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Articles 31 - 60 of 162

Full-Text Articles in Land Use Law

Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn Jan 2019

Do You Believe In Ghost Apartments?, Michael Lewyn

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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 …


Relationships And Ethics In The Land Use Game, Patricia E. Salkin, Thomas Brown, Aisha Scholes Jan 2019

Relationships And Ethics In The Land Use Game, Patricia E. Salkin, Thomas Brown, Aisha Scholes

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Ethical considerations in the land use decision making process can be organized into a number of categories, including, first and foremost, the broad subject of conflicts of interest.1 Players in the land use game can find themselves in real or perceived conflicts situations based on personal financial interests resulting from investments, including businesses and real estate holdings (such as the location of their property vis-à-vis the location of the subject property before the Board), employment for themselves or members of their immediate family, and memberships in nonprofit organizations that may be either passive or active (e.g., simply dues paying member …


The Rise Of Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn Jul 2018

The Rise Of Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn

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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.


Super Problems In Superstar Cities, Michael Lewyn, Beth Gazes Jan 2018

Super Problems In Superstar Cities, Michael Lewyn, Beth Gazes

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Review of Richard Florida's The New Urban Crisis


Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond The Pledge And Review Model, Gabriel Weil Jan 2018

Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond The Pledge And Review Model, Gabriel Weil

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Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current "pledge and review" paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep …


Explaining Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn Jan 2018

Explaining Market Urbanism, Michael Lewyn

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Compares Market Urbanism to New Urbanism and Landscape Urbanism


Bicycle-Friendly Policies, Michael Lewyn Jan 2018

Bicycle-Friendly Policies, Michael Lewyn

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A review of Copenhagenize by Mikael Colville-Andersen


Does The Threat Of Gentrification Justify Restrictive Zoning?, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

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

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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.


Robocar Risks, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

Robocar Risks, Michael Lewyn

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Suggests that policymakers should not widen roads or stringently enforce anti-jaywalking laws in order to accommodate autonomous vehicles.


The Criminalization Of Walking, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

The Criminalization Of Walking, Michael Lewyn

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The simple act of walking is sometimes criminalized in the United States. Anti-jaywalking statutes and ordinances—originally motivated by auto-industry lobbyists in the 1920s—call for fines and, sometimes, imprisonment for crossing the street. Additionally, some localities have interpreted statutes against “child neglect” to encompass a parent’s decision to let their kid walk outside alone. The result of this criminalization? Such policies have reduced pedestrian liberty, increased automobile traffic and pollution, and created a disincentive for physical activity in the midst of an obesity and diabetes epidemic. In addition to discussing these effects, this Article argues that the purported safety benefits of …


Attacking Smart Growth, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

Attacking Smart Growth, Michael Lewyn

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Review of The Human City, by Joel Kotkin


The Environmentalist Case For Sprawl- And Why It Fails, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

The Environmentalist Case For Sprawl- And Why It Fails, Michael Lewyn

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Environmentalists generally favor compact, walkable development, because development that reduces automobile use may reduce automobile-related pollution. Defenders of suburban sprawl argue, however, that compact development may actually increase pollution in a variety of ways. This article criticizes the latter argument.,


The Obama Administration's Parting Shot, Michael Lewyn Jan 2017

The Obama Administration's Parting Shot, Michael Lewyn

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Discusses the "Housing Development Toolkit", a policy paper on affordable housing issued by the White House in September 2016.


The Middle Class, Urban Schools And Choice, Michael Lewyn Oct 2016

The Middle Class, Urban Schools And Choice, Michael Lewyn

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Urban schools tend to be less attractive to middle-class parents than suburban schools; as a result, the public school system generates suburban sprawl.  This talk discusses both egalitarian and market-oriented means of making cities more attractive to parents.


Deny, Deny, Deny, Michael Lewyn Jan 2016

Deny, Deny, Deny, Michael Lewyn

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Some commentators argue that new housing supply and less restrictive zoning will not reduce housing prices in high-cost cities. This article discusses and critiques their arguments.


How To Make Suburbia Less Sprawling, Michael Lewyn Jan 2016

How To Make Suburbia Less Sprawling, Michael Lewyn

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Review of Retrofitting Sprawl, edited by Emily Talen.


Two Arguments Against Home-Sharing, Michael Lewyn Jan 2016

Two Arguments Against Home-Sharing, Michael Lewyn

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Two major arguments against Airbnb and similar home-sharing websites are that they (1) raise housing costs by reducing the supply of housing for long-term rental and (2) adversely affect neighbors of homes being used for home-sharing. This article critiques those arguments.


The Roots Of Expensive Zoning, Michael Lewyn Jan 2016

The Roots Of Expensive Zoning, Michael Lewyn

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Review of Zoning Rules, by William Fischel.


