Law Commons^™

Local Regulation Of Charitable Solicitation, Joseph Mead

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Most discussions of the policy context for nonprofits in the United States focus on federal or state restrictions. Fundraising charities, however, must comply not only with myriad state requirements but an uncertain number of local requirements as well. Based on a survey of the largest cities in the United States, I find that all of these cities have some restrictions on charitable solicitation. Several of the cities also impose extensive registration requirements and other restrictions. These findings highlight the need for nonprofits to be aware of local regulation of their activities.

Why We Need Reed: Unmasking Pretext In Anti-Panhandling Legislation, Joseph Mead

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of areas where asking for help is restricted or banned. Whether called begging, panhandling, or solicitation, cities were spurred on by concerns of business owners and residents to ban or highly restrict this type of speech from occurring in public areas. Yet laws such as these have been repeatedly struck down by courts in recent months, fueled in large part by the Supreme Court’s decision in Reed v. City of Gilbert.

In this essay I argue that, at least in the context of anti-panhandling legislation, Reed …

Perspectives On Abandoned Houses In A Time Of Dystopia, Kermit J. Lind

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article describes various perspectives on abandoned houses in urban neighborhoods and the reactions from those perspectives. It notes how conflicting reactions perpetuate the crisis of blight for individual residents and their communities. It argues that real solutions for management of abandonment must be based in local communities and tailored to local conditions. Priority must be placed on consistent maintenance in compliance with local housing and neighborhood health, safety and environmental codes. Housing preservation, rehabilitation, reutilization programs will not succeed without improved and sustained maintenance. Localities will need to take the lead in remodeling residential maintenance using new strategies, methods …

Responding To The Mortgage Crisis: Three Cleveland Examples, W. Dennis Keating, Kermit J. Lind

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Just as SVD [Slavic Village Development] fought back against predatory lending, mortgage fraud, and speculator flipping, the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County also sought to prevent these practices and stem the rising tide of foreclosures. This included legislation, litigation, and homeowner counseling. This article will focus on three examples of the response to the mortgage crisis in Cleveland: the Cleveland Housing Court, the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank), and community development corporations (CDCs) and local intermediaries (namely, the Cleveland Housing Network (CHN) and Neighborhood Progress, Inc. (NPI)). Each of these entities has developed initiatives aimed at the …

The Effect Of Rluipa's Land Use Provisions On Local Government, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the absence of perfect information about how RLUIPA has affected local governments, this article argues that the courts have adopted a pragmatic approach to maneuvering in the difficult terrain that RLUIPA occupies: combining appropriate judicial deference to a legislature that enacts a neutral law of general applicability with the heightened judicial scrutiny that becomes appropriate when that same law is applied to a specific zoning approval, a circumstance that frequently allows for subjectivity, and thus the potential for discrimination or arbitrariness against religious uses, in the approval process. I conclude that: (1) until proven otherwise, the costs RLUIPA undoubtedly …

The Association Of Adult Businesses With Secondary Effects: Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, And Empirical Evidence, Alan C. Weinstein, Richard D. Mccleary

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alameda Books v. City of Los Angeles, 535 U.S. 425 (2002), the adult entertainment industry has attacked the legal rationale local governments rely upon as the justification for their regulation of adult businesses: that such businesses are associated with so-called negative secondary effects. These attacks have taken a variety of forms, including: trying to subject the studies of secondary effects relied upon by local governments to the Daubert standard for admission of scientific evidence in federal litigation; producing studies that purport to show no association between adult businesses and negative …

Do 'Off-Site' Adult Businesses Have Secondary Effects? Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, And Empirical Evidence, Alan Weinstein, Richard D. Mccleary

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Recent federal court decisions appear to limit the ability of cities to mitigate the ambient crime risks associated with adult entertainment businesses. In one instance, a court has assumed that criminological theories do not apply to “off-site” adult businesses. After developing the legal doctrine of secondary effects, we demonstrate that the prevailing criminological theory applies to all adult business models. To corroborate the theory, we report the results of a before/after quasi-experiment for an off-site adult business. When an off-site adult business opens, ambient crime risk doubles compared to a control area. As theory predicts, moreover, ambient victimization risk is …

Essay: Current And Future Challenges To Local Government Posed By The Housing And Credit Crisis,, Alan Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The ongoing problems in the housing and credit markets, caused by a toxic combination of wholesale deregulation of financial markets by the federal government and imprudent lending and investment practices by financial institutions, pose significant challenges to local and state government officials. Some of these challenges are obvious. How will cities cope with an unprecedented number of foreclosures at the same time that state and local tax revenues are decreasing? When will access to credit ease in a municipal bond market that has constricted as a result of both general credit concerns and questions about the companies insuring those bonds? …

The Lt. Governor Encourages Lawyers To Take Advantage Of State Resources To Aid Ohio's Economic Development, Lee Fisher

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For the last several months, my colleagues and I at the Ohio Department of Development have been focused on the formation of a statewide economic development strategy that will establish our priorities and guide our future decisions. Ultimately this strategy will serve as an economic development plan for Ohio that will be led primarily by the Ohio Department of Development, along with the Governor's office and other state agencies and departments. With full implementation, our strategic plan will not only guide Ohio's long-term investments, but will also help guide our daily decisions.

