Land Use Law Commons^™

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Invasives: The How Of Biodiversity Loss, Andrew W. Torrance, Bill Tomlinson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Invasive species are non-native organisms, existing outside of their original habitat, which may cause damage to the biodiversity in their new environment. These species often outcompete native species for resources, which can dramatically disrupt ecological balance and biodiversity. This Article first surveys existing invasive species laws, documenting the current legal frameworks that various countries use to manage invasive species. It then proposes an array of new legal approaches that may improve how human civilizations manage the complex issues surrounding invasives. Finally, it evaluates the prospects for preventing—or even rolling back—the harm invasives cause to biodiversity. The broad goal of this …

I Demand The Right To Destroy My Church! The Relationship Between The Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act And The Religious Right To Demolish Historic Churches, Mikayla D. Kelz

Northern Illinois University Law Review

Prohibitions and restrictions on land use by Historic Preservation Committees via landmark laws are common and hinder an owner’s right to control the land. Religious institutions possess an important piece of federal legislation to combat landmark laws, known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Even with this advantage in their pocket, churches continue to face local opposition on the ability to renovate and demolish their churches due to the overly regulatory nature of landmark laws. Federal courts vary on the criteria in determining whether a landmark designation can withstand the right to religious exercise via land …

Goodbye, Zoning?, Michael Allan Wolf

Vanderbilt Law Review

American zoning is under attack on multiple fronts. The concerns of zoning’s many critics range from social and racial justice, to private property rights, to the extreme shortage of affordable housing, to climate-change resilience and sustainability. A growing number of voices have called for, at a minimum, the elimination of single-family zones; some even champion the abolition of this ubiquitous method of American land use regulation. This Article is the first detailed look at what would happen if zoning’s critics got their way. The most efficient means for erasing zoning from American law would be for the U.S. Supreme Court …

Development And Practice Of Tribal Community Planning: Ensuring Indigeneity In The Planning Process, Jared E. Munster, Ph.D.

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Misusing Eminent Domain: Pretextual Takings For A Traditional Public Use, Cameron P. Hellerman

Fordham Law Review

Eminent domain is a powerful tool at the disposal of local, state and federal governments. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution imposes two conditions on this sovereign power: the taking must be for “public use,” and the condemner must pay “just compensation” to the property owner. There are minimal guardrails in place to police potential misuse of the eminent domain power in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court equates “public use” with “public purpose” and applies a deferential standard of review to a condemner’s determination that a taking serves a public purpose. Nonetheless, the Court in Kelo v. City …

The Onondaga Nation's Land Claim: Rights Without A Remedy?, Larissa Speak

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Case Law On American Indians: September 2023 - August 2024, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Maine's Public Lots: The Emergence Of A Public Trust, Lee M. Schepps

Maine Law Review

Maine's public lots were originally reserved from conveyances of townships of public domain and were held by the state for the benefit of schools in the towns which would or could someday be created among the unorganized townships of the state. Many towns came into existence and inherited their public lots for the purposes for which the lots were reserved. Unlike many other states, however, almost half of the land area of Maine has never been incorporated into towns. Because of the great number of townships which have never been incorporated into towns, there are now approximately 400,000 acres of …

Nineteenth Century Dams And Twentieth Century Problems: Commentary On A Statutory Solution, G. Graham Waite

Maine Law Review

In times past streams were commonly dammed to provide water power for machinery, improve navigation, or serve some other business purpose. The dams today pose serious problems for the public and for riparian owners along the dammed streams, problems stemming from either operation of the dams or failure to maintain them properly. The dams are operated to further the business purposes for which they were built, sometimes resulting in water levels or flows detrimental to game fish in the streams and to shoreline recreational property. When the old dams cease to be economical to operate, as often has happened, the …

A Reexamination Of Passamaquoddy V. Morton, John M.R. Paterson, David Roseman

Maine Law Review

In December 1975, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued its historic decision in Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton. That decision set in motion a sequence of events that only the most prescient of the original participants could have imagined. At its height the litigation that grew out of Passamaquoddy involved a threatened suit by the United States Justice Department on behalf of two Indian groups in Maine against the State of Maine, several of the nation's largest corporations, 350,000 residents, and scores of Maine municipalities. The plaintiffs sought possession of 12,000,000 …

Judicial Enforcement Of The Federal Restraints On Alienation Of Indian Land: The Origins Of The Eastern Land Claims, Robert N. Clinton, Margaret Tobey Hotopp