Taming The Super-Wicked Problem Of Waterfront Hazard Mitigation Planning: The Role Of Municipal Communication Strategies, Sarah Adams-Schoen Jan 2016

Taming The Super-Wicked Problem Of Waterfront Hazard Mitigation Planning: The Role Of Municipal Communication Strategies, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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In the Adaptation Report of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies floods in urban riverine and coastal areas as among the key climate-related risks for North America. Not surprisingly for residents of coastal and riverine communities devastated by recent extreme weather events, the Adaptation Report acknowledges that risks related to sea-level rise, increased frequency and duration of extreme precipitation events, and increasingly intense coastal storms are not only future risks, but are current risks that are already manifesting in property and infrastructure damage, ecosystem and social system disruption, public health impacts, and water …


When Scalia Wasn't Such An Originalist, Michael Lewyn Jan 2016

When Scalia Wasn't Such An Originalist, Michael Lewyn

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Although Justice Scalia generally described himself as an originalist, his opinion in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council rejected originalist arguments. Why? This article suggests that pre-Lucas precedent and the ambiguity of the historical record might justify his methodology.


Yes To Infill, No To Nuisance, Michael Lewyn May 2015

Yes To Infill, No To Nuisance, Michael Lewyn

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This article argues against the use of private nuisance suits to exclude apartments from residential neighborhoods, based on the public interest in affordable housing and walkable infill development.


No Parking Anytime: The Legality And Wisdom Of Maximum Parking And Minimum Density Requirements, Michael Lewyn, Judd Schechtman Jan 2015

No Parking Anytime: The Legality And Wisdom Of Maximum Parking And Minimum Density Requirements, Michael Lewyn, Judd Schechtman

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This article focuses on two aspects of smart growth policy that have thus far received little attention: maximum parking and minimum density requirements. To ascertain the frequency of such regulations, we examine the zoning regulations of twenty-four mid-sized cities, defined as those with populations between 500,000 and one million residents. The article concludes that the first type of regulation is somewhat common, but is usually restricted to certain types of land uses or sections of a city. Minimum density requirements, by contrast, are quite rare and quite lenient. Because these types of regulations have received little scholarly attention and are …


Sink Or Swim: In Search Of A Model For Coastal City Climate Resilience, Sarah Adams-Schoen Jan 2015

Sink Or Swim: In Search Of A Model For Coastal City Climate Resilience, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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New York City, like other major cities around the world, has acknowledged the problem of climate change, undertaken a comprehensive risk assessment, created a suite of adaptation and mitigation planning initiatives, and begun to implement policies to decrease the city’s contribution to the problem and to make the city less vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This detailed analysis of the city’s climate change resilience initiatives concludes that, although many of the city’s initiatives provide a model for other coastal communities, the initiatives likely still fall short of what is required to sufficiently moderate harm from dangerous interference with …


Land Use Law Update: Reed V. Town Of Gilbert Redux, Sarah Adams-Schoen Jan 2015

Land Use Law Update: Reed V. Town Of Gilbert Redux, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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The Winter 2015 Land Use Law Update asked whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert would require municipalities throughout the country to rewrite their sign codes. The short answer is “yes.”

At a minimum, following the Supreme Court’s decision that the Town of Gilbert’s temporary directional sign regulations violated petitioners Good News Community Church’s and Pastor Clyde Reed’s First Amendment rights, municipalities will want to act quickly to amend their sign codes if they regulate different categories of signs differently. A code that places fewer restrictions on political or ideological signs than on directional signs likely …


Land Use Law Update: Will Reed V. Town Of Gilbert Require Municipalities Throughout The Country To Rewrite Their Sign Codes?, Sarah Adams-Schoen Jan 2015

Land Use Law Update: Will Reed V. Town Of Gilbert Require Municipalities Throughout The Country To Rewrite Their Sign Codes?, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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The author discusses the imminent Supreme Court decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert. Depending on how the Court decides the case, municipalities may need to act quickly to amend their sign regulations.


Land Use Law Update: The 2015 Mid-Year Roundup, Sarah Adams-Schoen Jan 2015

Land Use Law Update: The 2015 Mid-Year Roundup, Sarah Adams-Schoen

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This update summarizes New York cases related to land use and zoning that were decided in the first half of 2015.


Is An Apartment A Nuisance?, Michael Lewyn Jan 2015

Is An Apartment A Nuisance?, Michael Lewyn

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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 Jan 2015

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

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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.


Further Developments In Land Use Ethics, Patricia E. Salkin, Darren Stakey Jan 2015

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

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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.


A Three-Legged Stool On Two Legs: Recent Federal Law Related To Local Climate Resilience Planning And Zoning, Sarah Adams-Schoen, Edward Thomas Jan 2015

A Three-Legged Stool On Two Legs: Recent Federal Law Related To Local Climate Resilience Planning And Zoning, Sarah Adams-Schoen, Edward Thomas

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Notwithstanding a critical gap between climate change related risks and preparedness in the United States, congress has yet to pass any federal law expressly addressing climate change hazard mitigation (or any other aspect of climate change) and appears unlikely to do so anytime soon. Despite this, the first half of 2015 has seen a number of actions in the other two branches of the federal government with significant implications for local hazard mitigation planning, zoning, and development. Of particular note, and as discussed in more detail below, the President issued an Executive Order and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) …