Law Commons^™

Just Transitions, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

The transition to a low-carbon society will have winners and losers as the costs and benefits of decarbonization fall unevenly on different communities. This potential collateral damage has prompted calls for a “just transition” to a green economy. While the term, “just transition,” is increasingly prevalent in the public discourse, it remains under-discussed and poorly defined in legal literature, preventing it from helping catalyze fair decarbonization. This Article seeks to define the term, test its validity, and articulate its relationship with law so the idea can meet its potential.

The Article is the first to disambiguate and assess two main …

Allocating Property Interests In Ecosystem Services: From Chaos To Flowing Rivers, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Complementary Authority And The One-Way Ratchet: Ecosystem Services Property, Regulation, And Wildlife Conservation, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

Due to the priorities of the Trump Administration, which are not a great match with those of the conservation community, we find ourselves in a period of rollbacks for all kinds of environmental regulation, including the protection of wildlife. When the federal government fails to adequately regulate, we look to other sources of authority to fill that gap. The first and most obvious place to look is to state and local governments. They are our best hope to avoid hemorrhaging vulnerable species during this presidency. Alas, looking at the realities of state wildlife conservation laws, we see the gaps remain. …

The "Publicization" Of Private Space, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or POPOS. These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made a …

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

Regulating The Underground: Secret Supper Clubs, Pop-Up Restaurants And The Role O F Law, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Instagram pictures of elegantly plated dinners, long farmstyle tables, and well-to-do people laughing in what looks like a loft apartment are followed by commenters asking, “Where is this?” This is the world of underground dining. Aspiring and established chefs invite strangers into their homes (or their friends’ stores after hours, or the empty warehouse at the edge of town, or the nearest farm) for a night of food and revelry in exchange for cash. Although decidedly antiestablishment, these secret suppers and pop-up restaurants are popular—there are websites to help people locate them, and many respected publications have penned stories about …

Unpermitted Urban Agriculture: Transgressive Actions, Changing Norms And The Local Food Movement, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Roberta keeps four chickens in her backyard. Bob snuck onto the vacant lot next door, which the bank foreclosed upon and now owns, and planted a vegetable garden. Vien operates an occasional underground restaurant from his friends’ microbrewery after beer-making operations cease for the day. The common thread tying these actions together is that they are unauthorized; they are being undertaken in violation of existing laws and often norms. In this Article, I explore ideas surrounding the overlap between food policy and land use law, specifically the transgressive1 actions that people living in urban and suburban communities are undertaking to …

Banning Lawns, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recognizing their role in sustainability efforts, many local governments are enacting climate change plans, mandatory green building ordinances, and sustainable procurement policies. But thus far, local governments have largely ignored one of the most pervasive threats to sustainability — lawns. This Article examines the trend toward sustainability mandates by considering the implications of a ban on lawns, the single largest irrigated crop in the United States.

Green yards are deeply seated in the American ethos of the sanctity of the single-family home. However, this psychological attachment to lawns results in significant environmental harms: conventional turfgrass is a non-native monocrop that …

The Future Of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions To The Legacies Of Poor Planning Decisions, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Big box stores, the defining retail shopping location for the majority of American suburbs, are being abandoned at alarming rates, due in part to the economic downturn. These empty stores impose numerous negative externalities on the communities in which they are located, including blight, reduced property values, loss of tax revenue, environmental problems, and a decrease in social capital. While scholars have generated and critiqued prospective solutions to prevent abandonment of big box stores, this Article asserts that local zoning ordinances can alleviate the harms imposed by the thousands of existing, vacant big boxes. Because local governments control land use …

Following Industry's Leed : Municipal Adoption Of Private Green Building Standards, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Local governments are beginning to require new, privately constructed and funded buildings to be “green” buildings. Instead of creating their own, locally-derived definitions of green buildings, many municipalities are adopting an existing private standard created by members of the building industry: LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). This Article explains and assesses the privately promulgated LEED standards. It argues that the translation of LEED standards, which were intended to be voluntary, into law raises several theoretical and practical problems. Specifically, private green building ordinances that rely on LEED do not ensure a reduction in the negative local environmental impacts …

Renewable Energy And The Neighbors, Troy A. Rule

Faculty Publications

Small wind turbines and rooftop solar panels are a highly attractive energy option, capable of generating clean, renewable power without the need for transmission lines across vast stretches of rural land. State and federal incentive programs have made these devices increasingly affordable for landowners in recent years, generating an unprecedented level of interest in “distributed” renewable energy.Unfortunately, small wind turbines and solar panels are often far less attractive in the eyes of neighbors, who fear that the systems will erode neighborhood aesthetics and property values. Despite aggressive state and federal programs aimed at promoting renewable energy systems, land use controls …