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Articles 1 - 30 of 121

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Future Of Transferable Development Rights In The Supreme Court, Linda A. Malone Sep 2019

The Future Of Transferable Development Rights In The Supreme Court, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.


Midat Sodom And The Housing Affordability Crisis, Michael Lewyn Feb 2019

Midat Sodom And The Housing Affordability Crisis, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Ancient Jewish texts states that the city of Sodom was overthrown because of its hostility to hospitality. Today, American cities often limit new housing; is this policy analogous to midat Sodom (Hebrew for "the ways of Sodom")? What arguments justify these policies, and what counter-arguments are relevant to those arguments?


Planetizen Blog Posts- First Half Of 2019, Michael Lewyn Dec 2018

Planetizen Blog Posts- First Half Of 2019, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Op-ed length articles on various land use-related issues.


The Neighborhood Veto And Its Discontents, Michael Lewyn Feb 2018

The Neighborhood Veto And Its Discontents, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Discusses negative side effects of neighborhood input on land use decisions related to housing. In particular, my speech suggests that the "neighborhood veto" over rezonings increases housing supply by reducing housing prices, and makes development more car-oriented by reducing population density.


Powerpoint- Setback Speech, Michael Lewyn Jun 2017

Powerpoint- Setback Speech, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Setback regulations often require that all buildings be a certain amount of feet (usually about 25-50 feet from the street).  As a result of these zoning rules, all destinations outside the most urban areas have to place either parking or useless green spaces between the street and a store, office building or residence.
 
I argue that these regulations make walking more difficult, for four reasons.  First, pedestrians have to waste time walking through these empty spaces.  Second, walking through a sea of parking is simply no fun.  Pedestrians tend to enjoy shade and a sense of enclosure, so they …


2015 Cnu Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn Dec 2016

2015 Cnu Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

My blog posts at the Congress for New Urbanism (cnu.org) website, obtained at archive.org. Unfortunately, a few posts (mostly from May) still have not been found.


Does The Threat Of Gentrification Justify Restrictive Zoning?, Michael Lewyn Dec 2016

Does The Threat Of Gentrification Justify Restrictive Zoning?, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Historically, progressives have opposed restrictive zoning, arguing that by restricting the housing supply to high-end housing, zoning reduces the supply of housing available to lower-income Americans. But recently, some progressives have suggested that new market-rate housing facilitates gentrification and displacement of lower-income renters. This article critically examines that theory.


Planetizen Blog Posts September-December 2017, Michael Lewyn Dec 2016

Planetizen Blog Posts September-December 2017, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Blog posts related to public transit, housing costs, and other urban issues.


2017 Market Urbanism Report Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn Dec 2016

2017 Market Urbanism Report Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

2017 posts on various urban issues (also available at https://marketurbanismreport.com/author/michael/ )


Pornography As Pollution, John C. Nagle Oct 2016

Pornography As Pollution, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Pornography is often compared to pollution. But little effort has been made to consider what it means to describe pornography as a pollution problem, even as many legal scholars have concluded that the law has failed to control internet pornography. Opponents of pornography maintain passionate convictions about how sexually-explicit materials harm both those who are exposed to them and the broader cultural environment. Viewers of pornography may generally hold less fervent beliefs, but champions of free speech and of a free internet object to anti-pornography regulations with strong convictions of their own. The challenge is how to address the widespread …


Further Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin, Darren Stakey May 2016

Further Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin, Darren Stakey

Patricia E. Salkin

Ethical considerations continue to play a fundamental role in shaping the course of land use and developmental regulatory proceedings throughout the country. From an innocuous donation by one public official to his alma mater, to the outright bribery of a former mayor, the past year has been rife with a range of conduct implicating professional responsibility and land use.


Recent Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin Apr 2016

Recent Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Current events across the country reveal no shortage of allegations of unethical conduct in the land use review process. Sadly, there are countless other media accounts of alleged and proven conflicts of interest and other ethical misconduct. In this annual review of reported decisions involving ethics in land use, recent decisions are discussed in the hopes that municipal attorneys will use this information as the basis of ongoing training for members of planning boards, zoning boards, and local legislative bodies who must be routinely reminded of not only their legal but ethical responsibilities in upholding the public trust.


