correct: Selling development potential from sending areas to boost density in receiving areas is a transfer of development rights (TDR) program.
Question 11 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A city conditions a building permit for a commercial development on the dedication of a portion of the property for a public park to serve the increased population. The developer challenges the condition as an unconstitutional exaction. Which constitutional test applies?
Answer and explanations
Correct: Exactions are tested by the Nollan essential-nexus and Dolan rough-proportionality standards.
Incorrect: Intermediate scrutiny applies to some classification cases, not land-use exactions.
Incorrect: Ordinary economic regulation gets rational-basis review, but a land dedication demand gets the tougher exaction test.
Incorrect: Strict scrutiny is for fundamental rights and suspect classes, not permit conditions.
Incorrect: Public use is the question in eminent domain, not in a permit condition.
Question 12 of 12 · Land use controls · 3 items
A state law requires coastal property owners to allow public pedestrian access along a fixed path across their beachfront at all times. An owner challenges this law. What is the most likely legal classification?
Answer and explanations
Incorrect: A valid public purpose does not avoid paying compensation for a physical occupation.
Incorrect: The access is required at all times by law, so it is permanent, not temporary.
Incorrect: The rule does more than restrict use: it lets the public physically occupy a path, which is treated as a physical taking.
Correct: A permanent right of the public to cross private land is a physical occupation, which is a taking that requires compensation.
Incorrect: Being able to use the rest of the lot does not matter when the government imposes a permanent physical occupation.
Answer every question to see your score
Zoning terms in the outlines
Nonconforming use: a use that was legal before the rezoning and may continue (“grandfathered”), often with limits on expansion or rebuilding, or with a deadline (amortization).
Variance: permission to deviate from the ordinance, such as a setback, because strict application causes a hardship tied to the land. A hardship the owner created does not qualify.
Conditional (special) use permit: a use the ordinance allows in the zone only after a review, such as a church or a school in a residential zone.
Spot zoning: rezoning one small parcel out of step with the area, for the benefit of one owner. Courts often strike it down as arbitrary.
Planned unit development (PUD) and buffer zones: mixed or clustered uses under one plan; a strip such as a park between residential and commercial zones.
A master (comprehensive) plan guides zoning; building codes set construction standards and are enforced through permits and inspections.
Private restrictions can be stricter than zoning
When zoning and a deed restriction or CC&R disagree, the more restrictive rule applies. Zoning may allow a duplex, but a subdivision covenant limiting lots to one single-family home still binds the owner. Covenants are enforced by other owners or the association through a court injunction, not by the zoning office.
Private controls
Deed restrictions, subdivision CC&Rs and condominium or owners’ association bylaws limit use by agreement; a buyer is bound by the ones recorded against the property. PSI lists all three by name in its outline (area II.C). Easements, licenses and encroachments, which Pearson VUE files in the same area, are explained once on property ownership.
The Florida broker exam sends its zoning and planning area here too: 1% of that exam.
Public controls: police power (zoning, building codes, subdivision rules), eminent domain, taxation and escheat. Private controls: deed restrictions, CC&Rs and association rules.
Is zoning police power or eminent domain?
Police power. Zoning limits use without taking title, so the owner is not compensated; eminent domain takes title and requires just compensation.
How many national questions are on land use controls?
Pearson VUE: 3 of 80 scored questions. PSI: 5% of the national portion.