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Land Use Law Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Land Use Law

Connecticut Cities, Towns Cutting Red Tape Amid Covid-19 Crisis, Sara C. Bronin Mar 2020

Connecticut Cities, Towns Cutting Red Tape Amid Covid-19 Crisis, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Over the last two weeks, Governor Ned Lamont has issued two executive orders that have brought sweeping changes in the way municipalities across Connecticut function in the COVID-19 era. This short piece summarizes the changes in the executive orders as they relate to municipal procedures and decision-making.


Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin Jan 2020

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …


Community-Scale Renewable Energy, Hannah J. Wiseman, Sara C. Bronin Jan 2013

Community-Scale Renewable Energy, Hannah J. Wiseman, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the movement toward cleaner energy has gained momentum within the United States, a growing number of scholars and policymakers have made the case for community-scale renewable energy: mid-sized energy sources supported by resources pooled from several private parties in close geographic proximity. When built and utilized at the community level, these energy facilities may allow for economies of scale that their owners could not achieve working individually. Individual distributed generation, such as solar infrastructure on the roofs of homes, involves high transaction costs and creates relatively small impacts. At the same time, community-scale renewable energy has advantages over large-scale …


Curbing Energy Sprawl With Microgrids, Sara C. Bronin Dec 2010

Curbing Energy Sprawl With Microgrids, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Energy sprawl - the phenomenon of ever-increasing consumption of land, particularly in rural areas, required to site energy generation facilities - is a real and growing problem. Over the next twenty years, at least sixty-seven million acres of land will have been developed for energy projects, destroying wildlife habitats and fragmenting landscapes. According to one influential report, even renewable energy projects - especially large-scale projects that require large-scale transmission and distribution infrastructure - contribute to energy sprawl. This Article does not aim to stop large-scale renewable energy projects or even argue that policymakers focus solely on land use in determining …


The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, And The States, Sara C. Bronin Nov 2008

The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, And The States, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Thirty-seven years ago, a book called The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control argued that states would soon take over localities' long-held power over land use regulation. In the authors' view, this quiet revolution would occur when policymakers and the public recognized that certain problems - like environmental destruction - were too big for localities to handle on their own. Although the quiet revolution has not yet occurred, this Article suggests that it will, and should, occur alongside the ever-growing green building movement. This movement presents practical and ideological challenges to our current system of regulating land use. This Article …


Gone Too Far: Measure 37 And The Perils Of Over-Regulating Land Use, Sara C. Bronin Apr 2005

Gone Too Far: Measure 37 And The Perils Of Over-Regulating Land Use, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In November 2004, Oregonians passed a ballot measure, Measure 37, that presented a radical remedy for landowners by preventing the state from engaging in regulatory takings without compensating landowners. It required that local governments either monetarily compensate landowners whose properties fall in value as a result of land use regulations or, under certain conditions, exempt those landowners from the regulations altogether. At its core, Measure 37 addressed Oregon voters' concern that - for all the good the land use system had done - the government had gone too far in prohibiting landowners from using their land as they saw fit. …