Law Commons^™

Examining Land Use Planning And Zoning Ethics From A Planner’S Perspective: Lessons For All Stakeholders In The Real Estate Game, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article examines the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). Only two states, Michigan and New Jersey, license planners as a profession. This makes ability for planners to achieve certification from the AICP important and raises the prominence of the AICP Code of Ethics, since as a condition of membership, each AICP member agrees to abide by the Code.

Hurricane Katrina And The Toxic Torts Implications Of Environmental Injustice In New Orleans, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (2006), L. Darnell Weeden

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building On Custom: Land Tenure Policy And Economic Development In Ghana, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

This Note addresses the intersection of customary and statutory land law in the land tenure policy of Ghana. It argues that improving the current land tenure policy demands integration of customary land law and customary authorities into the statutory system. After describing why and how customary property practices are central to the economic viability of any property system, the Note gives a brief overview of Ghana’s customary and statutory land law. The Note concludes with specific policy suggestions about how Ghana could better draw on the strength of its customary land sector.

Kelo: One Year Later, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

June of 2006 marked the first anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, making this a good time to analyze the past year's flurry of activity and assess what it means for local governments. As of mid-May of 2006, more than forty states were considering legislation in reaction to the Kelo ruling, and fifteen have already enacted such legislation.

An Environmental Pool For The Rio Grande, Kara Gillon

Publications

The Bureau of Reclamation and Corps of Engineers operate a series of dams, reservoirs, and levees along the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico. The plight of the Rio Grande silvery minnow, an endangered species, and of the river itself demonstrates the need for a change from the emphasis on water development to sustainable river management. Conservation groups invoked the protections of the Endangered Species Act to catalyze this change. Recognizing that flexibility is necessary to meeting competing water needs, the groups also promoted the need for and several approaches to a sustainable and long-term approach to river management and …

Competing Claims: The Struggle For Title In Nicaragua, Michael Roche

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Nicaragua's Sandinista Revolution of the 1980s left the country's property scheme in a state of disarray. For eleven years, the leftist Sandinista government instituted mass land confiscations and agrarian reform that caused many individuals to lose their property and flee the country. The transition to democracy begun in 1990 has been a difficult process for the country's new presidents who have been forced to reconcile competing claims and fight corruption from within their own ranks. In this Note, the Author examines the property legacy created by the Sandinista Revolution. With another round of presidential elections scheduled for November 2006, the …

Measure 37 And A Spoonful Of Kelo: A Recipe For Property Rights Activists At The Ballot Box, Patricia E. Salkin, Amy Lavine

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Ethical Considerations In Land Use Decision Making: 2006 Annual Review Of Cases And Opinions, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article reviews reported cases and opinions documenting allegations of unethical conduct involved in land use planning and zoning decision making in 2006.

States Beginning To Recognize That Training Is Essential For Members Of Planning And Zoning Boards And Local Legislative Bodies, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

Members of planning and zoning boards and local legislative bodies constantly make decisions that may be worth millions of dollars to applicants and that may have serious impacts on public health and safety. Unlike other players in the land use decision making process members of local legislative bodies and land use boards have no specific education or training in land use matters prior to their election or appointment putting them in the position to learn solely from “on the job training”. Five (5) states currently require mandatory training and continuing education courses for members of planning boards and zoning boards …

Zoning For Home Occupations: Modernizing Zoning Codes To Accommodate Growth In Home-Based Businesses, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article offers readers ideas and examples of ways to modernize local zoning laws to balance the growing demand by residents to engage in legitimate home-based businesses while protecting community character and the health, safety, and welfare of neighbors in residential zoning districts.

The Erosion Of Private Property Rights After Raleigh Avenue Beach Association V. Atlantis Beach Club, Kristin A. Scaduto

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Section 1983 Cases In The October 2004 Term, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "Public Use" Of Private Sports Stadiums: Kelo Hits A Homerun For Private Developers, Cristin F. Hartzog

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Part I of this note briefly discusses the principle of eminent domain and the evolution of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Takings Clause. Part II analyzes the application of the Court's interpretations of the "public use" requirement of the Takings Clause on the issue of whether it is proper for a state to exercise its power of eminent domain pursuant to a stadium development project. Finally, Part III offers a solution to the conflict between property owners' interests in keeping their land and cities' interests in creating economic growth.

City As An Ecological Space: Social Capital And Urban Land Use, The , Sheila R. Foster

Faculty Scholarship

One of the goals of land use (and pollution control) law is to force the internalization of these costs. This otherwise economic view of land use law is also rooted, however, in an ecological understanding of urban land use. Legal scholars writing over three decades ago successfully argued, based upon the ecological facts of life, that "[p]roperty does not exist in isolation" because the effects of its uses flow outside of the boundaries of ownership. The notion that property is inextricably part of a network of social and economic relationships, and that its impacts traverse legally defined boundaries and relationships, …

Champions Of Change: Reinventing Democracy Through Land Law Reform, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the prospects of achieving policy coherence in the field of land use regulation. It explains how, as municipal governments react to pressures and crises at the local level, they discover and adopt new strategies in a constant process of experimentation. Through a properly constructed legal framework, critical information can be relayed from local to higher levels of government, state and federal legislators and judges can respond, and a "system" of law can evolve. Using theories developed in the fields of systems analysis and diffusion of innovations, the Article describes the process by which local communities perceive land …

