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Full-Text Articles in Law
Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh
Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The United States has a north coast along its ‘inland seas’—the Laurentian Great Lakes. The country enjoys more than 4,500 miles of Great Lakes coastal shoreline, almost as much as its ocean coastal shorelines combined, excluding Alaska. The Great Lakes states are experiencing continued shorefront development and redevelopment, and there are growing calls to better manage shorelands for enhanced resiliency in the face of global climate change. The problem is that the most pleasant, fragile, and dangerous places are in high demand among coastal property owners, such that coastal development often yields the most tenacious of conflicts between public interests …
Public Use, Public Choice, And The Urban Growth Machine: Competing Political Economies Of Takings Law, Daniel A. Lyons
Public Use, Public Choice, And The Urban Growth Machine: Competing Political Economies Of Takings Law, Daniel A. Lyons
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Kelo decision has unleashed a tidal wave of legislative reforms ostensibly seeking to control eminent domain abuse. But as a policy matter, it is impossible to determine what limits should be placed upon local government without understanding how cities grow and develop, and how local governments make decisions to shape the communities over which they preside. This Article examines takings through two very different models of urban political economy: public choice theory and the quasi-Marxist Urban Growth Machine model. These models approach takings from diametrically opposite perspectives, and offer differing perspectives at the margin regarding proper and improper condemnations. …
Fear And Loathing: Combating Speculation In Local Communities, Ngai Pindell
Fear And Loathing: Combating Speculation In Local Communities, Ngai Pindell
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Local governments commonly respond to economic and social pressures on property by using their legal power to regulate land uses. These local entities enact regulations that limit property development and use to maintain attractive communities and orderly growth. This Article argues that government entities should employ their expansive land use powers to limit investor speculation in local markets by restricting the resale of residential housing for three years. Investor speculation, and the upward pressure it places on housing prices, threatens the availability of affordable housing as well as the development of stable neighborhoods. Government regulation of investor speculation mirrors existing, …
Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky
Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky
Michigan Law Review
Private property is widely perceived as a potent prodevelopment and anticonservationist force. The drive to accumulate wealth through private property rights is thought to encourage environmentally destructive development; legal protection of such property rights is believed to thwart environmentally friendly public measures. Indeed, property rights advocates and environmentalists are generally described as irreconcilable foes. This presumed clash often leads environmentalists to urge public acquisition of private lands. Interestingly, less attention is paid to the possibility that the government may prove no better a conservator than private owners. Government actors often mismanage conservation properties, collaborating with private developers to dispose of …
Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich
Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Rands, expanded the navigational servitude doctrine governing the federal government's power over land adjoining a navigable waterway by severely qualifying the government's Fifth Amendment obligation to compensate the landowner. This Article addresses the issue in the following ways: Part I surveys Congress' power to regulate navigable waters under the Commerce Clause. Part II summarizes the development of the navigational servitude doctrine and some of its inhibitory effects on waterfront development, especially under Rands. It explains the fundamental unfairness of the Rands principle and demonstrates why this constitutional rule …
Understanding Sprawl: Lessons From Architecture For Legal Scholars, Mark S. Davies
Understanding Sprawl: Lessons From Architecture For Legal Scholars, Mark S. Davies
Michigan Law Review
What is suburban "sprawl"? Why is it undesirable? Why do many Americans nevertheless choose to live in sprawl? Do local zoning laws contribute to sprawl? Can democratic institutions discourage it? Legal scholars are beginning to study these urgent and complex questions. This Essay reviews Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, leading architects of the influential New Urbanism or traditional town planning movement. This review makes five points about the legal study of sprawl. First, Suburban Nation provides a definition of "sprawl" that the law can …
Adverse Possession Against The States: The Hornbooks Have It Wrong, Paula R. Latovick
Adverse Possession Against The States: The Hornbooks Have It Wrong, Paula R. Latovick
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The hornbook rule is that adverse possession statutes do not run against land owned by state governments. Yet, in practice, the land of many states is subject to loss by adverse possession. Few states have statutes that simply and explicitly protect all state land from adverse possession. This Article describes the variety of ways in which states protect or fail to protect their land from adverse possession. It concludes with the recommendation that, given increasing development pressures and limited state enforcement budgets, state legislatures should protect completely all state land from adverse possession.
Farmland And Open Space Preservation In Michigan: An Empirical Analysis, Sandra A. Hoffmann
Farmland And Open Space Preservation In Michigan: An Empirical Analysis, Sandra A. Hoffmann
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Note describes the political and economic conditions that gave rise to the farmland and open space preservation enactments. It presents a brief political history of the support for this body of legislation and summarizes the economic arguments raised both for and against these preservation efforts. Part II describes the principal types of state farmland and open space preservation programs enacted during the past thirty years. Finally, Part III presents an empirical analysis of P.A. 116.
Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry
Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This note will attempt to explain the new Michigan statute and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of legislation as a means of preserving open space and farmland from conversion to more intensive use.
Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler
Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler
Michigan Law Review
The recent legislation providing for housing and slum clearance raises the interesting and practical problem of whether a taking of land for such housing and slum clearance purposes by means of an eminent domain proceeding is condemnation for a "public use," within the meaning of that term in eminent domain proceedings. Such a taking was held to be for a public use in the recent case of Spahn v. Stewart.
Trusts - Change Of Circumstances As Basis For Variation Of Trust Instrument
Trusts - Change Of Circumstances As Basis For Variation Of Trust Instrument
Michigan Law Review
The testator left his estate to trustees with directions to pay the income to his widow and three sons in equal shares, the principal to vest in the sons upon his widow's marriage or death. The widow in addition was given the use of the family homestead or the use of a new home not to exceed the price of $25,000. The homestead, valued at $200,000, became undesirable for residential purposes due to the growth of the business center of the city. The widow petitioned the court to direct the trustees to pay her $15,000 a year from the trust …