Law Commons^™

Methodological Challenges In Studying Trust In Natural Resources Management, Antonia Sohns, Gordon M. Hickey, Jasper R. De Vries, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Trust has been identified as a central characteristic of successful natural resource management (NRM), particularly in the context of implementing participatory approaches to stakeholder engagement. Trust is, however, a multi-dimensional and multi-level concept that is known to evolve recursively through time, challenging efforts to empirically measure its impact on collaboration in different NRM settings. In this communication we identify some of the challenges associated with conceptualizing and operationalizing trust in NRM field research, and pay particular attention to the inter-relationships between the concepts of trust, perceived risk and control due to their multidimensional and interacting roles in inter-organizational collaboration. The …

The Case Against The Case For Zoning, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Power points used in a presentation on a work in progress, responding to Christopher Serkin's "Case For Zoning" article at 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 749.

Property Law For The Ages, Michael C. Pollack, Lior Jacob Strahilevitz

Articles

Within the next forty years, the number of Americans over age sixty-five is projected to nearly double. This seismic demographic shift will necessitate a reckoning in several areas of law and policy, but property law is especially unprepared. Built primarily for young and middle-aged white men, the common law of property has been critiqued for decades for the ways in which it oppresses or simply leaves behind people based on their race, sex, Native heritage, and more. This Article contributes a new focus on property law’s treatment of people based on their advanced age. Burdened by higher relocation costs, more …

Incentivizing Fair Housing, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Restrictive land use regulation has thwarted the upward mobility of many Americans, particularly Americans of color. Local restrictions imposed by affluent municipalities have limited access to safe neighborhoods, better housing, and good schools. Racism and economic self-interest have both played a role in exclusionary practices which have contributed to high housing costs that place a strain on the entire economy.

Fair Housing Act litigation has been one weapon in the fight against these practices. Despite the Supreme Court's decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. , disparate impact litigation faces significant obstacles that …

Exacting Inclusion: Property Theory, The Character Of Government Action, And Implicit Takings, Donald J. Smythe

Faculty Scholarship

Recent takings cases challenging inclusionary housing ordinances tap into an ongoing controversy about whether government interventions in the housing market do more harm than good; but they also raise much more general questions about takings law. This Article uses the controversy raised by recent housing cases to probe the relationship between the Supreme Court’s regulatory takings jurisprudence and its exaction takings jurisprudence and to suggest a more coherent approach to implicit takings. The Court’s exaction takings jurisprudence is well-designed if it is applied appropriately. As a general matter, it encourages the mitigation of socially harmful nuisances, incentivizes developers to make …

Building Better Conservation Easements For America The Beautiful, K. King Burnett, John D. Leshy, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In January 2021, the Biden Administration endorsed the goal of protecting 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030 to conserve biodiversity and help curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Administration’s initial report on this “America the Beautiful” initiative, issued in May, indicates that federally-deductible conservation easements are likely to play an important role in its implementation. This essay addresses whether and how such easements should be counted in this process.

This matter is of great importance. Donations of conservation easements, by which landowners receive generous federal tax deductions if they restrict the use of their properties in perpetuity in …

Impact Of National And Municipal Environmental Standards On The Development Of Effective Solid Waste Management Systems In Jeddah, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Raed Bin Sadan

Dissertations & Theses

The following research paper analyzes the impact of national and municipal environmental standards on the development of effective Solid waste management systems in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research is essential in ensuring that there are notable positive changes in the disposal of solid waste by both the local government and the national government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The following paper follows a strategic plan and procedure in ensuring achievement of the goal and purpose of the research. The approach used in this paper is a comparison of the current local system and a proposed improvement of …

Reallocating Redevelopment Risk, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

Scores of cities across the country face devastating financial crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more to the brink. But economically distressed municipalities have few places to turn for help. Saddled by rising unemployment, weak tax bases, and state law limitations on deficit spending and debt assumption, they generally cannot spend their way out. And as conditions deteriorate, mobile capital and labor move to greener pastures, further hollowing out the cities they leave behind. With state and federal lifelines tenuous at best, offers by large developers to redevelop an area of the city can thus appear to be …

Keeping Current - Probate [Notes], Claire Hargrove, Paula Moore, Kerri G. Nipp, William P. Lapiana, Jake W. Villanueva

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Challenges And Opportunities For Hotel-To-Housing Conversions In Nyc, Noah Kazis, Elisabeth Appel, Matt Murphy

Other Publications

As the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath, policymakers in New York City and Albany have debated how to support the conversion of hotels into housing—and especially affordable housing—as part of a solution to the city’s ongoing housing crisis. The basic intuition is compelling. COVID has forced the shuttering of many commercial establishments, especially in hard-hit New York City. In certain sectors, the effect has been particularly large: these include hotels devastated by shutdowns in tourism, international travel, and business travel. At the same time as these spaces are sitting empty, though, Americans have faced …

Reclaiming The Streets, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Pedestrians have been getting the short end of the stick in street policies and regulations. Drivers and cars dominate our streets even though automobiles’ externalities kill thousands of people every year. Given the environmental, health, safety, and community effects of cars, municipalities should embrace a policy that puts pedestrians at the center and produces more miles of wider, well-maintained sidewalks. Sidewalks make communities greener, healthier, safer, more socially connected, and even, wealthier. COVID-19 lockdowns have shown both the relevance of sidewalks, as well as the possibility of pedestrians regaining space currently allocated to cars by widening sidewalks.

