Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Differentiating Exclusionary Tendencies, John Infranca

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Despite an academic consensus that easing land use regulations to increase the supply of housing can help lower housing prices, local opposition to new development remains prevalent. Onerous zoning regulations and resistance to new housing persist not only in wealthy suburbs, but also in lower-income urban neighborhoods. In addition to making housing more expensive, such policies increase residential segregation, exacerbate urban sprawl, and have detrimental environmental effects. If increasing supply tends to reduce costs, what explains this opposition, particularly during a period of rising housing costs?
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/="/">One factor is concern about the localized costs of greater density and …

State Interventions In Local Zoning, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In what has been described as an "emerging consensus" and pejoratively labeled an "elite liberaltarian consensus," there is growing scholarly recognition that land use overregulation is hurting the country by limiting the supply and increasing the price of housing. By highlighting state-level interventions that succeeded in checking local zoning authority, Professor Anika Lemar's article makes a valuable contribution to the fight against excessive zoning limitations.

Zoning On Holy Ground: Developing A Coherent Factor-Based Analysis For Rluipa's Substantial Burden Provision, Andrew Willis

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transgressive Diy (“Do It Yourself”) Spaces, Mixed Virtual/Physical Affinity Spaces, And Building Code Vigilantism, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article first situates itself within the example of Toronto as one of UNESCO’s newly minted global “Cities of Culture.” This network of “creative cities” is intended to facilitate a framework for these cities to work together in “placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.” As one of Toronto’s culture-oriented redevelopment strategies, its “Music City” initiative is an example of how music and sound can be used in city marketing and place branding, and how these redevelopment strategies must be more effectively deployed to …

Environmental Justice In Little Village: A Case For Reforming Chicago’S Zoning Law, Charles Isaacs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Chicago’s Little Village community bears the heavy burden of environmental injustice and racism. The residents are mostly immigrants and people of color who live with low levels of income, limited access to healthcare, and disproportionate levels of dangerous air pollution. Before its retirement, Little Village’s Crawford coal-burning power plant was the lead source of air pollution, contributing to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year. After the plant’s retirement, community members wanted a say on the future use of the lot, only to be closed out when a corporation, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, bought the lot …

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Indiana Law Journal

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …

Zoning For Families, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Is a group of eight unrelated adults and three children living together and sharing meals, household expenses, and responsibilities—and holding themselves out to the world to have long-term commitments to each other—a family? Not according to most zoning codes—including that of Hartford, Connecticut, where the preceding scenario presented itself a few years ago. Zoning, which is the local regulation of land use, almost always defines family, limiting those who may live in a dwelling unit to those who satisfy the zoning code’s definition. Often times, this definition is drafted in a way that excludes many modern living arrangements and preferences. …

Reclaiming State Authority Over Zoning Property, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In 2019, Oregon became the first state to pass legislation that essentially bans single-family zoning.' As states across the country struggle to respond to the housing affordability crisis, Oregon's actions do not stand alone. John Infranca's recent article, The New State Zoning: Land Use Preemption Amid a Housing Crisis, may have been published before Oregon's historic vote but it is essential reading for those interested in the future of zoning.

Regulating Short-Term Rentals In California's Costal Cities: Harmonizing Local Ordinances With The California Costal Act, Lucy Humphreys

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the past several years, local governments throughout California have debated and implemented new ordinances in order to regulate short-term rentals, such as those listed on peer-to-peer vacation rental platforms like Airbnb.California’s coastal cities face distinct challenges whentrying to regulate short-term rentals due to the popularity of short-term rentals in their jurisdictions, rising housing prices along the coast, and California Coastal Act requirements. One of the primary goals of the California Coastal Act is to maximize public access to the coast. This Article explores the interplay between state policy embodied by the Coastal Act and the ordinances passed by local …

Comprehensive Rezonings, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Of all powers given to local governments, the power to zone is one of the most significant. Zoning dictates everything that gets built in a locality—and thus effectively dictates all of the key activities that take place within it. Nationwide, most zoning codes were adopted in the first half of the twentieth century. Many, including the zoning codes of New York City and Chicago, were significantly revised in the 1960s. While these codes have been revised piecemeal, just a few American cities have undergone a comprehensive revision: replacing the old code with a completely new one.

A comprehensive rezoning can …

The New State Zoning: Land Use Preemption Amid A Housing Crisis, John Infranca

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Commentators have long decried the pernicious effects that overly restrictive land use regulations, which stifle new development, have on housing supply and affordability, regional and national economic growth, social mobility, and racial integration. The fragmented nature of zoning rules in the United States, which are set primarily at the local level, renders it seemingly impossible to address these concerns systematically. While there have been some efforts to address local exclusionary tendencies and their suboptimal effects by means of greater state control, these efforts, which remain contentious, have been limited to just a few states.
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/="/">In the past few …

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

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The State Giveth And Taketh Away: Race, Class, And Urban Hospital Closings, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay uses concepts from Bernadette Atuahene’s book We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Program to examine the trend of urban hospital closings. It does so by focusing specifically on the history of Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, a charitable hospital in South Los Angeles, California that emerged after the Watts riots in 1965. The essay illustrates how Professor Atuahene’s framework can generate unique questions about the closing of urban hospitals, and public bureaucracies more generally. The essay also demonstrates how Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital’s trajectory hones some of Atuahene’s concepts in ways …

Creating The Urban Educational Desert Through School Closures And Dignity Taking, Matthew Patrick Shaw