How To Avoid A "Holy War" -- Dealing With Potential Rluipa Claims, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article discusses how local government can seek to avoid a claim being brought against it under the Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Thus, the focus is not on what steps a local government should take when a RLUIPA claim is brought - or threatened to be brought - against it, but focuses instead on what steps local governments should take to seek to avoid a RLUIPA claim in the first place. After reviewing both the changing context of religious observance in the United States, and RLUIPA decisions to date, the article concludes that we are clearly …

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis And Local Government: Immediate And Future Challenges, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Kelo: One Year Later, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

June of 2006 marked the first anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, making this a good time to analyze the past year's flurry of activity and assess what it means for local governments. As of mid-May of 2006, more than forty states were considering legislation in reaction to the Kelo ruling, and fifteen have already enacted such legislation.

Rluipa: Where Are We Now? Where Are We Heading?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past three years, hardly a week has gone by without at least one news-story announcing that a church, synagogue, or religious school-I'll use the term “church” from here on as a shorthand for all houses of worship or other religious institutions—is claiming that its right to religious freedom is being infringed by local government land use regulations in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. RLUIPA, a federal statute signed into law in September 2000, was enacted to restore to full vigor legal protection for religious freedoms that the Act's proponents argue had been seriously …

Book Review, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Reviewing L. Vale, Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods, Harvard University Press (2002)

Case Commentary - Martin V. Corporation Of The Presiding Bishop: Should Zoning Accommodate Religious Uses Or Vice Versa?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In Martin v. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, 747 N.E. 2d 131 (Mass. 2001), the highest court in Massachusetts rules that the Dover Amendment, a state statutes that denies local government the authority to "prohibit, regulate, or restrict the use of land or structures for religious purposes..." authorized the town of Belmont to grant a church special permission to build a steeple for a newly built Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temple that was taller than the local zoning provisions would normally allow. Since Martin involved a Massachusetts statute, normally the decision would evoke limited interest, and …

The Dilemma Of Old, Urban Neighborhoods, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In his recounting of the suburban migration from America's cities, journalist and broadcaster Ray Suarez laments the loss of the "old neighborhood". He extols its virtues while explaining its decline. Suarez's nostalgic examples recall the virtues of the extended family kinship, neighborliness, and other features of the "urban village." These are often associated with those urban neighborhoods populated by recent immigratns. These urban villages were thought to have peaked in the decades between the American Civil War and the onset of the First World War, when many U.S. cities industrialized and grew very rapidly. However, a continuing movement of migrants …

The "Race-Neutral" Option For Local Government Contracting Programs, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Despite the dismal record cities have compiled of late in defending their race-conscious contracting programs, this article seeks "to dispel the notion that strict scrutiny is 'strict in theory but fatal in fact.'" If a local government follows the course outlined above, and combines the ability to monitor and analyze all relevant contracting data with the enactment and implementation of a multi-faceted race-neutral program, it has laid a sound foundation for the subsequent enactment of race-conscious remedies that are narrowly-tailored to address statistically valid disparities in utilization of specific categories of MBEs that remain after the race-neutral program has been …

Conflicts In Regulating Religious Institutions, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past 25 years, religious institutions have greatly increased their claims of violation of religious freedom when they are denied zoning approval or subjected to historic preservation regulations. While no one can definitively explain the causes of this increase in First Amendment challenges, it can partially be traced to recent changes in both our society and the way our political/legal system conceptualizes religious freedom.

Zoning Ordinances And "Free Speech", Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past two decades there has been a marked expansion in legal challenges to local land use regulations claiming violations of the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. First Amendment claims can arise whenever government enacts or enforces zoning or other regulations that deal with uses such as billboards or adult entertainment businesses. This article discusses why this litigation is taking place, provides an overview of First Amendment law, and offers local officials some guidelines to help avoid potential legal challenges.

