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Full-Text Articles in Law
Shifting Ground To Address Climate Change: The Land Use Law Solution, John R. Nolon
Shifting Ground To Address Climate Change: The Land Use Law Solution, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article conceives and describes a Land Use Stabilization Wedge: a strategy that aggregates these five wedges and further organizes strategic energies. This builds on Socolow’s optimistic assertion that “an excuse for inaction based on the world’s lack of technological readiness does not exist.” I assert that the existing legal authority of state and local governments to regulate and guide land use and building is a powerful “technology already deployed somewhere in the world.” The Land Use Stabilization Wedge aggregates several of Socolow’s initiatives and employs multiple mitigation techniques available to citizens in every locality in the country.
Zoning, Transportation, And Climate Change, John R. Nolon
Zoning, Transportation, And Climate Change, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
On February 2, 2006, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed the consensus of the scientific community that global warming is unequivocal and that its main driver is human activity. On April 7, 2007, the IPCC issued a second report detailing the likely consequences of climate change: widening droughts, more severe storm events, increased inland flooding, sea level rise, and consequent inundation of low lying lands. The Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University estimates that sea levels around New York City’s boroughs will increase by five inches by 2030, with some estimates predicting up to 12 inches …
Climate Change, Zoning And Transportation Planning: Urbanization As A Response To Carbon Loading, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher
Climate Change, Zoning And Transportation Planning: Urbanization As A Response To Carbon Loading, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article explores the relationship among zoning, transportation planning, and climate change. It discusses the relationship between land use densities and transportation choices, reviews the trend toward transit oriented development in higher density communities and transportation efficient development in lower density areas, presents several case studies where land use and transportation planning are beginning to intersect, and ends with a strategic approach for communities to consider.
Real Estate Law Review: Creating A Local Environmental Law Program, John R. Nolon
Real Estate Law Review: Creating A Local Environmental Law Program, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Local governments are adopting with increasing frequency local laws to facilitate low-impact development, ensure the construction of green buildings, and coordinate land use and transportation planning to lower greenhouse gas emissions. This builds on their progress over the past two decades in adopting an impressive number of local laws to protect natural resources. These include ordinances designed to protect trees, stands of timber, hillsides, viewsheds, ridgelines, stream beds, wetlands, watersheds, aquifers and water bodies, and wildlife habitat. At the same time, provisions designed to protect environmental features from the adverse impacts of development have been added to basic land use …
Katrina's Lament: Reconstructing Federalism, John R. Nolon
Katrina's Lament: Reconstructing Federalism, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The subject of stormwater management raises threshold questions about the federal system. Is the regulation of stormwater runoff and the environmental pollution it causes within the federal government's legal jurisdiction? Is it a matter reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment? Or is it a joint responsibility and, if so, precisely how is federal and state authority shared? How does the delegation of power by states to local governments to regulate the use of privately owned land affect the federal-state division of power? What limits should there be on local control of land uses that cause “nonpoint source” pollution, …
Comparative Land Use Law: Patterns Of Sustainability, John R. Nolon
Comparative Land Use Law: Patterns Of Sustainability, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Land use scholars and practitioners in the United States trace the development of domestic land use law to 1916, when the City of New York adopted the nation's first comprehensive zoning law, and then on to 1926 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared zoning constitutional in Euclid v. Ambler Realty. Some have studied European influences stemming from late nineteenth century regulations and the urban design principles imported from the great cities of the era. Others know about the catastrophic London fire of 1666 and how it transformed society's understanding of why individual property rights, to some degree, must be subject …
Development Agreements: Bargained-For Zoning That Is Neither Illegal Contract Nor Conditional Zoning, Shelby D. Green
Development Agreements: Bargained-For Zoning That Is Neither Illegal Contract Nor Conditional Zoning, Shelby D. Green
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article explores the new model of land use decision-making that is based upon bargaining with the landowner. The fact of a bargain raises the issue of whether such bargaining amounts to “contract zoning” based upon a bilateral contract between the municipality and the landowner, which is largely held to be illegal, or a related form of bargaining, not involving an exchange of promises in the context of a bilateral agreement--“conditional zoning.” Part II of this Article discusses the emergence of the development agreement, which involves a contract with a municipality and the developer under which the developer is assured …
Golden And Its Emanations: The Surprising Origins Of Smart Growth, John R. Nolon