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Closures of urban open-enrollment neighborhood schools that primarily serve students of color are intensely controversial. Districts seeking to economize often justify closures by pointing to population shifts in historically densely populated urban areas. They argue that net reductions in a neighborhood’s school-aged population result in underutilized schools, which do a disservice to students at higher cost to districts. Students and their families and communities counter, pointing to histories of district neglect of their schools and recent school expansions in more affluent neighborhoods of similar population density as belying district claims of utility-based downsizing. In this article, I use a critical …

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 "Publicization" Of Private Space, Sarah Schindler

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Recently, many urban areas have moved away from the creation of publicly owned open spaces and toward privately owned public open spaces, or “POPOS.” These POPOS take many forms: concrete plazas that separate a building from the sidewalk; glass-windowed atriums in downtown office buildings; rooftop terraces and gardens; and grass-covered spaces that appear to be traditional parks. This Article considers the nature of POPOS and examines whether they live up to expectations about the role that public space should play and the value it should provide to communities. This analysis is especially important because in embracing POPOS, cities have made …

The Power To Exclude And The Power To Expel, Donald J. Smythe

Faculty Scholarship

Property laws have far-reaching implications for the way people live and the opportunities they and their children will have. They also have important consequences for property developers and businesses, both large and small. It is not surprising, therefore, that modern developments in property law have been so strongly influenced by political pressures. Unfortunately, those with the most economic resources and political power have had the most telling influences on the way property laws have developed in the United States during the twentieth century. This article introduces a normal form game – I call it the “Not-In-My-Backyard Game” – to illustrate …

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.

Freeing The City To Compete, James J. Kelly Jr.

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Natural Capital Crisis In Southern U.S. Cities, Blake Hudson

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Detroit Frontier: Urban Agriculture In A Legal Vacuum, Jacqueline Hand, Amanda Gregory

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Politics Of New Property And The Takings Clause, Christopher Serkin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay offers a broad gloss on the traditional politics of property protection and then catalogues a number of ways in which those politics have been changing. In many cases, the account is of fragmentation and fracture as once stable commitments have become much more contingent and fact dependent.' Admittedly, this characterization paints with an extremely broad brush. That is both its contribution and its weakness. This short Essay deliberately simplifies the characterization of preferences across the political spectrum. Much more nuanced definitions would better track the complexity of the underlying issues. Judges and scholars discussed below might also object …

The New England Food System In 2060: Envisioning Tomorrow's Policy Through Today's Assessments, Margaret Sova Mccabe, Joanne Burke

Maine Law Review

As the local food movement gains critical mass around the country, deep and important issues concerning food system policy arise. The modern American food system spans from agricultural production to food processing to food consumption, and finally, to health outcomes. The system’s components include economic, environmental, social, political, and scientific aspects that interact in ways that far outstrip any one discipline’s capacity to analyze and resolve problems. Additionally, the system is profoundly shaped by a complex architecture of laws and regulation. With much credit to the local and regional food movements, people have begun to question not only the current …

Zoning And Land Use Controls: Beyond Agriculture, Lisa M. Feldstein

Maine Law Review

If one were playing a word association game and were asked what comes to mind when the terms “food” and “land use” are given, chances are high that the response would be “agriculture.” Yet every stage in the food system, from being grown or raised through being consumed, is place-based. Put differently, everything that happens with our food system involves land use in some way. Even the acquisition of aquatically sourced foods requires a journey that begins from the shore, and yet it is rare to consider the profound ways in which our every interaction with food system utilizes or …

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 …

Zoning’S Centennial: A Complete Account Of The Evolution Of Zoning Into A Robust System Of Land Use Law—1916-2016 (Part Iv), John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Fracking is happening and local governments are subjected to many of its associated risks. They either need to act, or know—clearly and convincingly—why they should not. The federal government has stopped far short of comprehensive regulation of fracking; the states’ regulations range from fair to poor, sometimes preempting local regulation but most often sharing regulatory authority over land use impacts.

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

Faculty Publications

Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed a hope that someday people of all races would “live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing.” Residential patterns in America today, however, remain highly segregated by race and income. The Fair Housing Act outlawed overt housing discrimination and unjustified discriminatory impacts, but zoning laws and housing finance structures have continued to impede housing integration, leaving communities nearly as racially homogenous as they were in the mid 20th century. These separate neighborhoods are far from equal. The majority of people who reside in financially distressed city-center neighborhoods are …

Zoning’S Centennial: A Complete Account Of The Evolution Of Zoning Into A Robust System Of Land Use Law—1916-2016 (Part Iii), John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In land use, there are two things that Americans dislike: one is sprawl, the other is density. This catch-22 can be resolved by mitigating those aspects of urban living associated with density: congestion, bulky buildings, sameness, design incongruities, unsafe streets, inefficiency, and the sense that neighborhoods are not livable and pleasant. These characteristics of density cut against sustainability. They define places that people want to leave as soon as they can. To reduce vehicle miles travelled and carbon emissions, as well as to prevent sprawl, we must create places of enduring value, located next to transit in walkable and sustainable …

Zoning’S Centennial: A Complete Account Of The Evolution Of Zoning Into A Robust System Of Land Use Law—1916-2016 (Part Ii), John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The idea that local land use law can intelligently shape settlement patterns was not a familiar concept in the late 1960s when the Town of Ramapo, New York adopted an ordinance that delayed development permits until the Town could provide needed infrastructure. Ramapo was experiencing unprecedented growth as one of the closest northern suburbs of New York City. Developers, who in some cases had to wait years for services to their land, sued; they argued that these phased development controls were intended to prohibit subdivisions and restrict population growth, which is not authorized under the state’s zoning enabling legislation.

New …