This Essay identifies, …

Charting A “Substantially Different” Approach To Land Management Planning Following A Congressional Review Act Joint Resolution Of Disapproval, John C. Ruple, Devin Stelter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”) in 1996 as part of the Gingrich Revolution. The CRA creates an expedited path for Congress to repeal agency rules. It also prohibits an agency from reissuing a new rule that is “substantially the same” as a repealed rule. But the CRA fails to define “substantially the same” and does not require Congress to identify its objections to a repealed rule. The uncertainty that results has a chilling effect on federal agencies. Indeed, Congress has struck down twenty rules using the CRA, and just two of those rules have been replaced. We use …

Penn Central In Retrospect: The Past And Future Of Historic Preservation Regulation, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York is one of the best known cases in the Property Law canon. The Court there held that the refusal of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to permit the owner to erect a 50-storey tower on top of Grand Central Terminal did not effect a taking of private property requiring the payment of compensation. The decision now is more than forty years old. Taught since then in most first-year Property classes, Penn Central endures as the foundation of the modern application of the …

Flood Management In Texas: Planning For The Future, John Diggs, Samantha Mikolajczyk, Lora Naismith, Margaret Reed, Rory Smith

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This Report examines existing flood-related regulations in Texas and the United States, the Texas State Flood Plan, current flood mitigation strategies in the state, and the potential to implement green stormwater infrastructure. The report offers policy recommendations to clarify and help alleviate the current ambiguities and uncertainties between the Texas State Water Plan and State Flood Plan for future flood mitigation practices, and to simplify the implementation of green infrastructure.

Covid-19 And Land-Based Investment: Changing Landscapes, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Nathaniah Jacobs, Clarisse Marsac

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI, IIED, and Namati are partnering on a new initiative to support governments, civil society, local communities, and private sector actors in improving the governance and practices of land-based investments.

Recognizing that more and better private sector investment is widely seen as critical to advancing economic development and achieving the SDGs in low- and middle-income countries, this initiative responds to concerns that land-based investments have resulted in land dispossession, environmental degradation, and conflict.

The Advancing Land-based Investment Governance (ALIGN) project involves:

• Sustained, in-depth work in up to three countries, including Sierra Leone, to support policy development and implementation, legal …

Local Land Use Power: Managing Human Settlements To Mitigate Climate Change, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Local land use law has evolved into a flexible and powerful technique for achieving sustainable development. This Article, adapted from Chapter 3 of Choosing to Succeed: Land Use Law & Climate Control (ELI Press 2021), looks at the authority and strategies that enable municipalities to lower their carbon footprint. It describes and analyzes many methods, both traditional and innovative, to use the power of local governments to reshape human settlements to mitigate climate change. The Article demonstrates that land use regulation can be retooled to greatly reduce or capture urban carbon emissions, and posits that mitigation efforts can lead to …

Americans For Prosperity Foundation V. Matthew Rodriquez, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The twelve individuals filing this amicus brief are professors and scholars of the law of nonprofit organizations. No party in this case represents all three of charity’s key stakeholders: charities, states, and taxpayers who underwrite the charities’ funding. Amici are participating in this litigation in order to aid the Court in understanding how these three interests depend on one another. They also attempt to provide a clearer understanding of state supervision of charities and how that supervision related to federal tax law.

Transparency For Whom? Grounding Land Investment Transparency In The Needs Of Local Actors, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Transparency is often seen as a means of improving governance and accountability of investment, but its potential to do so is hindered by vague definitions and failures to focus on the needs of key local actors.

In this new report focusing on agribusiness, forestry, and renewable energy projects (“land investments”), CCSI grounds transparency in the needs of project-affected communities and other local actors. Transparency efforts that seek to inform and empower communities can also help governments, companies, and other actors to more effectively manage operational risk linked to social conflict.

Troublingly, the report finds that:

• Disclosures around land investments continue …

Transparency Of Land-Based Investments: Cameroon Country Snapshot, Sam Szoke-Burke, Samuel Nguiffo, Stella Tchoukep

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Despite a recent transparency law and participation in transparency initiatives, Cameroon’s investment environment remains plagued by poor transparency.

In a new report focusing on agribusiness projects in Cameroon, CCSI and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) find that:

• Communities continue to be excluded from decision-making around investments.
• The government pursues a top-down approach to concession allocation and remains reluctant to recognize all legitimate tenure rights.
• The government faces threats to its legitimacy as the grievances of citizens and investors alike lead to the barring of roads by communities and investor withdrawals.