Golden And Its Emanations: The Surprising Origins Of Smart Growth, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article provides the background for the adoption of the Ramapo ordinance, explains its precocious inventions in some detail, and describes other dramatic local inventions emanating from the Ramapo approach to smart growth. It ends with a reflection on the Quiet Revolution, the continuing disquiet that accompanies the spectacular smart growth inventions of local governments in this country, and modest recommendations for reform. Along the way, the reader will encounter the rebirth of performance zoning, local environmental laws that protect critical environmental resources, a local abandoned property reclamation act, the use of mediation to solve border wars between localities, an …
Dean's Foreword, David S. Cohen
Dean's Foreword, David S. Cohen
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This issue of the Pace Environmental Law Review contains a description of this emerging field of law and the response of the academic and legal community to it. As Professor Nolon reports in his introduction, we found eloquent coherence in these laws and saw how they fit together to form a comprehensive whole. We examined state statutes that authorized local governments to adopt environmental laws and discovered that they were diverse in nature but prevalent in many states. We also found state court decisions that upheld local environmental laws against the challenges of regulated property owners. We were troubled by …
Grassroots Regionalism Through Intermunicipal Land Use Compacts, John R. Nolon
Grassroots Regionalism Through Intermunicipal Land Use Compacts, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The question raised by this article is whether these statutes and this experience provide an opportunity to develop an effective regional approach fitted to the great diversity of New York's regions. It examines first the role local governments play in determining land use and then the statutes that authorize municipalities to cooperate with respect to land use planning and control. The article traces the use of this authority through two phases of evolution revealing ever more complex and potentially effective intermunicipal strategies. It ends with some thoughts as to how the state government could facilitate effective regional processes by providing …
The National Land Use Policy Act, John R. Nolon
The National Land Use Policy Act, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Professor Miller talked about a particular road that we traveled beginning in the 1970s. Professor Robinson discussed a different road that we traveled when we adopted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969. I would like to talk about the road not traveled, a road that led in the direction that Professor Miller just charted. We considered a different more comprehensive approach in the early 1970s when our national environmental policies were being formed. The time may be right to reconsider what we then narrowly rejected, both here and in Argentina.
The Erosion Of Home Rule Through The Emergence Of State-Interests In Land Use Control, John R. Nolon
The Erosion Of Home Rule Through The Emergence Of State-Interests In Land Use Control, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The conventional wisdom is that New York's failure to adopt a comprehensive state-wide land use system is due to reluctance of the state legislature to diminish local control of land use. The purpose of this article is to explore that assumption as part of a larger examination of the proper course of land law reform in New York. The case and statutory law that have developed since the experiences of the early 1970s indicate that local “home rule” authority is neither a legal nor a political barrier to effective land use legislation in the broader state interest. Part II briefly …
Footprints In The Shifting Sands Of The Isle Of Palms: A Practical Analysis Of Regulatory Takings Cases, John R. Nolon
Footprints In The Shifting Sands Of The Isle Of Palms: A Practical Analysis Of Regulatory Takings Cases, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
It was not until the last day of the term, June 29, 1992, that the Court decided Lucas. By that time, interest could not have been greater. At issue was the validity of a regulation that prohibited all permanent development of the plaintiff's two beachfront lots. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the regulation by a 3-2 margin because it prevented a “great public harm.” The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that determination and remanded the case to determine whether South Carolina's common law of nuisance could prohibit the construction of single-family housing on the lots. The fractured Court delivered an …
Expanding Traditional Land Use Authority Through Environmental Legislation: The Regulation Of Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon
Expanding Traditional Land Use Authority Through Environmental Legislation: The Regulation Of Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article is devoted to an examination of local land use regulation in the context of the use of SEQRA and its mandate, to mitigate environmental impacts to require the provision of affordable housing in high cost housing markets. As such, it looks at one contemporary manifestation of the growth of police power authority to meet new land use challenges.
A Comparative Analysis Of New Jersey's Mount Laurel Cases With The Berenson Cases In New York, John R. Nolon
A Comparative Analysis Of New Jersey's Mount Laurel Cases With The Berenson Cases In New York, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Due to the widespread concern over the lack of affordable housing in New York, renewed interest has been expressed in the landmark case of Berenson v. Town of New Castle. That case and an associated line of decisions define the legal rules that will be used by the courts in New York to decide whether municipal zoning unconstitutionally excludes affordable types of housing. Interest has been piqued further by two recent lower court cases in New York which differ greatly in their approach to defining the legal standards to be used in reviewing allegedly exclusionary land use practices.
Review Of Land Use Conflicts: Organizational Design And Resource Management; Environmental Impact Review And Housing: Process Lessons From The California Experience; Creative Land Development: Bridge To The Future; And Toward Eden, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.