The Emergence Of Exacted Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley Lippmann

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Old Ground And New Directions At Sacred Sites On The Western Landscape, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

The federal public lands contain places with both religious and secular value for American people. American Indians, in particular, hold certain natural features to be sacred, and visit them for ceremonies and worship. Simultaneously, non-Indians use the same places for economic, recreation, and many other purposes - and conflicts arise between these groups. In the past twenty years, a body of constitutional jurisprudence has developed to address questions of religious freedoms and public access rights on these lands that are owned and managed by the federal government. This article outlines the relevant First Amendment framework as well as recent statutes …

Listening To All The Voices, Old And New: The Evolution Of Land Ownership In The Modern West, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Kelo: Thinking About Urban Development In The 21st Century, Wendell E. Pritchett

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Roadless Rule That Never Was: Why Roadless Areas Should Be Protected Through National Forest Planning Instead Ofagency Rulemaking, Heather S. Ferdriksen

University of Colorado Law Review

The 2001 Roadless Rule would have barred construction of new roads on 58.5 million acres of national forest land. Within months of its inception, however, a barrage of legal challenges and reversal of policy under the Bush Administration precluded its implementation. Regardless of its ecological merits, the backlash against the Roadless Rule suggests that agency rulemaking may not be the best way to achieve roadless area protection. This comment argues that the traditional process, forest planning under the National Forest Management Act of 1976 ("NFMA "), offers a preferable alternative to agency rulemaking in this context. It also offers recommended …

The Shrinking Scope Of Judicial Review In Norton V. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Justin C. Konrad

University of Colorado Law Review

In Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first decision definitively construing § 706(1) of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). This section ostensibly provides for review of agency action "unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed." However, the Court's opinion narrowly construed section 706(1) so as to allow review only for discrete agency actions that are legally required. As a result, the Court held that Bureau of Land Management compliance with a Federal Land Management and Policy Act ("FLPMA") provision mandating management of certain public lands so as to prevent impairment of their wilderness characteristics was not …

Regulating Land Use In A Constitutional Shadow: The Institutional Contexts Of Exactions, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

The regulatory takings doctrine, the Supreme Court declared in Lingle v. Chevron, concerns the effects of a regulation on the incidents of property ownership. It serves as a constitutional protection against regulations that impose the functional equivalent to a classic taking of private property (an appropriation by the state or an ouster), and it requires compensation for owners who are subject to such regulations. Just as significant as declaring what the regulatory takings doctrine is, theCourt in Lingle also declared what it is not: it is not a judicial check onthe validity or reasonableness of a regulation that …

Beyond Worship: The Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act Of 2000 And Religious Institutions' Auxiliary Uses, Sara Bronin

Sara C. Bronin

Religious institutions have long offered their congregants services that go beyond worship. Particularly in the last two decades, they have begun expanding far beyond their traditional offerings to a wider and more diverse array of auxiliary uses - non-worship uses that are affiliated with a religious institution. (One type of large religious institution, the megachurch, is fast gaining members by offering schools, community centers, dining facilities, even movie theaters and gymnasiums.) Government has long granted special protections to the worship uses of religious institutions. A recent federal law - the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) …

Palazzolo, The Public Trust, And The Property Owner’S Reasonable Expectations: Takings And The South Carolina Marsh Island Bridge Debate, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

South Carolina recently promulgated new guidelines regulating the State’s consideration of requests by private marsh island owners to build bridges for vehicular access through publicly owned marsh and tidelands. Many thousands of these islands hug the South Carolina coast, but they are surrounded by tidelands subject to South Carolina’s formidable public trust doctrine, which obligates the State to manage submerged lands and waterways for the benefit of the public. This piece evaluates the relationship between the public trust doctrine and the takings subtext to the debate over the new guidelines – a relationship that has become particularly interesting in the …

Rehabilitating Rehab Through State Building Codes, Sara C. Bronin

Sara C. Bronin

Building codes are not neutral documents. Traditional codes have the effect of deterring the rehabilitation of older structures. But rehabilitation - which can have many positive effects, especially on cities - should be encouraged, not deterred. One promising method of encouraging rehabilitation has been the adoption of rehabilitation codes: building codes that establish flexible but clear requirements for renovators. After analyzing traditional building codes and three different rehabilitation codes, this Note concludes that more states should adopt rehabilitation codes on a mandatory basis.

Runoff And Reality: Externalities, Economics, And Traceability Issues In Urban Runoff Regulation, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

It has long eluded regulators and private enforcers how to control the imposition of negative externalities. This paper will examine: (1) Whether existing authorities (like the Clean Water Act) are capable of providing regulation of urban runoff; (2) Whether, in light of economic controls, regulation of these activities are necessary; (3) A summary of recent runoff litigation; and (4) What is next; what should be next? Although each of these questions form background, the primary emphasis currently anticipated for this presentation is on traceability, collective action, and free rider problems that motivate regulation in this area. Often runoff is described …

Unintended Consequences: Eminent Domain And Affordable Housing, Matthew J. Parlow

Matthew Parlow