CCSI and CED therefore call for:

• A …

Takings Localism, Nestor M. Davisdson, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

Conflicts over “sanctuary” cities, minimum wage laws, and gender-neutral bathrooms have brought the problematic landscape of contemporary state preemption of local governance to national attention. This Article contends that more covert, although equally robust, state interference can be found in property, with significant consequences for our understanding of takings law.

Takings jurisprudence looks to the states to mediate most tensions between individual property rights and community needs, as the takings federalism literature recognizes. Takings challenges, however, often involve local governments. If the doctrine privileges the democratic process to resolve most takings claims, then, that critical process is a largely local …

Using Current Legal Tools To Achieve Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New And Existing Federal Oil And Gas Leases, Jamie Gibbs Pleune, Nada Wolff Culver, John C. Ruple

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Fossil fuel development on federal lands accounts for 24% of all U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These emissions can be reduced significantly by requiring federal oil and gas development activity to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has authority to define the terms and conditions of new oil and gas leases and to impose conditions of approval on existing leases at the drilling stage. Using this authority, the BLM could require net zero emissions on some existing and all new oil and gas leases without waiting for congressional action or regulatory changes. Applying existing legal …

Will Zoning Fix Itself?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Typically, zoning artificially limits housing supply, thus increasing housing costs. One possible defense of this system is that zoning can fix itself- that is, that when rents and housing costs become unusually high, politicians will deregulate and thus reduce housing costs. This article suggests that such a happy result is unlikely; instead, where housing costs spiral out of control, voters and politicians are likely to make regulation even more strict out of a fear of gentrification.

Nine Ways Of Looking At Oklahoma City: An Essay On Sam Anderson’S Boom Town, Rodger D. Citron

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Battle Of Brandy Creek: How One Black Community Fought Annexation, Tax Revaluation, And Displacement, Mark Dorosin

Journal Publications

The Brandy Creek community is a working class, Black neighborhood located just east of I-95, south of Weldon, North Carolina.' In 2005, this rural neighborhood and its surrounding land were legislatively annexed into the city of Roanoke Rapids as part of a planned economic development project. The decision to pursue legislative annexation allowed city officials to bypass the statutory notice and municipal service requirements of a city-initiated, involuntary annexation. Residents were never informed of Roanoke Rapids' intent to annex the community and had no opportunity to voice their opinions on the issue to town officials. In fact, the community first …

Conservation Easements And The Proceeds Regulation, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an in-depth look at Treasury Regulation § 1.170A-14(g)(6)(ii), known as the proceeds regulation. The proceeds regulation is intended to protect the public investment in conservation if a perpetual conservation easement that was the subject of a charitable deduction under Internal Revenue Code § 170(h) is later extinguished. A proper understanding of the proceeds regulation is critical because the public investment in deductible easements is significant—billions of dollars are being invested in such easements annually—and the regulation has recently been subject to challenges regarding its interpretation and validity. This article examines the history and operation of the proceeds …

Yimby And Covid-19, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Discusses whether the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the case for the pro-housing YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) movement.

The Compensation Constraint And The Scope Of The Takings Clause, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The idea I wish to explore in this Essay is whether the established methods for determining just compensation can shed light on the meaning of other issues that arise in litigation under the Takings Clause. Specifically, is it possible to “reverse engineer” the Takings Clause by reasoning from settled understandings about how to determine just compensation in order to reach certain conclusions about when the Clause applies, what interests in private property are covered by the Clause, and what does it mean to take such property?

The proposed exercise is positive or descriptive in nature rather than normative. The hypothesis …

Bringing Judaism Downtown: A Smart Growth Policy For Orthodox Jews, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Until the late 20th century, the most rigorously traditional Jews, haredi Jews (often referred to as “ultra-Orthodox”) tended to congregate in New York City. But as New York became more expensive and haredi population grew due to high birth rates, some haredi Jews (known collectively as “haredim”) moved to small towns and outer suburbs in search of cheaper land, sometimes creating towns dominated by haredim such as Kiryas Joel, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey. As haredi populations have continued to grow, their households now seek undeveloped land outside these enclaves. But as haredim move deeper into the countryside, zoning …

Downtown Condos For The Rich: Not All Bad, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Some new condominiums in urban neighborhoods are too expensive for anyone but the very wealthy. Buyers of these high-cost units include not only wealthy city residents, but also nonresidents who wish to use housing as an investment rather than a residence. Some commentators use this apparent fact as an argument against new market-rate housing generally; they claim that new housing will be purchased by out-of-town investors rather than used by local residents and that those investors will leave housing units empty, rather than renting them out. A related argument is that, even if market-rate condos are purchased by local residents, …

The Limits Of Equity, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

"Equity" is a common buzzword in urban planning circles. However, nearly any land use decision can be justified as more equitable than the alternatives.