Law Commons^™

Confronting Complexity With Regulatory Excellence: Recommendations In The Wake Of The Philadelphia Refinery Explosion, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Following the June 2019 explosion at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery, the city of Philadelphia now confronts major challenges associated with the future of the refinery site. Whether the site is reopened as a refinery or other chemical-processing operation, or redeveloped for other uses, the city will face challenges endemic to all kinds of public policy issues: complexity, uncertainty, dynamism, tradeoffs, and value choices. This testimony, delivered to the City of Philadelphia Refinery Advisory Group’s Environment Committee, offers three main suggestions to help guide Philadelphia officials in dealing with the future of the PES refinery site. First, city officials …

Nine Ways Of Looking At Oklahoma City: An Essay On Sam Anderson’S Boom Town, Rodger D. Citron

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Stigmatized Sites And Urban Brownfield Redevelopment, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter addresses the "stigmatized sites" located in urban areas in the United States and Europe and the "brownfields" redevelopment programs aimed at removing the stigma and promoting remediation and reuse of these sites. Although the European Union has put regulatory frameworks in place, the United States has led the global effort to address brown fields redevelopment, and the discussion in this chapter will focus on American models for brown fields remediation and reuse.

The Future Of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions To The Legacies Of Poor Planning Decisions, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Big box stores, the defining retail shopping location for the majority of American suburbs, are being abandoned at alarming rates, due in part to the economic downturn. These empty stores impose numerous negative externalities on the communities in which they are located, including blight, reduced property values, loss of tax revenue, environmental problems, and a decrease in social capital. While scholars have generated and critiqued prospective solutions to prevent abandonment of big box stores, this Article asserts that local zoning ordinances can alleviate the harms imposed by the thousands of existing, vacant big boxes. Because local governments control land use …

Finality In Brownfields Remediation And Reuse, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

The intersection of brownfields redevelopment and these broader concerns presents a host of issues. Does redevelopment of brownfields connect to a larger vision for the city that links with "smart growth" and climate action goals? Retooling the original developer-centered vision of VCPs to promote broader goals is an ongoing challenge. Has the affected community been involved in planning for brownfields remediation, or has the developer controlled the process? The latter narrows the ability to view the project as part of a community-wide plan, and undermines its legitimacy. Finally, if brownfields redevelopment yields benefits, how can we measure success over the …

“Impact” In 3d—Maximizing Impact Through Transactional Clinics, Praveen Kosuri

All Faculty Scholarship

In speaking about “impact” clinical legal education, it is almost always exclusively as litigation—innocence projects, representing Guantanamo detainees, human rights concerns, environmental issues. Though these clinical efforts target different societal ills, all try to use the legal system as a catalyst for change. Rarely do clinicians invoke the word “impact” in the same manner in discussing transactional legal work much less transactional clinics. Yet transactional clinics can and do perform impact work. This article describes the current landscape of transactional clinics, the distinct evolution of community economic development clinics from small business and organizations clinics and argues that both can …

Rebuilding The Public-Private City: Regulatory Taking's Anti-Subordination Insights For Eminent Domain And Redevelopment, Audrey Mcfarlane

All Faculty Scholarship

The eminent domain debate, steeped in the language of property rights, currently lacks language and conceptual space to address what is really at issue in today's cities: complex, fundamental disagreements between market and community about Development. The core doctrinal issue presented by development is how can we acknowledge the subordination of citizens who happen to live in areas that are attractive to wealthier citizens. In particular, how should we address the political process failure reflected in the privatized methods of decisionmaking that typify redevelopment? The conceptual language and analytical construct for appropriately addressing these issues come from critical race theory …

Exiling The Poor: The Clash Of Redevelopment And Fair Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Anita Sinha, Judith Browne-Dianis

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Redevelopment Law, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

How the land is developed to accommodate the next 100 million people in the U.S. is of critical importance. Future land use patterns and human settlements will determine how cost effective, equitable, and environmentally friendly the country will be in the twenty-first century. The big picture here focuses on metropolitan area settlement patterns. How do cities become more livable, attract back the affluent households they have lost, and develop the tax base they need to support their diverse populations and the cultural, civic, educational, and governmental services they provide their regions? How do older suburbs protect and enhance their aging …

Healing Earth, Helping Neighbors: Using Brownfield Remediation Projects To Advance Environmental Justice [Outline], Willie Shepherd

The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock (March 16-17)

Presenter: Willie Shepherd, Chairman and Co-Founder, Kamlet Shepherd & Reichert, LLP

2 pages.

"Presentation Outline"

Ensuring Continuing Community Amenities Through Golf Course Redevelopment, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article examines some of the issues faced by municipalities hoping to preserve their golf courses or to ensure their strategic redevelopment and focuses on how local governments can most effectively employ planning and zoning techniques to ensure that community amenities, including affordable housing and recreational areas, are an important part of golf course redevelopment projects.

Who Fits The Profile?: Thoughts On Race, Class, Clusters And Redevelopment, Audrey Mcfarlane

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay shifts the discussion of gentrification and redevelopment to consider the mechanics of exclusion in the formulation and operation of today's commercial retail shopping venues typically included in today's urban redevelopment projects. In particular the essay discusses the exclusionary implications of geo-demographic cluster classification systems that use race and class to construct profiles of desirable customers for urban redevelopment schemes.

Redevelopment And The Four Dimensions Of Class In Land Use, Audrey Mcfarlane

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay begins with the proposition that the battle over the exercise of eminent domain as a question of the extent to which we accept local economic development as a proper exercise of local governmental authority. In light of the reality that economic development seeks to accomplish redevelopment to meet the social needs and consumption tastes of the affluent, the issue of local governments' autonomy to engage in redevelopment for economic development purposes is suffused with socioeconomic class struggles over land use. Therefore, the changes wrought by redevelopment challenge us to think and talk about class in ways for which …

What Is To Be Done? Legislators Look At Redevelopment Reforms, Senate Local Government Committee, Senate Transportation & Housing Committee, Assembly Housing & Community Development Committee, Assembly Local Government Committee, Assembly Judiciary Committee

California Joint Committees

No abstract provided.

Community Redevelopment, Public Use, And Eminent Domain, Patricia E. Salkin, Lora A. Lucero

Scholarly Works

Published just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down their controversial decision on Kelo v. City of New London in 2005, this article, in correctly predicting the outcome of the Supreme Court opinion, explores in Section I how the concept of what constitutes a public use has evolved over the decades from traditionally accepted uses such as public roads, buildings (e.g., government buildings and schools), and utilities to urban redevelopment. It explains how the broad concepts of community redevelopment have been stretched to encompass needed economic development projects that promise jobs, tax revenue, and other public benefits similar to …

Lessons From The World Trade Center For Open Space Planning Generally And Boston's Big Data Specifically, Mary Clark

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This paper looks to several land use planning issues at stake in both the World Trade Center redevelopment and Central Artery/ Tunnel Project, offering some lessons for the future of public open space planning with respect to the inºuence of the press, the centrality of politics, the urgency of addressing public and private claims of land ownership, the need to engage the public, and seizing the opportunity to create new public transportation links.

Redevelopment Tools: Creating And Recreating Urban Centers, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article describes a number of the agencies, entities, and legal tools and techniques that are used today to redevelop or create urban centers of population and commerce.

When Inclusion Leads To Exclusion: The Uncharted Terrain Of Community Participation In Economic Development, Audrey Mcfarlane

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the advent of federally-sponsored urban development, the federal government has sought to facilitate decentralized decision-making by local governments. These federal programs have also strongly encouraged local governments to include community participation in the development decision-making process. Participation evokes notions of democracy, egalitarianism, and inclusion and it is easy to support in principle. But participation is often less easy to support in practice because of its structural disconnect with urban development. This disconnect between principle and practice has been reflected in an ebb and flow of contrastingly strong and weak mandates for participation. This ebb and flow of federally-mandated participation …

Environmental And Brownfield Liability: Relative Influence On Corporate Expansion And Relocation, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, Alan K. Reichert

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Many states in America have enacted laws to encourage the development of contaminated properties. The laws attempt to do this by addressing one barrier to redevelopment, the environmental liability attached to contaminated properties. In general, the laws attempt to remove or reduce the significance of that barrier by reducing or eliminating the environmental liability risk attached to these properties. Our hypothesis was that these efforts cannot significantly encourage redevelopment because they fail to address non-environmental barriers to urban redevelopment. To determine whether this legislative focus on environmental liability is misplaced, we conducted a survey of Northeast Ohio businesses, which had …

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.

Risk Assessment, Redevelopment, And Environmental Justice: Evaluating The Brownfields Bargain, John S. Applegate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.