Law Commons^™

The Ghost Of Jim Crow: The Human Right To Housing, Generational Wealth, The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, And The American Legal System, Miranda Guedes

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Living Constitution: Why The Supreme Court Must Part Ways With Exclusionary Eminent Domain, Aaron Mackay

Indiana Law Journal

The Fifth Amendment’s “public use” requirement for takings is no longer a requirement at all. Instead, the meaning of “public use” has been expanded far beyond its original intent and public understanding. The broadening of the “public use” requirement reached its breaking point in Kelo. Since Kelo, state legislatures have responded by restricting eminent domain use to remove “blighted” areas. In effect, contemporary eminent domain reduces the availability of affordable housing, which has exacerbated the affordable housing crisis. This Note explores a constitutionally permissible re-working of the eminent domain doctrine to encourage the provision of affordable housing. Interpreting the “public …

Third Coast Housing Solutions: The Case For Bringing Yimby Legal Activist Strategies To Chicago, Abigail Kuchnir

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

An insufficient supply of suitable housing stock is the root cause of issues like homelessness, overcrowding, and a cost burden on renters throughout the United States. A loose collective of activists and stakeholders comprise the YIMBY movement, an acronym for Yes In My Backyard. YIMBY advocates advance the perspective that additional housing stock is a necessary stratagem to improve housing availability and affordability, and they have used litigation as a tool towards developing new and diverse housing. This Comment examines the strategies currently used by legal activists in California, where impact litigation on this issue has been most prevalent. It …

Superfluous Judicial Activism: The Takings Gloss, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2021, the Supreme Court released opinions in three Takings Clause cases. The Justices did not focus primarily on the dozen words that compose that Clause. Instead, the Court considered the expansive judicial gloss on those words, the extratextual aspects established by takings opinions over the last 100 years, since the “too far” test introduced by Justice Holmes in Pennsylvania Coal. The “Takings Gloss” is the product of holdings expanding the meaning and reach of the Takings Clause, a tangled web of opinions that have troubled lawyers, judges, and commentators for several decades. With the latest contributions, …

Measuring Local Policy To Advance Fair Housing And Climate Goals Through A Comprehensive Assessment Of Land Use Entitlements, Moira O'Neill, Eric Biber, Nicholas J. Marantz

Pepperdine Law Review

California’s legislature has passed several laws that intervene in local land-use regulation in order to increase desperately needed housing production—particularly affordable housing production. Some of these new laws expand local reporting requirements concerning zoning and planning laws, and the application of those laws apply to proposed housing development. This emphasis on measurement requires the state to develop a housing data strategy to support both enforcement of existing law and effective policymaking in the future. Our Comprehensive Assessment of Land Use Entitlements Study (CALES) predates, but aligns with and supports, this state-led effort to improve local reporting. For the cities that …

Appraisal Discrimination: Five Lessons For Litigators, Heather R. Abraham

SMU Law Review

Appraisal discrimination not only persists, but its influence has actually increased in some housing markets. New studies document how contemporary appraisal methods operate as systemic racism, such as how appraisers select from a narrower set of comparable properties when appraising homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Recent events have renewed public attention to appraisal discrimination, from shocking news stories to a new multiagency federal task force. In tandem, a new wave of litigation has emerged. This Article examines litigation as one element of a multifaceted approach to combatting appraisal discrimination. After examining the weaknesses of the regulatory framework governing appraisals, this …

The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah Kazis

Articles

This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place. The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are …

New York’S Professor John R. Nolon: A National Leader In Land Use Law With A Large Impact Across The Hudson Valley And The State Of New York, Patricia E. Salkin, Samuel Stewart

Scholarly Works

As Professor John R. Nolon steps down from active law teaching, this article reflects not only on his contributions as a national thought leader in the field, but also on how he has a hand in changing the land use and conservation patterns in New York while promoting affordable housing and combating discrimination.

The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah M. Kazis

Michigan Law Review

This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place.

