Law Commons^™

Zoning Ordinances And "Free Speech", Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past two decades there has been a marked expansion in legal challenges to local land use regulations claiming violations of the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. First Amendment claims can arise whenever government enacts or enforces zoning or other regulations that deal with uses such as billboards or adult entertainment businesses. This article discusses why this litigation is taking place, provides an overview of First Amendment law, and offers local officials some guidelines to help avoid potential legal challenges.

Preserving Open Lands: Local Zoning And Financing Authority Work Together, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

State governments vest great authority in local governments to decide how and where private development shall occur, and in the alternative, where to preserve open land. The New York state legislature recognizes the importance of protecting open lands, and as such, has created several laws to facilitate local municipal action. Several methods exist that municipal government may use to accomplish this goal and this article provides several examples. For instance, the New York Court of Appeals, in the case of Bonnie Briar Syndicate, Inc. v. Town of Mamaroneck, held that a local zoning ordinance, which rezoned a large area for …

Land Use Development: Proper Planning Creates Smart Growth, Prevents Sprawl, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The proliferation of sprawl development patterns across the United States causes several problems such as degradation of forests, farmland, and natural resources, plus the declining health of central cities. Sprawl is a well-documented phenomenon among environmentalists, politicians, taxpayers, and others. Many alternative “smart growth” solutions exist to mitigate the damages of sprawl. Government focus on more restrained development patterns such as traditional urban neighborhoods, and other solutions exist, and are waiting to be implemented. This article reviews municipal efforts in New York in the application of comprehensive smart growth methods

Mediation As A Tool In Local Environmental And Land Use Controversies, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article dedicates itself to highlighting the benefits of alternative dispute resolution. Through the use of mediation and other flexible alternative dispute resolution methods, many conflicts can be resolved without the use of expensive and timely litigation. In turn, court workloads are relieved and cooperation is fostered among neighbors, companies, and other groups or organizations that would have otherwise resorted to litigation to solve a dispute. Negotiations that involve process experts, such as mediators and facilitators, often diffuse disputes by introducing a cooperative, rather than an adversarial attitude. Government is beginning to embrace alternative dispute resolution and legislatures are passing …

Platte River Endangered Species Partnership: Collaboration Or Coercion In Disguise, Dale Strickland

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

9 pages.

Collaborative Approaches To Conservation: A Critical Look, Larry Macdonnell

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

7 pages.

Regional Water Planning In Texas, John Folk-Williams

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

4 pages.

A Laboratory For Collaboration: Where, Why And Why Not?, Ken Salazar, Felicity Hannay, Steve Sims, Ted Kowalski

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

12 pages.

Nebraska V. Wyoming: The End Or Collaboration?, Wendy Weiss, James Montgomery

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

13 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Transparencies Used In The Introductory Remarks Of Doug Kenney, Ph.D., Natural Resources Law Center, Douglas Kenney

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

6 pages.

A Western Slope Perspective: Endangered Species And Municipal Water, David C. Hallford

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

13 pages (includes 1 map).

Contains footnotes and 1 page of references.

Federal Water Rights In The Snake River Basin Adjudication, Michael A. Gheleta

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

34 pages (includes maps).

Agenda: Strategies In Western Water Law And Policy: Courts, Coercion And Collaboration, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center Of The American West

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

1 v. (various pagings) : ill., maps, charts ; 29 cm

Conference organizers, session moderators and/or speakers included University of Colorado School of Law professors Gary C. Bryner, James N. Corbridge, Jr., David H. Getches, Douglas S. Kenney, Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Kathryn M. Mutz and Charles F. Wilkinson

Includes bibliographical references

The event will examine the principal problem-solving strategies in western water law and policy: courts, coercion and collaboration. In addressing this broad range of strategies, the program will focus on national, west-wide and Colorado-specific issues.

