Law Commons^™

Suburban Sprawl: Weaker But Still Alive, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Review of The End of the Suburbs, by Leigh Gallagher.

How To Make America Walkable, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Review of Walkable City, by Jeff Speck

How Often Do Cities Mandate Smart Growth Or Green Building?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Much has been written about the role of government regulation in facilitating automobile-oriented sprawl. Zoning codes reduce walkability by artificially segregating housing from commerce, forcing businesses and multifamily landlords to surround their buildings with parking, and artificially reducing density. The “smart growth” movement seeks to reverse these policies, both through regulation and through more libertarian, deregulatory policies. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent cities have in fact chosen the former path, and to discuss the possible side effects of prescriptive smart growth and green building regulations. In particular, this paper focuses on attempts to make …

Land Use Law Update: New York's New Climate Change Resiliency Law, Sarah Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

New York State’s lawmakers passed 2,603 bills over the course of the 2013-14 session, 658 of which passed both houses. Although counties and local governments are likely focusing their attention on budget-related items such as the property tax freeze/rebate program, local governments — and zoning and planning officials and practitioners in particular — should also take note of the newly enacted Community Risk and Resiliency Act (CRRA).

Recent Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin

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Current events across the country reveal no shortage of allegations of unethical conduct in the land use review process. Sadly, there are countless other media accounts of alleged and proven conflicts of interest and other ethical misconduct. In this annual review of reported decisions involving ethics in land use, recent decisions are discussed in the hopes that municipal attorneys will use this information as the basis of ongoing training for members of planning boards, zoning boards, and local legislative bodies who must be routinely reminded of not only their legal but ethical responsibilities in upholding the public trust.

State Preemption Of Local Land Use Ordinances And North Carolina's "Fracking" Legislation, Michael B. Kent Jr.

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

How Real Is Gentrification?, Michael Lewyn

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Some commentators argue that gentrification is turning many cities into a playground for the rich. This article rejects that view, pointing out that even relatively affluent cities are still poorer than the average suburb.

It's A 'Criming Shame': Moving From Land Use Ethics To Criminalization Of Behavior Leading To Permits And Other Zoning Related Acts, Patricia E. Salkin, Bailey Ince

Scholarly Works

In the past, land use ethics inquiries predominately involved conflicts of interest or an official holding public office while engaging in a previously held business or law practice. Now, prosecutors are looking at the underlying criminality of the unethical acts carried out in the context of land use decisions. With a wide array of criminal statutes in the hands of federal prosecutors, almost all forms of unethical conduct could in some way also violate a federal criminal statute.

Part II of this article reviews the federal statutes most often used by federal prosecutors and provides some examples of recent reported …

Land Use Law Update: The Court Of Appeals Issues A Victory For Home Rule In Wallach V. Town Of Dryden And Cooperstown Holstein Corp. V. Town Of Middlefield, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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In the midst of the often heated controversy swirling around the issue of hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as “hydrofracking” and “fracking”), New York’s Court of Appeals recently issued a straightforward ruling, which focused on long-established precedent concerning the right of municipalities to regulate mining land uses, rather than focusing on the contentious economic or environmental issues surrounding the fracking debate. This article discusses that ruling.

On The Waterfront: New York City's Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation Challenge (Part 1 Of 2), Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

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New York City is a city on the waterfront. With 520 miles of coastline, New York City’s coastline is longer than the coastlines of Miami, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. Nearly nine million New Yorkers live in areas vulnerable to flooding, storm surges and other natural disaster-related risks that are increasing as a result of climate change.

New York City didn’t wait for a devastating storm to begin comprehensively addressing the effects of climate change. The City’s extensive climate change mitigation and resiliency efforts and communications strategy have put the City in a league of its own. But, …

Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation: A Local Solution To A Global Problem, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

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Local land use laws offer powerful tools for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, notwithstanding New York municipalities’ many impressive efforts, local laws are not yet being utilized sufficiently to create disaster-resilient or disaster-adaptive communities. New York City has done substantially more than many other cities, including, critically, setting specific CO2 emissions reduction targets and amending zoning and building codes. But, in light of the evidence of climate change and its impacts, local decision makers, resource managers, and planners throughout the state must ask whether we are doing enough. Failure to do so will continue to be costly in terms …

On The Waterfront: New York City's Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation Challenge (Part 2 Of 2), Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

New York City, like other major cities around the world, has acknowledged the problem of climate change and begun to implement proactive policies to decrease the city’s contribution to the problem (i.e., mitigation) and to make the city less vulnerable to the effects of climate change (i.e., adaptation). The City’s initiatives have been comprehensive and progressive, especially its climate change-related data analysis and communication initiatives including NPCC, and its comprehensive reform of building and other related codes. The City’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 and its progress toward that goal are also laudable, but the …