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Housing Law

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

State and Local Government Law

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Local Inclusionary Housing Programs: Meeting Housing Needs, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher May 2007

Local Inclusionary Housing Programs: Meeting Housing Needs, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article explores the expansive legal authority that local governments in many states have to meet housing needs directly by providing for the production of new affordable homes. There is not a great deal of scholarship on the subject as we approach it. The emphasis in the academic literature in the field of affordable housing is on top-down, systemic, or theoretical solutions: urging reforms in federal and state finance programs, imploring courts to penalize localities that engage in exclusionary zoning, describing in detail a variety of inclusionary zoning techniques, or explaining relevant theories or the economics of the issue of …


Shattering The Myth Of Municipal Impotence: The Authority Of Local Government To Create Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon Jan 1989

Shattering The Myth Of Municipal Impotence: The Authority Of Local Government To Create Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the absence of any guidance from the legislature, local officials, in confronting the problem of affordable housing, look to the courts to define the extent of their responsibility and power. While not providing specific direction, the New York Court of Appeals has clearly outlawed zoning designed to exclude affordable housing. The judiciary has voiced doubts, however, that municipal governments can, through zoning alone, require the development of affordable housing. The view that municipalities lack such power is erroneous. Zoning alone is competent to induce such development. Furthermore, local governments have considerable additional power to induce the creation of such …


Expanding Traditional Land Use Authority Through Environmental Legislation: The Regulation Of Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon Jan 1988

Expanding Traditional Land Use Authority Through Environmental Legislation: The Regulation Of Affordable Housing, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article is devoted to an examination of local land use regulation in the context of the use of SEQRA and its mandate, to mitigate environmental impacts to require the provision of affordable housing in high cost housing markets. As such, it looks at one contemporary manifestation of the growth of police power authority to meet new land use challenges.