Housing Law Commons^™

Path To Destruction: Cook County's Property Tax System Is A Cause For Concern As It Mimics The Defunct Taxing Procedures That Led To The Detroit Foreclosure Crisis, Robert Romano

Chicago-Kent Law Review

For decades, Cook County, Illinois, has had one of the highest property tax rates in the country, and as a result the County has begun to experience unprecedented foreclosure rates which has contributed, in part, to the State’s significant population decline. Residents are forced to endure a property tax system that disproportionately burdens low-income homeowners, while providing tax breaks to higher-income individuals and commercial owners. The primary causes and characteristics of Cook County’s defunct property tax system are strikingly similar to those that sent the City of Detroit spiraling into bankruptcy in 2013.

This note provides a comparative analysis of …

Eminent Domain In New York City, Aiden Hannon

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

On the first of February, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the condemnation and subsequent development of several Brooklyn properties in Vanderbilt Yards that were obstructing the construction of a new stadium for the New Jersey Nets. The rationale behind the decision in Goldstein v. Pataki derives from the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which holds that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.” The new construction project would bring a National Basketball Association franchise to Brooklyn, theoretically raising the tax revenue and creating more jobs, alongside sixteen high-rise apartments …

Make New York Affordable Again, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Suggests a package of zoning reforms to hold down New York City housing costs, and responds to counterarguments.

A Euclid Dissent, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

In Euclid v. Ambler Realty, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of zoning, including zoning that excluded apartment houses and retail businesses. Although the decision was not unanimous, the Euclid minority did not write a formal dissent. The purpose of this article is to show what such a dissent should have looked like.

Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

According to the popular press, expensive cities are being overrun by "ghost apartments"- condominiums owned by wealthy foreigners, but used as investments rather than being rented out to local residents. This article points out that such apartments are in fact a very small percentage of housing supply, even in some cities that are supposedly overran with such condos. More importantly, the existence of new “ghost apartments” does not justify exclusionary zoning policies. If a city popular with foreign investors discourages construction of new housing, investors are likely to purchase older housing units, outbidding local residents for those units. In this …

Taking Away The Tightrope: Fixing The National Flood Insurance Program Circus Via Eminent Domain, Alexander S. Mendelson

Brooklyn Law Review

As Harvey, Irma, Maria and other major 2017 storms washed upon the shores of the United States, millions of people across the nation in major cities and rural areas alike found their possessions, their homes, and sadly in many cases their lives, washed away with the storms. The destructive hurricane season came just as Congress began to consider the reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a federal system of subsidized flood insurance created to fill a void left by private insurers in the 1960s. Extreme weather events such as these illustrate the need for such a program and …

The Rise Of Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Compares market urbanism to new urbanism and to defenders of suburban sprawl. Like new urbanists, market urbanists find urban life to be socially valuable, and emphasize that sprawl is not always in line with consumer preferences. But market urbanists are more likely to emphasize the role of government regulation in creating suburbanization, and to oppose anti-sprawl land use regulations.

A View From American Courts: The Year In Indian Law 2017, Grant Christensen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article provides a comprehensive review of Indian law for 2017. It does not include a citation to every case related to Indian law issued by the courts but tries to incorporate the majority of opinions into its catalog to provide a robust discussion of the changes in Indian law over the course of 2017. Part I of this Article provides some general statistics about Indian law in 2017. Part II focuses on activity at the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the most watched forum for Indian law cases for obvious reasons. Part III groups cases by subject area and …

Fair Share: Reinvigorating The Twin Cities’ Regional Affordable Housing Calculus, Chase Hamilton

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Things Invisible To See: State Action & Private Property, Joseph William Singer, Isaac Saidel-Goley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article revisits the state action doctrine, a judicial invention that shields “private” or “non-governmental” discrimination from constitutional scrutiny. Traditionally, this doctrine has applied to discrimination even in places of public accommodation, like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Born of overt racial discrimination, the doctrine has inflicted substantial injustice throughout its inglorious history, and courts have continuously struggled in vain to coherently apply the doctrine. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has not fully insulated “private” or “horizontal” relations among persons from constitutional scrutiny. The cases in which it has applied constitutional norms to non-governmental actors should be celebrated rather …