Conference activities will commence with a free public program cosponsored by the Center of …

The Platte River Cooperative Agreement: A Historical Perspective, Ann Salomon Bleed

Strategies in Western Water Law and Policy: Courts, Coercion and Collaboration (Summer Conference, June 8-11)

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Takings: Analyzing Governmental Invasions Of Private Property Rights, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The complicated arena of takings jurisprudence has confused lawyers, scholars, and courts for well over a century. Generally, a taking is deemed to have occurred when a governmental body takes a property right away from a private individual without providing just compensation. However, courts are unlikely to find that a regulation constitutes a taking if the regulation benefits the greater good of the public. Takings come in several varieties, most notably, “invasions” which include physical occupation and “total takings”, which deprive landowners of all economic value of their property. This article discusses how takings law has evolved into its present …

Can Cowboys Become Indians? Protecting Western Communities As Endangered Cultural Remnants, A. Dan Tarlock

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Intermunicipal Compacts; Regional Land Use Strategies Work At The Grassroots Level, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Regional land use control has long been a difficult issue in New York as most localities refuse to acknowledge responsibility for problems extending beyond their own borders. New York law enables municipalities to cooperate among one another to devise improved solutions to land use, and other issues. This article studies the state history of regional land use and provides several successful examples of how grassroots regionalism can change the way municipal governments think about land use and solve problems.

Local Government Land Use Restrictions And Selected First Amendment Issues, Barbara Jo Nelson

LLM Theses and Essays

A local government's power to enact zoning regulations falls within the general power to provide for the health, safety, and welfare of its citizenry. This thesis addresses a few selected First Amendment issues as they apply to zoning and land use restrictions in Georgia. Free speech review of zoning ordinances applies to zoning for adult sex businesses, such as adult book stores and cinemas. The First Amendment balancing test that is applicable to adult entertainment ordinances is discussed in Chapter One. The free speech impact of restrictions on signs and billboards is discussed in Chapter Two. Finally, in Chapter Three, …

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 …

1998 Survey Of Ethics In Land-Use Planning, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Land Use Reform In New York: Challenges And Opportunities, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Deed Restrictions And Other Institutional Controls As Tools To Encourage Brownfields Redevelopment, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, Robert A. Simons

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article concerns the use of deed restrictions and other institutional controls as tools to encourage brownfields redevelopment.

One Piece Of The Puzzle: Why State Brownfields Programs Can't Lure Businesses To The Urban Cores Without Finding The Missing Pieces, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

U.S. EPA, state legislatures, and state administrative agencies have invested considerable time and money resources to encouraging urban renewal through the redevelopment of contaminated urban properties, called brownfields. These efforts attempt to induce businesses to clean and redevelop brownfields by reducing the numerous environmental barriers to redevelopment, such as the enormous cost of clean-up and threat of immeasurable liability. In this Article, I argue that environmental barriers to redevelopment, although important, are but one piece of a complicated urban redevelopment puzzle. The other pieces, largely missing from existing efforts to encourage redevelopment of brownfields are non-environmental factors, such as size …

Mine Disaster Threatens Spain's Donana National Park, Jerrold A. Long

Articles

No abstract provided.

Zoning Restrictions On Location Of Adult Businesses, Alan C. Weinstein

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This year's report concentrates on recent legal developments concerning regulation of the location of "adult entertainment businesses." Such regulations raise serious constitutional issues because the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression extends to non-obscene sexually oriented media. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has established that local government may single out adult businesses for special regulatory treatment in the form of locational restrictions if the local government can show a substantial public interest in regulating such businesses unrelated to the suppression of speech and if the regulations allow for "reasonable alternative avenues of communication," which essentially translates into a reasonable …

Urban Growth: A Global Challenge, Janet Stearns

Articles

No abstract provided.

Utah's Grand Staircase: The Right Path To Wilderness Preservation?, James R. Rasband

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brownfields Redevelopment: Cleaning Up Contaminated Sites For Community Renewal, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Shortage And Tension On The Upper Rio Grande: Protecting Endangered Species During Times Of Drought, Comments From The Perspective Of The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

Looking back at the drought of 1996 and at the efforts to protect endangered species in the midst of the drought, the most glaring fact remains that the water managers and users of the Rio Grande were in crisis management. In fact, despite some efforts, if the drought had manifested with equal or greater intensity in 1997, we would have remained in crisis management. Hence, as we move forward and examine lessons learned, the most vital premise we must return to is the imperative for balance as we undertake the precarious task of allocating water to protect endangered species, serve …

New York City Zones Out Free Expression, Martin A. Schwartz

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.