The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are …

Retroactive Application And Its Setbacks To Addressing Housing Concerns In New York City: An Analysis Of The Regina Metro Holding And Its Implications To Part K Mci Changes Pursuant To The Hstpa, Arjana Balaj

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Market Demand-Based Planning And Permitting: Special Case Of Affordable Housing, Robert Hibberd

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Arthur C. Nelson has advanced the concept of market demand-based planning and permitting (MDBPP) as a way in which to balance the need for development within the limits of market capacity. Lacking MDBPP discipline, real estate markets are prone to over-development that can lead to economic downturns including notably the Great Recession of 2007-2009. This article will unpack the history and challenge of MDBPP and demonstrate its efficacy. Then, it will apply these principles to the specific wicked problem of housing affordability, which is both ongoing and emerging in nature. It will tie this problem to a call for MDBPP …

Delayed Synergy: Challenging Housing Discrimination In Chicago In The Streets And In The Courts, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Michelle Shaw

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association combined a boycott with a successful constitutional challenge to bus segregation laws, producing more progress to desegregate the buses than either strategy could have brought about on its own. The Montgomery Improvement Association’s approach was a paradigm of the synergy between a social movement and social change litigation.

This Article argues for opportunities for synergy between social movements and social change litigation in three ways: 1) extending the time frame; 2) joining the forces of two separate organizations to produce change, unlike the single organization in Montgomery; and 3) creating an …

A Twisted Fate: How California's Premier Environmental Law Has Worsened The State's Housing Crisis, And How To Fix It, Noah Dewitt

Pepperdine Law Review

California, the iconic Golden State, holds the infamous record for the largest population of people experiencing homelessness in the United States. These record-setting numbers have been steadily on the rise for decades and are due in large part to the state’s severe housing shortage, which is currently just under one million housing units. From those directly experiencing homelessness to those living in the country’s most expensive zip codes, the compounding economic and social impacts of the crisis touch every Californian. The extent of the crisis is not lost on California’s leaders, but despite countless initiatives on both the state and …

Tiny Homes: A Big Solution To American Housing Insecurity, Lisa T. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

“There’s no place like home,” said Dorothy. Yet, millions of people in the United States may face eviction, foreclosure, or homelessness in 2021 and beyond. America is on the brink of an unprecedented housing crisis in the wake of Covid-19. The federal government, and various states and localities, have taken actions to avert a housing crisis in the aftermath of Covid 19. While these actions have undeniably helped mitigate widespread foreclosure and eviction crises, they do not fully address the more fundamental American housing challenge—an inadequate supply of affordable housing at all income levels, a longstanding problem that Covid-19 has …

Equitable, Affordable And Climate-Cognizant Housing Construction, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The almost universal sentiment by a growing body of physical and social scientists is that climate change--with its floods, drought, heat, and cold-- portend losses of life, communities, property, and the rhythms of living. Some are more vulnerable to these impacts than others: individuals and the poor, who through official government policy and self-interest in the housing markets, have been relegated to live in poorly-constructed and poorly-placed structures--in the wake of ocean surges; in the path of strong winds; near hazardous and noxious facilities; stranded in urban heat islands. Failing to heed climate change omens will lead to a world …

Challenges And Opportunities For Hotel-To-Housing Conversions In Nyc, Noah Kazis, Elisabeth Appel, Matt Murphy

Other Publications

As the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath, policymakers in New York City and Albany have debated how to support the conversion of hotels into housing—and especially affordable housing—as part of a solution to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. The basic intuition is compelling. COVID has forced the shuttering of many commercial establishments, especially in hard-hit New York City. In certain sectors, the effect has been particularly large: these include hotels devastated by shutdowns in tourism, international travel, and business travel. At the same time as these spaces are sitting empty, though, Americans have faced …

Stratégie Foncière Et Immobilière Au Maroc, Recomposition Territoriale Et Rapport À La Production Du Logement « Abordable » Quelles Perspectives Pour Agadir ?, Mohamed Ben Attou

Dirassat

Recent investment in housing programmes exerted great pressure on land capital so as to accommodate demographic urbanization. The public policies of the strategic planning of urbanization overlook issues of sustainability and land equity. Besides, speculations have tainted most practices associated with the land market and manipulated the mechanisms of demand and supply so that investors and stakeholders make wealth out of housing programs. Morocco managed to increase GDP per capita , however there are still many challenges to live up to namely those of draught and sustainability. The land market claims agricultural land uncontrollably to cater for a inexhaustible urbanization …

Zoning Reformed, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

It has been roughly a century since early advocates of zoning took notice of how crowded and congested housing conditions contributed to the spread of disease (including the then-recent H1N1 pandemic). The U.S. Supreme Court had just rejected on property rights grounds a city ordinance that expressly segregated neighborhoods by race. One hundred years later, the exposure of the weaknesses embedded in our system of public land use regulation during the crises of 2020 presents a unique and timely opportunity for serious consideration of major and minor adjustments to state statutes, local ordinances, and judicial decisions. This Article calls for …

