Law Commons^™

White Tape And Indian Wards: Removing The Federal Bureaucracy To Empower Tribal Economies And Self-Government, Adam Crepelle

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

American Indians have the highest poverty rate in the United States, and dire poverty ensnares many reservations. With no private sector and abysmal infrastructure, reservations are frequently likened to third-world countries. Present-day Indian poverty is a direct consequence of present-day federal Indian law and policy. Two-hundred-year-old laws premised on Indian incompetency remain a part of the U.S. legal system; accordingly, Indian country is bound by heaps of federal regulations that apply nowhere else in the United States. The federal regulatory structure impedes tribal economic development and prevents tribes from controlling their own resources.

This Article asserts the federal regulatory “white …

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Our land use control system operates across a variety of multidimensional and dynamic categories. Learning to navigate within and between these categories requires an appreciation for their interconnected, dynamic, and textured components and an awareness of alternative mechanisms for achieving one’s land use control preferences and one’s desired ends. Whether seeking to minimize controls as a property owner or attempting to place controls on the land uses of another, one should take time to understand the full ecology of the system. This Article looks at four broad categories of control: (1) no controls, or the state of nature; (2) judicial …

Fear And Loathing: Combating Speculation In Local Communities, Ngai Pindell

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Local governments commonly respond to economic and social pressures on property by using their legal power to regulate land uses. These local entities enact regulations that limit property development and use to maintain attractive communities and orderly growth. This Article argues that government entities should employ their expansive land use powers to limit investor speculation in local markets by restricting the resale of residential housing for three years. Investor speculation, and the upward pressure it places on housing prices, threatens the availability of affordable housing as well as the development of stable neighborhoods. Government regulation of investor speculation mirrors existing, …

The Role Of The Local Comprehensive Plan In Land Use Regulation, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

This article will deal with the enlarged role of the comprehensive plan in the local land use control process. Part I examines traditional judicial views of the role of the comprehensive plan as a guide to zoning administration. Part II suggests that innovations in land use control and comprehensive planning techniques evidence a need for mandatory planning. Subsequent sections examine changes in the judicial attitude toward the role of the comprehensive plan in land use control administration, and survey some enacted and proposed state legislation that modifies the early planning acts by requiring comprehensive planning. This legislation is analyzed to …

Billboard Control Under The Highway Beautification Act Of 1965, Roger A. Cunningham

Michigan Law Review

Although the advertising control provisions of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 have been the subject of unremitting controversy from the date of enactment until the present time, only three substantive amendments to title I have been adopted in the intervening years. These are the amendments to subsections ( d) and (j) and the addition of a new subsection (n) all of which were adopted in 1968.

The Interrelationship Between Excusionary Subdivision Control - A Second Look, Roger A. Cunningham

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The thesis of this article is that the conclusion set out above is both oversimplified and inaccurate. Contrary to the author's contention in his Journal article, there are "viable distinctions between zoning and subdivision control," and consequently the major exclusionary techniques available to suburban communities through "zoning" are simply not available in connection with "subdivision control." Dramatic attempts at racial exclusion through subdivision control are likely to be infrequent. Although subdivision regulations, like zoning ordinances and building codes, require expenditures by land developers which increase the cost of housing and thus tend to exclude the poor, the effect of subdivision …