Land Use Law Commons^™

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

The Guthi System Of Nepal, Tucker Scott

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this research is to understand the role of the guthi system in Nepali society, the relationship of the guthi land tenure system with Newari guthi, and the effect of modern society and technology on the ability of the guthi system to maintain and preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Nepal. This research took place in three different sections of Kathmandu. The methodology behind this research was a combination of historical analysis of the traditional role of the guthi system in Nepal along with three case studies of guthi organizations with different assigned functions. These case studies …

Empowering Women Through Land: An Analysis Of The Barriers In Accessing Land Rights Within Kisumu County, Kenya, Madison Shaffer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project aims to gain a greater understanding of the current state of women’s land rights in Kisumu County, Kenya. It will discuss current barriers women face in accessing land and how land can impact a woman’s empowerment and in turn, her control over her health. Property rights can provide women with a secure place to live, a place of economic activity and reduce dependence on men. Property ownership can also serve to empower women and “give them greater bargaining power at the household, individual, and community level...increasing agency” (Dworkin,2009). Unfortunately, men have almost always been favored in land rights …

Increasing The Supply Of The Missing Middle Housing Types In Walkable Urban Core Neighborhoods: Risk, Risk Reduction And Capital, Shrimatee Ojah Maharaj

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a low supply of the missing middle housing types (MMH) in walkable urban core neighborhoods. That is, a variety of compact low- to mid-rise housing in walkable areas that are accessible to entertainment, recreational and other amenities. The largest demographic, the millennials, followed by the baby boomers, prefer the MMH types. The MMH types is a new name for a variety of compact housing types that existed in traditional neighborhoods in urban areas pre-World War II. However, due to changes in housing preferences after World War II, the requisite land use and zoning changes facilitated larger single-family homes …

Venezuela Undermines Gold Miner Crystallex's Attempts To Recover On Its Icsid Award, Sam Wesson

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Form Based Codes And Economic Impacts: A Multivariate Regression Analysis And Case Study, Jacob M. Howard

Master's Theses

After a 100-year history, traditional zoning practices are being challenged as a contributing factor in a number of social, heath and economic problems facing cities in the United States. In this context, form based codes have emerged as a possible alternative way for cities to guide development. Growing out of the New Urbanist movement, form based codes frequently mix uses, allow for a greater variety of housing types and encourage development that is both denser and more compact. Despite an established literature which links land-use regulations, and zoning in particular, to fiscal outcomes, the impacts that form based codes have …

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.

Historic Preservation And Progress In Atlanta: Opportunity Knocks, Ian Michael Rogers

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This paper explores where Atlanta’s historic preservation ethos stands in 2017. Further, this paper examines and analyzes how historic preservation can be more fully supported in Atlanta through strategic tools and policies.

Natura 2000 - The European Union Mechanism For Nature Conservation. Some Legal Issues., Maria Kenig-Witkowska

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Water Shortage And Water Law: The Impending Crisis In Semi-Arid Climates, Bonnie Persons

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Water is a business driver and a substantial source of both wealth and risk. Water is also under increasing statutory and legislative pressure as jurisdictions strive to manage water resources more holistically by addressing both surface and groundwater together, but on a more decentralized and sustainable basis. The potential collapse of the municipal water system in Cape Town, South Africa serves as a stark alarm for cities in arid and semi-arid, Mediterranean-like environments. This risk is especially true of cities like Marseilles, France and regions like California. By comparing the impacts of the water law in these different jurisdictions, this …

Three Cases In Point: A Comparison Of Legal Access To Housing For Low-Income And Homeless Populations In Cape Town, Marseille And Miami, Leila Lawlor

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Miami, Cape Town, and Marseille have taken dissimilar approaches in their attempts to legislate and supply affordable housing to those in need. One of these cities has no justiciable right whatsoever, one has a right set out in its national constitution, and one has a right set out in its national law. These cities have had different degrees of success in aiding those in need of adequate housing; however, each of these cities continues to suffer from both a lack of affordable housing and a widening income gap. Examining the frameworks and the efforts of these three port cities establishes …

Ten Years Of The French Dalo And The Catalan Right To Housing Act: European Innovation In The Fields Of Land Use Planning And Housing, Camille Mialot, Juli Ponce

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The main objective of this article is to give an overview for an international audience of the results of two acts which were passed the same year, 2007 - the French Enforceable right to housing (Droit au logement opposable, later referred as DALO) Act, and the Catalan Right to Housing Act (Llei catalana del dret a l´habitatge, CRHA). Both acts are good examples of legal innovations regarding land use and housing at the beginning of the 21st Century. The first one established an enforceable right to housing in France for the first time in French history. The second one is …

Social Dimensions And Social Function Born In Latin America: Property Limits In The U.S. And The European Union Legal Systems, Wellington Migliari