The Persistence Of Segregation In The 21st Century, Paul A. Jargowsky

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Syria Under Pinheiro: Reformulating Syrian Domestic Law For Decentralized Reconstruction, George Somi

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; since 2011; the Syrian conflict has generated roughly 5.4 million refugees; while approximately 6.5 million people are internally displaced within the country; making it the largest internally displaced population in the world. Rebuilding Syria’s infrastructure; homes; and businesses will be an immense task; with cost estimates ranging between $250–$350 billion USD. The Syrian government and the international community have already started to contemplate postwar reconstruction and even wartime reconstruction; despite the ongoing fighting. This Note operates under the assumption that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad will; at a minimum; …

Property's Tipping Point, Shai Stern

Cardozo Law Review

There is a clear tension in the law between exercises of state police power in land-use regulation including zoning laws, on the one hand, and takings under the Fifth Amendment, on the other. Courts have struggled to find a dividing line between the two, but for their efforts what we are left only with is a disjointed array of legal tests, each one as flawed as the next. Legal theorists, for their part, must shoulder some of the blame-no single theory can identify the point at which community need outweighs private property rights. Even well-developed theories thus fail to translate …

Urban Renewal And Sacramento’S Lost Japantown, Thomas W. Joo

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dignity Takings And “Trailer Trash”: The Case Of Mobile Home Park Mass Evictions, Esther Sullivan

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Mobile homes are a primary source of shelter for America’s poor and working classes. A large share of the nation’s mobile home stock is found in mobile home parks where residents own their homes but lease the land under their homes from private landlords. Urban growth has put pressure on park landlords to sell and redevelop mobile home parks. When parks are redeveloped mobile home residents are evicted and entire communities are destroyed. Residents lose their homes and home equity as they struggle to relocate their homes to different parks or are forced to abandon them. Through two continuous years …

The Current Predatory Nature Of Land Contracts And How To Implement Reforms, Stacy Purcell

Notre Dame Law Review

Because land contracts are frequently inequitable, advocates and legislators have called for enhanced regulation. This Note examines the imbalance of power between sellers and buyers during the formation of land contracts, the ways the law has attempted to lessen the inequality, and how to implement potential reforms. Part II discusses the history of land contracts and their recent resurgence since the 2008 housing crash. Part III explains that while current land contracts are often predatory, land contracts could potentially be a useful way for low-income individuals to become homeowners. Part IV outlines proposed national and state reforms. Part V makes …

Hb 434 - Eminent Domain, Ashley M. Bowcott, Derek M. Schwahn

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends Georgia’s eminent domain laws by providing an exception to the general rule that condemnations cannot be converted to any use, other than a public use, for twenty years. The Act creates a new procedure which requires the condemnor to petition the jurisdiction’s superior court to determine whether the property is blighted property. Additionally, the condemnor must provide notice to all owners of the alleged blighted property. If the court finds the land is blighted property, the condemnor must file a petition to condemn the property according to the established procedure set forth in Article 3 Chapter 2 …

Fifty Years Since Passage Of The Fair Housing Act: Rent-To-Income Ratios In The Persistence Of Residential Racial Segregation In Chicago, 51 J. Marshall L. Rev. 551 (2018), Amanda Insalaco

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Explaining Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Compares Market Urbanism to New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism

Non-Enforcement Takings, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

The non-enforcement of existing property laws is not logically separable from the issue of unfair and unjust state deprivations of property rights at which the Constitution's Takings Clause takes aim. This Article suggests, therefore, that takings law should police allocations resulting from non-enforcement decisions on the same "fairness and justice" grounds that it polices allocations resulting from decisions to enact and enforce new regulations. Rejecting the extant majority position that state decisions not to enforce existing property laws are categorically immune from takings liability is not to advocate that persons impacted by such decisions should be automatically or even regularly …

Exclusionary Megacities, Wendell Pritchett, Shitong Qiao

Faculty Scholarship

Human beings should live in places where they are most productive, and megacities, where information, innovation, and opportunities congregate, would be the optimal choice. Yet megacities in both China and the United States are excluding people by limiting the housing supply. Why, despite their many differences, is the same type of exclusion happening in both Chinese and U.S. megacities? Urban law and policy scholars argue that Not-In-My-Back-Yard (“NIMBY”) homeowners are taking over megacities in the U.S. and hindering housing development. They pin their hopes on an efficient growth machine that makes sure “above all, nothing gets in the way of …

Side By Side: Revitalizing Urban Cores And Ensuring Residential Diversity, Andrea J. Boyack

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Linchpin Approaches To Salvaging Neighborhoods In The Legacy Cities Of The Midwest, Shelley Cavalieri

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parallel State, Gregory Dolin, Irina D. Manta

Cardozo Law Review

Alternatively glamorized and reviled, Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns, known as 'favelas," have become a fixture of the city's architecture and life. It is estimated that about 1.5 million people reside in these informal settlements that are scattered in the center and outskirts of Brazil's second-largest metropolitan area. Operating in the shadow of the law and lacking formal ownership title, favela residents have constructed an intricate set of informal rules to buy, sell, rent, and bequeath property that is often administered by the residents' associations of individual neighborhoods, which also assist in mediating related conflicts. While largely untested legal mechanisms may …

It Takes A Village: Designating "Tiny House" Villages As Transitional Housing Campgrounds, Ciara Turner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A relatively new proposal to reduce homelessness in the United States involves extraordinarily small dwellings. While the “tiny house” movement is intuitively appealing and has found sporadic success, strict housing codes, building codes, and zoning laws often destroy the movement before it can get off the ground. One possibility for getting around these zoning and building code challenges, without drastic overhauls to health and safety codes, is to create a new state-level zoning classification of “transitional campgrounds.” A new zoning classification would alleviate the issue because campgrounds are consistently subject to less strict building codes, which could permit tiny houses …

Living Tiny Legally, James G. Rollin

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Over the last 40 years, the average new United States house has increased in size by more than 1,000 square feet, from an average size of 1,660 square feet in 1973 (earliest year available from the Census Bureau) to 2,687 square feet last year (Perry, 2016). In that same time period, there was a 91% increase in home square footage per inhabitant and a decrease in average household size. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average home in the United States costs approximately $358,000 to build, an increase of roughly $200,000 since 1998. Meanwhile, the average annual income in …

Embracing Airbnb: How Cities Can Champion Private Property Rights Without Compromising The Health And Welfare Of The Community, Emily M. Speier

Pepperdine Law Review

Peer-to-peer services offer participants considerable advantages whether they are a provider of such services or a user of them. The Airbnb phenomenon is an example of how technological advancement has transformed the rental industry and has signaled a societal acceptance of a sharing economy. However, the question now is to what extent cities should regulate this influx of short-term rentals while still preserving the property rights of homeowners. Much of the answer to this question depends on each city’s individual interpretation of specific areas of the law. Some legal issues raised by regulation and explored by this article include the …

Airbnb And The Battle Between Internet Exceptionalism And Local Control Of Land Use, Jamila Jefferson-Jones, Stephen R. Miller

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

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

Scholarly Works

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.

Reframing Homelessness In Vermont: A Systemic Approach To Homelessness Policy Advocacy In Windham County Vermont, Scott Sharland

Capstone Collection

The Changeworks Committee of the Groundworks Collaborative was created in 2014 to implement advocacy that would build public support for long-term policy changes addressing the root causes of homelessness in Windham County Vermont. This research focused on the work of this committee, and posed the question: How does reframing homelessness as a systemic issue instead of an individual issue impact the public perception of the problem in Windham County, Vermont? I argue that reframing perceptions of homelessness as the result of systemic failure and not as a problem of individual choice is key to building public support for solutions. Additionally, …