The Parma Housing Racial Discrimination Remedy Revisited, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In 1980, the city of Parma, Ohio, Cleveland's largest suburban city was found guilty of violating the Fair Housing Act. Federal District Court Judge Frank Battisti imposed an extensive remedy upon Parma. Upon approval by the Sixth Circuit of the imposed remedy, its implementation began in 1982. Controversy surrounded much of the remedy, and fourteen years later following Battisti's death, Federal District Court judge Kathleen O'Malley approved a new settlment aimed at ending the court's supervision of the modified remedy after another two years. Along with the Gautreaux, Mt. Laurel, and Yonkers cases, the Parma case represents a longstanding remedy …

The Challenge Of Providing Adequate Housing For The Elderly . . . Along With Everyone, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Our patterns of land use and development have failed to accommodate the changed housing needs of an aging population. Primary among these needs is the desire of the elderly to be able to "age in place." To meet this need, America's suburban communities in particular will need to re-think their reliance on exclusive single-family zoning and begin planning and zoning for an increasingly large number of the elderly. Despite understandable concerns about maintaining housing values, this may well prove to be politically achievable simply because the very demographic changes that create the need will create a growing constituency in favor …

Revisiting The National Flood Insurance Program, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article discusses the hazards proposed by floods, the options for their control, the operation of the National Flood Insurance Program, and the changes made by the 1994 amendments.

Courts Take Close Look At Adult Use Regs, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Regulations imposed on "adult businesses" by state or local government raise serious constitutional issues because the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression extends to sexually oriented media. This article provides an update on recent adult business cases dealing with locational restrictions, public indecency laws, licensing requirements, and public health regulations.

Book Review Essay, Urban Politics, The City Liberal, Progressive, And Conservative, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Reviewing Stella M. Capek and John I. Gilderboom, Community Versus Commodity: Tenants and the American City; Richard Edward DeLeon, Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Franscisco; Chis McNickle, To be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City; John Hull Mollenkopf, A Phoenix in the Ashes: The Rise and Fall of the Koch Coalition in New York City Politics.

The Myth Of Ministry Vs. Mortar: A Legal & Policy Analysis Of Landmark Designation Of Religious Institutions, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article proposes to examine the conflict between religious institutions and landmark preservation groups at both its empirical and normative levels. Part I of the Article provides an overview of historic preservation. It traces the development of the historic preservation movement, describes the standards and procedures commonly found in preservation ordinances, and discusses briefly the seminal cases in this field. Part II then attempts to answer three questions: (1) how extensive is the conflict between religious institutions and landmark commissions; (2) what has been the response of state and local legislatures to the conflict; and (3) what legal doctrines have …

Report Of The Subcommittee On First Amendment And Land Use, Alan C. Weinstein, Edward H. Ziegler Jr.

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In recent years, there has been a marked expansion in the types of uses, both commercial and nonprofit, that challenge land-use regulations on First Amendment grounds. This expansion is occurring for two reasons. First, "land use and the first amendment" is a developing area in the law. As is typical of developing areas in the law, litigants are encouraged to bring cases because the law is unsettled and they hope to create significant new rights. Second, a number of societal factors have coalesced to create a greater potential for conflict when government regulates the use of land. In part, this …

Symposium: Ohioans Without Health Insurance: How Big A Problem? Are There Solutions?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Ohioans Without Health Insurance: How Big A Problem? Are There Solutions?, was the INAUGURAL Conference of Cleveland State University's Law & Public Policy Program, an interdisciplinary program of instruction, public service and research sponsored jointly by the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. The goal of the Conference was to facilitate an exchange of information and views among representatives of the public and major interests concerned with the growing numbers of persons who either lack health insurance or have inadequate coverage.

First Amendment And Land Use, In Recent Developments In Land Use, Planning, And Zoning, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Once again in the past year, the U.S. Supreme Court has entered an opinion involving the first amendment that has significant ramifications for local zoning and planning. This marks the third time since 1986 that the Court has handed down a decision in this field. The most important development in this area of the law since last year's committee report is the Supreme Court's decision in FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, which addressed the validity of a comprehensive adult entertainment zoning and licensing ordinance enacted by Dallas in 1986. FW/PBS was followed with great interest because it marked the …

First Amendment And Land Use, In Recent Developments In Land Use, Planning, And Zoning, Alan C. Weinstein, Edward E. Ziegler Jr.

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the mid-1980s, the focus in this area of the law was on nuisance closures and license revocation actions affecting adult bookstores and other kinds of establishments where either obscenity or illicit sexual activities were taking place. In our last committee report focusing on the first amendment area we reported on those areas of the law in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Arcara v. Cloud Books, Inc. Since then, there has been one important Fifth Circuit decision, FW/PBS Inc. v. City of Dallas, that the Supreme Court has agreed to review, with a decision expected in 1989. There …

Emergence Of Community Development Corporations: Their Impact On Housing And Neighborhoods, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

CDCs, both locally and nationally, are seeking broader support from government, corporations and foundations. Without increased sustained support, it is not clear that CDCs can really provide the housing, employment, and services necessary for the revitalization of urban neighborhoods that are truly integrated by income, race and ethnicity. However, given the failure of the private market to provide below market housing, and the inability of most large public housing authorities to expand the supply of public housing, CDCs are the best and often the only hope for affordable housing in these neighborhoods.