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This article is a comparative analysis of property systems and their social dimensions between the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU). Throughout the article, we show how the fees and development taxes applied in the U.S. refer to an ex ante rationale assumed by private owners to compensate communities for land transformation or environmental impacts, while inside the EU, the political consensus is responsible for the imposition of limits in ex post abuses of ownership. Either in public administrations, or in the Council of Ministers of the EU, the social function of property is better understood as a …

Regional Public/Private Partnerships As Entrepreneurial Bricolage, John F. Mcardle

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Entrepreneurial development of contaminated or blighted land, commonly referred to as “brownfield,” carries significant enterprise risk. When considering competing opportunities, capital tends to flow in an adverse direction from higher-risk activity where outcomes are less certain. In addition, a complicated regulatory landscape can increase transaction costs which further limit the desirability of these projects. Often, that leaves the remediation of environmentally compromised property in the hands of the public sector. Yet, in industrialized nations with significant brownfield presence, government is often unable to solely cure defects due to limited fiscal resources and competing policy imperatives. One solution to the problem …

The Emergence Of Metropolitan Areas As A New Form Of Interfederative Governance: A Comparative Study Of Aix-Marseille-Provence And The Metropolitan Region Of Rio De Janeiro, Aricia Fernandes Correia, Romulo S.R. Sampaio

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The exponential demographic increase of the last century and the transformation of the cities, from industrial to service providers, added to the phenomenon of conurbation. In addition, the new social, environmental, economic, political and cultural dynamics of close cities, challenged the traditional municipal power and required a collaborative new management framework. Global cities became metropolitan areas. Issues of local urban interest are now of regional preoccupation. Governmental institutional frameworks and urban planning were not designed to match this new socioeconomic and environmental metropolitan order. This paper deals with the legal challenges of creating metropolitan governance structures comparing France and Brazil. …

The French Metropole: How It Gained Legal Status As A Metropolis, Janice Griffith

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

France’s long history of centralized governance has generated debates as to what powers should remain with the State and what powers should devolve to sub-national governments. To ameliorate the fragmentation resulting from the small size of France’s 36,000 plus municipalities, called communes, the State authorized the creation of general-purpose, inter-communal public institutions to perform municipal functions on behalf of the communes on a greater economy of scale. The article examines the trajectory that led to the creation in 2010 of the métropole, or metropolis, the most recent of these inter-communal bodies that is designed to undertake public functions in large …

The Future Of French Metropolis, Anne-Claire Mialot

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, Karen Johnston

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

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

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Requiescat In Pace: The Cemetery Dedication And Its Implications For Land Use In Louisiana And Beyond, Ryan M. Seidemann

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Bike Lanes, Not Cars: Mobility And The Legal Fight For Future Los Angeles, Ernesto Hernandez-Lopez

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In 2015, the City of Los Angeles adopted the controversial Mobility Plan 2035. The Plan restructures city transportation planning by emphasizing alternatives to cars for the next twenty years. Predictably, bike lanes became its most polemic aspect. The Plan envisions dramatic increases in bike lanes throughout car-obsessed Los Angeles. This bike lane increase was challenged in court, with objectors claiming that eliminating car lanes would increase congestion and compromise air quality. These arguments are ironic, since environmental justifications typically motivate bike projects.

The Mobility Plan illustrates how law supports and challenges bike lane projects. This Article argues that although this …

Conditions Of Personhood And Property, Zachary James Acree

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to demonstrate that a more robust understanding of personhood both reveals flaws in the underlying assumptions of modern property law, and orients that law to a more just application. To do this, the law needs not only a better definition of what persons are, but also a better understanding of how persons function in their society. First, in order to provide some context to the issues at stake, there is a brief historical introduction to some of the problems that personhood inquiries have faced. After the introduction, this paper is divided into four sections. Part I summarizes …

The Effect Of Localized Density On Housing Prices In Singapore, Eric Fesselmeyer, Kiat Ying Sky Seah, Jonathan Ci Yi Kwok

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper measures how localized residential density impacts housing prices in Singapore. Using exogenous variation in residential density, we find that an increase in density causes non-trivial decreases in property values: a 10% increase in density decreases price per square foot by between 1.3% and 2%. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first paper to measure this effect.Further, we find that the negative effect of density is biggest in magnitude for low density apartment projects and the magnitude is decreasing in the density of the project, and that the negative effect of density is increasing in magnitude …

Super Problems In Superstar Cities, Michael Lewyn, Beth Gazes

Scholarly Works

Review of Richard Florida's The New Urban Crisis

Foreword: Introduction To Decentralization And Development, Shitong Qiao, Richard A. Epstein

Faculty Scholarship

On March 14–15, 2017, a group of Asian and American scholars working in the areas of law, economics, and political science gathered at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law. There they debated and discussed decentralization and development at a conference co-sponsored by New York University’s Classical Liberal Institute and the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law’s Centre for Chinese Law. What does decentralization mean? How do we best measure decentralization? Is interjurisdictional competition a race to the bottom or a race to the top? Is decentralization desirable in the context of China and other jurisdictions? This symposium …

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 …

Explaining Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Compares Market Urbanism to New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism