Land Use Law Commons^™

Afterword - It Has Been A Good Ride, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, James Nicholas

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Beyond Brownfields Redevelopment: A Policy Framework For Regional Land Recycling Planning, Joseph Schilling

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The fields of urban policy and urban planning lack a cohesive and comprehensive framework for recycling vacant and abandoned properties. Past and present efforts to repurpose vacant land and abandoned properties were often narrow responses driven primarily by economic redevelopment policies such as urban renewal of the 1950s & 1960s, deindustrialization of the 1970s & 1980s, and the public-private partnerships featured during the 1990s & 2000s. The 2008-2015 mortgage foreclosure crisis and Great Recession put the policy spotlight on how to address the widespread impacts from thousands of vacant and/or foreclosed homes that affected diverse markets and communities across the country. Even today, dozens of communities, especially those older industrial legacy cities, still have neighborhoods and districts with hundreds, even thousands of vacant homes. The COVID-19 Pandemic now presents policymakers with another socio-economic crisis that will dramatically impact our communities and its built environment. As communities begin the slow recovery process, they may confront waves of housing instability and business disruptions that could trigger significant increases in vacant homes and abandoned properties. This article outlines the core policy and program foundations for reclaiming vacant properties and abandoned buildings; identifies the policy and program innovations that can scale brownfields redevelopment to address challenges around equity, sustainability, and resilience; and provides a framework for a collaborative, cross agency, cross sector policy and planning framework that can address contemporary and future land recycling crises.

Four Modes Of Engagement: Positioning University Urban Design And Research Centers For The Future, Courtney Crosson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

University urban design and research centers, which link academic pedagogy and research activities to real-world projects, have grown in number over the last several decades. As the rate of urbanization accelerates and universities’ missions become increasingly grounded in visible impact and financial self-sufficiency, these centers continue to offer an important and appealing model. This paper looks at the evolution of these centers from their beginnings in the 1950s, advancement in the 1980s, resurgence in the first decade of the 2000s, and current growing status. From a survey of over fifty centers throughout the United States, a typology is established based ...

The Evolution Of Fiscal Impact Analysis And Where It Needs To Go, L. Carson Bise, Colin Mcaweeney

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Communities need analytical tools and technical support to assess and balance multiple priorities when making land use and development decisions. For many communities, priorities to be considered regarding land use decisions include resource conservation and climate adaptation, economic development, investing in new versus existing communities, and maintaining fiscal responsibility. This article examines the historical use of fiscal impact analysis and some thoughts on where the field should go in the future.

Advances In Planning Analysis And Engagement, Arthur C. Nelson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Adventures In Land Use Dispute Resolution: Utah's Innovative Program To Provide "Free" Legal Advice To Local Government, Neighbors, And Property Owners, Craig Call

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Utah may have the nation’s most robust process allowing citizens to question local government land use decisions. This exists in the Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman (OPRO), created in 1997 and charged to assist in land use disputes in 2006. In three parts, this article divides an overview of the history of that office into two eras, evaluates one of the key functions of the current era—the preparation of advisory opinions (AOs), and suggests that Utah’s OPRO is a useful model for other states to consider. Most of this article focuses on the debates leading to ...

Saving The World Through Zoning: The Sustainable Development Code, Regeneration, And Beyond, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Chris Duerksen

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The land use and planning community began to address sustainability at the local level in the 1990s, but in reality, state-of-the-art development codes drafted in the 1990s and early 2000s did little to address climate change, energy conservation, community health, loss of biodiversity, shifting biochemical cycles, racial justice, food supply, and other key sustainability issues. This article reviews past challenges that had to be overcome for sustainable development codes to become mainstream. The good news is that an increasing number of local governments are adopting ambitious sustainable development codes that hold great promise to not only protect the environment and ...

Land Use Trends In The Rocky Mountain West: The Role Of The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, Susan Daggett

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

As one of the fastest-growing regions of the country, the communities of the intermountain West are poised to lead the nation in many ways, including how we manage change, create communities, and foster local places that contribute to a very high quality of life by nurturing and valuing the natural assets that make this region so special. This essay will reflect on how development patterns in the region have shifted over time. This essay will also ponder some potential emerging trends and areas of focus for the future, in the hopes that future scholars, students, and practitioners will build on ...

The Rise And Fall Of Smart Growth: An Exploration Of The Appearance Of Smart Growth And Related Terms In Google Searches, Apa Conference Programs, And Selected Newspapers, Gerrit Knaap, Rebecca Lewis, Arnab Chakraborty, Katy June-Friesen, Naman Molri

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Smart growth was conceived in the mid to late 1990s as a fresh approach to urban development that was neither for nor against growth but sought to change its form and location as an antidote to urban sprawl. The prescription was supported by a broad network of organizations and promoted extensively nationwide. Toward that end, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the Smart Growth Network that includes many of the nation’s premier planning, development, environmental, and local government organizations. Today, many would argue that smart growth has become the predominant planning paradigm in the United States.

It has ...

Growth Management's Fourth Wave, Revisited, Tim Chapin, Lindsay E. Stevens

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

In this article we provide an update to Timothy S. Chapin’s article, “From Growth Controls, to Comprehensive Planning, to Smart Growth: Planning's Emerging Fourth Wave,” published in 2012 in the Journal of the American Planning Association. It takes advantage of a decade of insight into national planning and development trends, as well as our experience with growth management in Florida to rethink this fourth wave. Notably, forces have emerged to fight centralized, state and local-directed land planning, led by a powerful development industrial complex. We conclude that growth management may struggle to remain a centerpiece of the planning ...

The Future Of The Comprehensive Plan, David Rouse

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This article begins with a brief history of the comprehensive plan from its historic roots to the present day. It then considers contemporary comprehensive planning practice, using the Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places developed by the American Planning Association (APA) as a benchmark. The article concludes by exploring how the comprehensive plan can and must evolve to address the major challenges of the 21st century. It draws on research and content from The Comprehensive Plan: Sustainable, Resilient and Equitable Communities for the 21st Century (Rouse and Piro 2022).

Advances In Planning Processes And Implementation, Arthur C. Nelson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Homeownership For The Long Run, Susan M. Wachter, Arthur Acolin

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

U.S. homeownership rates have largely recovered since the depths of the Great Recession, except for Black Americans. In 2019, 42 percent of Black households owned a home, compared to 73 percent of white households. Currently, about two thirds of households own their home, a rate of homeownership that has prevailed in the U.S. since mid-century. However, whether this rate can be sustained over the next decades is in question. Black and Hispanic/Latinx homeownership rates have remained far below that of the white non-Hispanic rate. In addition, the homeownership rate for younger households is now below its level ...

Market Demand-Based Planning And Permitting: Special Case Of Affordable Housing, Robert Hibberd

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Arthur C. Nelson has advanced the concept of market demand-based planning and permitting (MDBPP) as a way in which to balance the need for development within the limits of market capacity. Lacking MDBPP discipline, real estate markets are prone to over-development that can lead to economic downturns including notably the Great Recession of 2007-2009. This article will unpack the history and challenge of MDBPP and demonstrate its efficacy. Then, it will apply these principles to the specific wicked problem of housing affordability, which is both ongoing and emerging in nature. It will tie this problem to a call for MDBPP ...

Affordable Housing: Three Roadblocks To Regulatory Reform, Dwight Merriam

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This article focuses on techniques, initiatives, and regulatory reforms that may help improve affordability in housing, and thereby serve the need for economic, social, and racial equity. It focuses especially on three impediments standing in the way of affordability: the myth of Home Rule, limitations of the Fair Housing Act, and the pervasive use of private covenants and restrictions. Those roadblocks deserve the closest attention and concerted action and must be knocked down, once and for all, to get the housing we so desperately need.

The Enigma Of Housing Choice, Casey Dawkins

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The U.S. faces a housing choice crisis. The growing shortage of affordable rental homes and looming mismatch between the homes offered for sale by baby boomers and the homes sought by the next generation of homeowners point to a need to fundamentally reshape the extent and diversity of the nation’s housing options. Housing and land-use policy experts have appealed to the aim of expanding housing choice to justify the removal of regulatory restrictions on certain housing types, the construction of affordable rental housing in transit-adjacent neighborhoods, the elimination of housing market discrimination on the basis of race and ...

Housing Affordability And Homeownership, Arthur C. Nelson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Planning The Opportunity Metropolis: An Agenda For An Era Of Intensifying Technology, Climate And Health Challenges, George Galster

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Urban planners focus on the spatial arrangements of residences, businesses, institutions, infrastructure and human-built amenities, and the market- and government-driven processes that shape these arrangements. They start with the basic supposition that these arrangements strongly affect individuals’ health, prosperity, and happiness as well as the overall level of opportunity, solidarity, and satisfaction in society. Their recommendations about changing the built environment should be guided by the norms of efficiency and equity, with the latter being framed as creating disproportionate benefits to those who are least advantaged.

This essay begins with an overview of the metropolitan opportunity structure theory to frame ...

Planning For An Aging Population: The Sustainability Conundrum, Sandi Rosenbloom

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

By 2030 more than one in four Americans will be 65 years of age or older. What role do city planning academics and practitioners play in planning for the inevitable and increasing aging of society? I examined original research and reviewed articles published in three major planning journals, reviewed the websites of ten Planning Accreditation Board (PAB) accredited planning programs, and evaluated the websites of the American Planning Association’s divisions and special interest groups to determine how each demonstrated or portrayed the value and importance of aging issues in planning scholarship, pedagogy, and practice. I found that these key ...

Do Planners Always Have To Make The Neighborhood "Better"? Rethinking The Disturbing Tensions Between Redevelopment And Equity, Don Elliott

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

America’s public sector planners are constantly trying to “make things better.” That has been true ever since planning became a profession. Planners are paid to think broadly about how emerging demographic, economic, environmental, and mobility trends will impact life in our communities, and then make recommendations and write regulations to respond to those trends in ways that make the city a better place. In fact, if planners were not doing that, it is not clear why cities should pay them. For the most part, the predominant focus by planners is making communities physically better through comprehensive, neighborhood, sector, and ...