Market-Anticipatory Approaches To Rural Property Vacancy, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Towards A Law Of Inclusive Planning: A Response To “Fair Housing For A Non-Sexist City”, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Noah Kazis’s important article, Fair Housing for a Non-sexist City, shows how law shapes the contours of neighborhoods and embeds forms of inequality, and how fair housing law can provide a remedy. Kazis surfaces two dimensions of housing that generate inequality and that are sometimes invisible. Kazis highlights the role of planning and design rules – the seemingly identity-neutral zoning, code enforcement, and land-use decisions that act as a form of law. Kazis also reveals how gendered norms underlie those rules and policies. These aspects of Kazis’s project link to commentary on the often invisible, gendered norms that shape …

Affordable And Workforce Housing In France, Camille Mialot

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Affordable Housing Policies In Brazil, Romulo S.R. Sampaio

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Legal Mechanisms To Provide For Affordable Housing In England And The United States, Edward Sullivan, Robert Williams

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Pieces Of Housing Integration, Kristen Barnes

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding the enactment of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, accomplishing racially-integrated housing across the United States remains an unattained goal. The costs associated with this failure are innumerable. Black Americans have endured harms in many areas, including health, education, wealth, and employment. More broadly, the nation has incurred considerable socioeconomic and political costs. In the interdisciplinary book, Moving Toward Integration, authors Richard Sander, Yana Kucheva, and Jonathan Zasloff analyze why the promise of racially-integrated housing remains unfulfilled and identify noteworthy strategies for changing course. Engaging with their arguments, this article highlights several structural impediments to altering racial housing …

Development In Over The Rhine: Can Otr Defeat The Pitfalls Of Gentrification And Create An Economically Diverse Community?, Madeline High

Freedom Center Journal

This paper focuses on the emergence of gentrification, the negative consequences it creates, and the ways in which these consequences can be alleviated. These topics are addressed both through a broad national lens and through a more narrow focus on Over-the-Rhine (OTR), a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. This paper specifically focuses on displacement in the realm of housing, culture, and economics as well as the potential creation of long-term segregation, and on how such displacement has led to a loss of autonomy of existing residents. The rise of gentrification and its impact is explored through an examination of literature, personal …

The Costs And Benefits Of Affordable Housing: A Partial Solution To The Conflict Of Competing Goods, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I extend a prior inquiry into the costs borne by society due to the lack of enough decent, affordable housing units. I previously outlined those costs and suggested a combination of public cost savings and public and private benefits that would accrue by providing that housing. I posited that the savings and benefits, in the aggregate, could at least substantially offset the costs and might even exceed them. If that is so, I queried, why has society not produced the needed units? In answering that question, I offered several possible responses: inadequate resources, racism, and public choice …

Community In Property: Lessons From Tiny Homes Villages, Lisa T. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

The evolving role of community in property law remains undertheorized. While legal scholars have analyzed the commons, common interest communities, and aspects of the sharing economy, the recent rise of intentional co-housing communities re-mains relatively understudied. This Article analyzes tiny homes villages for unhoused people in the United States, as examples of co-housing communities that create a new housing tenure—stewardship—and demonstrate the growing importance of community, co-management, sustainability, and flexibility in con-temporary property law. These villages’ property relationships challenge the predominance of individualized, exclusionary, long-term, fee simple ownership in contemporary property law and exemplify property theories such as progressive property …

The Right To Housing: Possessing Home In California, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

In an area where the median home costs $820,000, San Francisco’s Bay Area is currently experiencing an affordable housing crisis. Unsurprisingly 25,951 people lack stable housing in the Bay Area. A recent Brookings Institute income inequality study ranked the San Francisco metropolitan area (including San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin Counties) the third highest in income inequality in the United States. In the Bay Area, where the median fair market rate for a two bedroom apartment is $3,121, the highest earners were making eleven times more than the lowest.

Among those most affected by the rising rents are minority …

Affordable Housing: Of Inefficiency, Market Distortion, And Government Failure, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I examine the types of costs that are imposed on society as a whole due to the absence of a sufficient number of decent housing units that are affordable to the low-income population. These costs present themselves in relation to health care, education, employment, productivity, homelessness, and incarceration. Some of the costs are direct expenditures while others are the result of lost opportunities.

My hypothesis is that these costs are significant and offer, at the very least, a substantial offset to the cost of creating and subsidizing the operation of the necessary number of affordable housing units …

Midat Sodom And The Housing Affordability Crisis, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn