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 …

It Takes A Village: Designating "Tiny House" Villages As Transitional Housing Campgrounds, Ciara Turner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A relatively new proposal to reduce homelessness in the United States involves extraordinarily small dwellings. While the “tiny house” movement is intuitively appealing and has found sporadic success, strict housing codes, building codes, and zoning laws often destroy the movement before it can get off the ground. One possibility for getting around these zoning and building code challenges, without drastic overhauls to health and safety codes, is to create a new state-level zoning classification of “transitional campgrounds.” A new zoning classification would alleviate the issue because campgrounds are consistently subject to less strict building codes, which could permit tiny houses …

Above All Else Stop Digging: Local Government Law As A (Partial) Cause Of (And Solution To) The Current Housing Crisis, Darien Shanske

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

So many things have gone wrong with our housing market that it is hard to know where to start. One simple diagnosis is that we invested too much in houses that were not worth as much as we thought. Looked at in this way, it is relatively easy to see how innovations like interest-only loans contributed to an over-valuation of housing. Certain actions of the federal government were and are also clearly problematic, such as the longstanding tax breaks for home ownership.

This Article looks at state and local government law, and particularly at financing mechanisms created by state law …

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, …

Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Rands, expanded the navigational servitude doctrine governing the federal government's power over land adjoining a navigable waterway by severely qualifying the government's Fifth Amendment obligation to compensate the landowner. This Article addresses the issue in the following ways: Part I surveys Congress' power to regulate navigable waters under the Commerce Clause. Part II summarizes the development of the navigational servitude doctrine and some of its inhibitory effects on waterfront development, especially under Rands. It explains the fundamental unfairness of the Rands principle and demonstrates why this constitutional rule …

The Lessons Of Miller And Hudnut: On Proposing A Pornography Ordinance That Passes Constitutional Muster, Martin Karo, Marcia Mcbrian

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note first reviews the evolution of obscenity law, concentrating on the modern obscenity test formulated in Miller v. California, including its requirement that any obscenity prosecution must be based on a state statute, not merely on the common law. It then examines the elements of the Miller test, arguing that legislatures may determine statewide "community standards" of patently offensive depictions of sexual conduct and discusses the permissibility of legislative expansion of pornography regulation beyond the present boundaries. Part II examines the federal courts' analysis of the civil rights-based antipornography ordinance passed in Indianapolis. Part III suggests standards for …

Farmland And Open Space Preservation In Michigan: An Empirical Analysis, Sandra A. Hoffmann

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note describes the political and economic conditions that gave rise to the farmland and open space preservation enactments. It presents a brief political history of the support for this body of legislation and summarizes the economic arguments raised both for and against these preservation efforts. Part II describes the principal types of state farmland and open space preservation programs enacted during the past thirty years. Finally, Part III presents an empirical analysis of P.A. 116.

The Legal And Institutional Framework For An Airport Noise-Compatibility Land Use Program, Mark Kantor

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will assess the constitutionality of zoning to promote noise-compatible development and the problems of establishing an institutional framework for such land use management. Particular attention will be paid to the location of authority to administer a noise-compatibility program and to procedures for enforcing the program's goals.

Standing To Sue Under The Model Land Development Code, Richard L. Epling

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Model Land Development Code was promulgated by the American Law Institute as the paradigm for state legislatures to follow when enacting land use laws for the future. The Code is not intended to create uniformity among state laws. Instead, states may use the articles of the Code as models in drafting legislation that is more specifically suited to their needs. Article Nine, which states rules of standing to participate in land use disputes, poses a potential obstacle to would-be public interest litigants. This note will explore the effect of Article Nine on citizen plaintiffs and demonstrate how its ambiguous …

Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This note will attempt to explain the new Michigan statute and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of legislation as a means of preserving open space and farmland from conversion to more intensive use.

Review, David L. Callies

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Review of Public Planning and Control of Urban and Land Development, Cases and Materials by Donald G. Hagman

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 …

The Interrelationship Between Exclusionary Zoning And Exclusionary Subdivision Control, Robert E. Hirshon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will examine both exclusionary zoning and subdivision control with a view toward analyzing the assumptions common to both types of laws. The operative differences between exclusionary zoning and subdivision control may be non-existent. If this is truly the case, the judicial response to each practice should be the same.

Improved Policy Making For The Multiple Use Of Public Lands, Christopher J. Dunsky

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The purpose of this article is to analyze the failure of past legislative attempts to define public land policy effectively, to examine current proposals for change, and to present an alternative proposal for a clearer statutory definition of policy.

Overcoming Barriers To Scattered-Site Low-Cost Housing, Darrel J. Grinstead

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The effect of most zoning devices which have been used in suburban and non-ghetto city planning in the past few decades has been to erect substantial economic barriers around entire cities. These devices include minimum lot size requirements, density zoning, frontage requirements, single family restrictions, and minimum living space requirements. While such zoning practices may not be exclusionary in purpose, exclusion of minority groups has been the result. Moreover, since most minorities are heavily concentrated in low income groups, economic segregation will bring about a high degree of racial and ethnic segregation. Indeed, it has been suggested that these economic …

Commonwealth Of Puerto Rico V. Rosso: Land Banking And The Expanded Concept Of Public Use, David L. Callies

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As the supply of vacant land on which to expand dwindles, the economic, social and cultural blight attendant upon the rapid but relatively unplanned growth of metropolitan areas increasingly becomes a subject of grave concern throughout the world. The two most common traditional approaches to land use problems are now proving inadequate, given the nature of urban sprawl. The first is zoning, basically an exercise of the police power whereby a governmental body restricts the use of land by appropriate regulation without compensating the owner. The restriction must be for the purpose of promoting the health, morals, safety or welfare …