Billy Joel: The Chronicler Of The Suburbanization In New York, Patricia E. Salkin, Irene Crisci Apr 2016

Billy Joel: The Chronicler Of The Suburbanization In New York, Patricia E. Salkin, Irene Crisci

Patricia E. Salkin

Artists often chronicle historical developments through their chosen medium. In the case of Billy Joel, some of his lyrics can be traced to the early sustainability movements as he wrote about the migration of people from the cities and the attendant problems with rapid suburbanization. Described by Tony Bennett as “a poet, a performer, a philosopher and today’s American songbook,” his lyrics address, among other topics, land use, community development, and environmental issues. Following World War II, there was a major shift in population settlement patterns in the United States. As war heroes returned home, not only did the country …


Land Use Regulation (2d Ed.), Stewart E. Sterk, Eduardo M. Penalver, Sara C. Bronin Dec 2015

Land Use Regulation (2d Ed.), Stewart E. Sterk, Eduardo M. Penalver, Sara C. Bronin

Sara C. Bronin

This casebook offers a concise, user-friendly presentation of land use law which incorporates a focus on critical thinking and practice throughout. The casebook devotes an entire chapter to complex and realistic scenarios that provide students an opportunity to bring to bear what they have learned throughout the semester to solve challenging legal and strategic problems. New materials in the second edition ensure that students will become familiar with the latest trends in land use law. Attached is the table of contents.


The Roots Of Expensive Zoning, Michael Lewyn Dec 2015

The Roots Of Expensive Zoning, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Review of Zoning Rules, by William Fischel.


2016 Market Urbanism Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn Dec 2015

2016 Market Urbanism Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Available at marketurbanism.com


Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2015

Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The story behind the move toward marijuana’s legality is a story of disruptive forces to the incumbent legal and physical landscape. It affects incumbent markets, incumbent places, the incumbent regulatory structure, and the legal system in general which must mediate the battles involving the push for relaxation of illegality and adaptation to accepting new marijuana-related land uses, against efforts toward entrenchment, resilience, and resistance to that disruption.

This Article is entirely agnostic on the issue of whether we should or should not decriminalize, legalize, or otherwise increase legal tolerance for marijuana or any other drugs. Nonetheless, we must grapple with …


Solar Rights In The United States, Sara Bronin Nov 2015

Solar Rights In The United States, Sara Bronin

Sara C. Bronin

Solar rights are legal rights needed to ensure that a piece of land has access to sunlight. These rights may be of interest to property owners seeking to undertake a variety of activities: farming, lighting, and clothes drying, to name a few. But perhaps the most economically significant purpose for which solar rights may be utilized is for the purpose of solar collectors. Such devices are used to harness the rays of the sun and transform them into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy. In an era of increasing deployment of solar collectors across the globe, the fair and efficient allocation …


Euclid Lives: The Survival Of Progressive Jurisprudence, Charles M. Haara, Michael Allan Wolf Nov 2015

Euclid Lives: The Survival Of Progressive Jurisprudence, Charles M. Haara, Michael Allan Wolf

Michael A Wolf

The Supreme Court's expanded use of regulatory takings is making a highly controversial and confusing concept more difficult to apply and defend. The Court and commentators are invited to explore a different approach-- Progressive jurisprudence, as represented by the Court's enduring opinion in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co . This Commentary examines the reinvigoration of the Takings Clause and, in historical and ideological terms, discusses the Progressiveness of Euclid and of the regulatory scheme the Euclid Court approved. Professors Haar and Wolf identify and explore five inquiries concerning the character of regulations affecting the use, ownership, and value …


Millennial Pivot: Sustainability-Purposed Performance Zoning Guidelines In Urban Commercial Development, Michael Widener Aug 2015

Millennial Pivot: Sustainability-Purposed Performance Zoning Guidelines In Urban Commercial Development, Michael Widener

Michael N Widener

This paper argues that economic competitiveness requires cities and towns to reimagine their zoning regulations, leveraging technology advances to address challenges revealed by demands for sustainability in building urban projects. The optimal means to accomplish this is to use performance zoning, a method encouraging creative solutions to problems caused by increasing development densities. Performance zoning consists of a series of standards addressing specific sub-optimal neighborhood or community impacts of commercial development; these standards can be negative or positive expressions of municipal goals for sustainability and environmental justice. Pivoting to performance zoning is desirable because the development community has a firmer …


How Often Do Cities Mandate Smart Growth Or Green Building?, Michael Lewyn Mar 2015

How Often Do Cities Mandate Smart Growth Or Green Building?, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Much has been written about the role of government regulation in facilitating automobile-oriented sprawl. Zoning codes reduce walkability by artificially segregating housing from commerce, forcing businesses and multifamily landlords to surround their buildings with parking, and artificially reducing density. The “smart growth” movement seeks to reverse these policies, both through regulation and through more libertarian, deregulatory policies. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent cities have in fact chosen the former path, and to discuss the possible side effects of prescriptive smart growth and green building regulations. In particular, this paper focuses on attempts to make …


Smart Growth-Oriented Density And Parking Regulations, Michael Lewyn Feb 2015

Smart Growth-Oriented Density And Parking Regulations, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Many articles have been written about pro-sprawl land use regulation, such as minimum parking requirements. This speech, by contrast, focuses on the frequency of land use regulation designed to increase walkability- in particular, minimum density requirements and maximum parking requirements. I conclude that the first type of regulation is quite rare and usually very lenient. The second type of regulation is more frequent; however, the impact of maximum parking requirements is not yet clear.


