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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Limitations Of Majoritarian Land Assembly, Daniel B. Kelly
The Limitations Of Majoritarian Land Assembly, Daniel B. Kelly
Journal Articles
In their article, Land Assembly Districts, Professors Michael Heller and Rick Hills address the collective action problem arising from excessively fragmented land. They propose an innovative solution: Land Assembly Districts (or LADs). In this Article, I raise several concerns regarding LADs in particular and majoritarian land assembly in general. LADs rely on majority voting by a neighborhood's existing owners. Yet majority voting, coupled with the possibility of heterogeneity, means that LADs may both approve socially undesirable assemblies and disapprove socially desirable ones. LADs also permit owners to bargain over a project's surplus. But such bargaining creates additional costs for developers, …
Pretextual Takings: Of Private Developers, Local Governments, And Impermissible Favoritism, Daniel B. Kelly
Pretextual Takings: Of Private Developers, Local Governments, And Impermissible Favoritism, Daniel B. Kelly
Journal Articles
Since Kelo v. City of New London, the preferred litigation strategy for challenging a condemnation that benefits a private party is to allege that the taking is pretextual. This Article contends that, although pretextual takings are socially undesirable, the current judicial test for identifying such takings is problematic. Yet an alternative, intent-based test might be impracticable, as well as underinclusive: condemnors often have mixed motives, particularly when confronted with a firm's credible threat to relocate. Instead, the Article develops a framework that emphasizes informational differences between local governments and private developers. When the government lacks information regarding the optimal site …