Maine Law Review

The land claims of the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Oneida, Mashpee, Narragansett, and other eastern Indian tribes have recently drawn attention to the federal statute governing alienation of tribal lands upon which the claims are based—25 U.S.C. § 177. This provision conclusively established, at least in theory, the exclusive authority of the federal government to extinguish aboriginal title to land. The actual practice was quite different, however, because some of the original thirteen states, accustomed to some degree of power under the Articles of Confederation in the field of controlling tribal Indian title, did not immediately acknowledge the complete federal preemption of …

A Survey Of Eastern Indian Land Claims: 1970-1979, Tim Vollmann

Maine Law Review

The eastern Indian land claims are a remarkable phenomenon of jurisprudence. Unmomentous at the time of their filing, the claims have given rise to litigation attracting nation-wide attention, judicial precedent directly affecting several dozen communities on the east coast, and debates in Congress raising political and constitutional questions that go to the heart of this nation's policy toward Indian tribes. From a broad perspective, this essay surveys the eastern land claims cases and highlights some of the resulting significant legal and political developments.

The Misuse Of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions For Legislative And Judicial Responses, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

Municipal governments in almost all parts of the country are frequently inclined to exercise their police, spending, and policymaking powers in an impermissibly exclusionary manner. Their objective in many instances is simply to keep population growth and local property taxes down. In Maine these tendencies are very much in evidence. This misuse of local governmental powers is almost totally predicated on a misconception of the status of local governments and the purposes for which they exist. Local governments are not sovereign. They are not independent units of government. They are subunits of state government, creatures of the state analogous to …

Securing Solar Access In Maine, Martha Freeman

Maine Law Review

This Comment explores the common law property concepts of nuisance, water law, and easements which arise by operation of law in order to determine the kind and degree of solar access protection they can provide Maine residential users of solar energy. The final section of this Comment proposes an express solar easement by which Maine citizens can create their own enforceable interests in unobstructed sunlight for solar energy use. In highly urbanized areas where space is scarce and already developed, the conflicts between solar energy users and other land and airspace users may be too difficult to resolve. In Maine, …

A Response To Professor Delogu: Is Impermissible Exclusion A Reality In Maine?, Madge Baker

Maine Law Review

A basic premise of Professor Orlando Delogu's article, The Misuse of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions for Legislative and Judicial Responses, is that many Maine municipalities are using their land use regulatory powers in impermissibly exclusionary ways. Professor Delogu proposes that the legislature and courts of Maine should respond to correct the situation. This Commentary will attempt to illustrate that Professor Delogu has failed to document his premise or to define accurately the difference between permissible and impermissible exclusion. He is unable, therefore, to substantiate the need for state intervention in an area of law traditionally delegated to …

A Final Note On The Misuse Of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions For Legislative And Judicial Responses, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

The Baker criticism of my article is flawed in several major respects. First, while tacitly accepting the basic premise of the article that impermissible exclusion may be achieved by local misuse of a wide variety of facially permissible land use control tools, Ms. Baker argues that merely because the article did not demonstrate a sufficient degree of misuse in Maine, the corrective measures suggested are unwarranted. But a full reading of the article makes clear that no such exhaustive indictment of Maine towns was intended. The article was not an empirical study. The article intended to point out a widening …

Coastal Recreation: Legal Methods For Securing Public Rights In The Seashore, Jeffrey D. Curtis

Maine Law Review

The coastal shores of the United States are a peculiar form of property in that both the littoral landowner and the general public have legally protected interests in the use and enjoyment of the land. In most coastal states the title to the land below the high-water mark is vested in the state in trust for the beneficial use of the public, subject to certain limited rights of the littoral owner. Maine and Massachusetts, however, share a unique allocation of public and private interests which vests the title to the foreshore, the land between the high and low water marks, …

The Dilemma Of Local Land Use Control: Power Without Responsibility, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

Land use planning and control has traditionally been perceived as a set of issues best dealt with by local government. State governments historically have been called upon to provide nothing more than a suitable framework of planning and land use control enabling legislation. In recent years some states have sought to address land use issues having regional or statewide impact. This has usually been done on an intra-state basis, however, and meaningful interstate or multi-state approaches to land use problems, though much discussed in the literature, are almost non-existent in practice. Federal involvement in land use issues has also been …

Stars, Stripes, And Pills: The Stock Narratives That Blind, Michelle Wilde Anderson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.