Against The Neighborhood Veto, Michael Lewyn Dec 2014

Against The Neighborhood Veto, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

American zoning often gives neighborhoods elective veto power over nearby real estate development. This “neighborhood veto” sometimes artificially reduces housing supply and urban density, thus making housing more expensive and making American cities more dependent on automobiles. This article criticizes the common arguments that neighborhood activists use to restrict development.


Is An Apartment A Nuisance?, Michael Lewyn Dec 2014

Is An Apartment A Nuisance?, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

In an ongoing Texas lawsuit, some homeowners allege that a nearby apartment building will constitute a nuisance. This article asserts that courts should generally reject nuisance claims against multifamily housing, based on the public interest in favor of increased housing supply and infill development.


Internally Buffered Districts: A New Technique To Make Zoning Less Exclusionary, William Leaf, Michael Lewyn Dec 2014

Internally Buffered Districts: A New Technique To Make Zoning Less Exclusionary, William Leaf, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Proposes creating a new kind of zone called an "internally buffered district." Within these zones, intensive land uses like stores and apartments are allowed, so long as the latter uses are physically separated from nearby residential districts. The article suggests that developers compensate homeowners for rezoning their property to the internally buffered classification, thus allowing for both more compact development and more protection of homeowners' interests.


American Dreams, American Realities, Michael Lewyn Dec 2014

American Dreams, American Realities, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Review of Zoned In The USA, by Sonia Hirt.


Shared Spatial Regulating In Sharing Economy Districts, Michael N. Widener Dec 2014

Shared Spatial Regulating In Sharing Economy Districts, Michael N. Widener

Michael N. Widener

This paper deals with how local governments should address the impact on neighborhood dwellers and zoning district regulatory schemes of an influx of myriad varieties of new sharing-economy entrepreneurs.


Tactical Urbanism V2: Dynamic Land Use Regulation And Partnership Tools Regenerating First Suburbs, Michael N. Widener Dec 2014

Tactical Urbanism V2: Dynamic Land Use Regulation And Partnership Tools Regenerating First Suburbs, Michael N. Widener

Michael N. Widener

Land use regulation typically is viewed as passive; projects proceed when criteria established under ordinances are satisfied, but are delayed or scuttled when parameters of codes are unmet. Insufficient attention is directed by local governments to the economic ramifications of those events. How ought land use regulators to act when their communities are economically deprived – or their employment opportunities have been compromised? The current employment and productivity perils of inner-ring suburbs, those often-dismissed earliest ‘outskirts’ of metropolitan areas, raise this question: Should expanding economic opportunity for every community citizen dominate conversations among zoning administrations? Too many first suburbs are …


Begone, Euclid! Landlord Custom And Zoning Provision Engaging Retail Consumer Tastes And Technologies In Thriving Urban Centers, Michael N. Widener Dec 2014

Begone, Euclid! Landlord Custom And Zoning Provision Engaging Retail Consumer Tastes And Technologies In Thriving Urban Centers, Michael N. Widener

Michael N. Widener

Technology capacity and innovations conflate notions of private and public spaces; the latter today incorporate the Internet “lane,” while private spaces seek access to that pathway. Merchants and their landlords seemingly find themselves in a paradox. They must embrace consumer technology expectations to populate mercantile premises as public spaces. At the same time, merchants must make stores and restaurants places of novelty to grip the attention of customers seeking to share the intimacy of their experience with everyone. Technology presents physical retailing with its greatest threat while potentially becoming its strongest ally if properly channeled. Advocates for urban centers’ sustained …


A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Our land use control system operates across a variety of multidimensional and dynamic categories. Learning to navigate within and between these categories requires an appreciation for their interconnected, dynamic, and textured components and an awareness of alternative mechanisms for achieving one’s land use control preferences and one’s desired ends. Whether seeking to minimize controls as a property owner or attempting to place controls on the land uses of another, one should take time to understand the full ecology of the system. This Article looks at four broad categories of control: (1) no controls, or the state of nature; (2) judicial …