Land Use Law Commons^™

Jump In Before It's Too Late: Protecting And Increasing Streamflows In New Mexico, Sharon Wirth

Publications

Freshwater ecosystems need adequate streamflow to supply clean water for humans and maintain healthy habitat for wildlife. Over-appropriation, overuse, climate change, and drought plague New Mexico's rivers, taxing many rivers beyond sustainability. Despite the myriad of problems caused by little or no water in our rivers, policies and procedures to protect and increase streamflows in New Mexico are limited. While most Western states have made demonstrable progress in alleviating various legal and technical barriers to protecting and increasing streamflows, New Mexico has made only limited, recent progress towards solutions for our drying rivers. This article takes a critical look at …

Developing The Law Of The River: The Integration Of Law And Policy Into Hydrologic And Socio-Economic Modeling Efforts In The Willamette River Basin, Adell Louise Amos

Publications

A legal and policy infrastructure -- referred to as a "law of the river" -- exists for every river basin in the U.S. an can be as important as natural processes in terms of managing the future of the resource. Because of the way that water law and policy have evolved in the U.S., this infrastructure involves a matrix of state and federal law that governs the choices that policymakers, end users, and agencies make. This "law of the river" provides the context in which decisions are made and not made. It also draws the boundaries within which decision makers …

Green Siting For Green Energy, Amy Wilson Morris, Jessica Owley, Emily Capello

Articles

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Natural Resources Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Land Use Law Update: The Court Of Appeals Issues A Victory For Home Rule In Wallach V. Town Of Dryden And Cooperstown Holstein Corp. V. Town Of Middlefield, Sarah Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

In the midst of the often heated controversy swirling around the issue of hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as “hydrofracking” and “fracking”), New York’s Court of Appeals recently issued a straightforward ruling, which focused on long-established precedent concerning the right of municipalities to regulate mining land uses, rather than focusing on the contentious economic or environmental issues surrounding the fracking debate. This article discusses that ruling.

Suburban Sprawl: Weaker But Still Alive, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Review of The End of the Suburbs, by Leigh Gallagher.

How Often Do Cities Mandate Smart Growth Or Green Building?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Much has been written about the role of government regulation in facilitating automobile-oriented sprawl. Zoning codes reduce walkability by artificially segregating housing from commerce, forcing businesses and multifamily landlords to surround their buildings with parking, and artificially reducing density. The “smart growth” movement seeks to reverse these policies, both through regulation and through more libertarian, deregulatory policies. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent cities have in fact chosen the former path, and to discuss the possible side effects of prescriptive smart growth and green building regulations. In particular, this paper focuses on attempts to make …

Land Use Law Update: New York's New Climate Change Resiliency Law, Sarah Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

New York State’s lawmakers passed 2,603 bills over the course of the 2013-14 session, 658 of which passed both houses. Although counties and local governments are likely focusing their attention on budget-related items such as the property tax freeze/rebate program, local governments — and zoning and planning officials and practitioners in particular — should also take note of the newly enacted Community Risk and Resiliency Act (CRRA).

How Real Is Gentrification?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Some commentators argue that gentrification is turning many cities into a playground for the rich. This article rejects that view, pointing out that even relatively affluent cities are still poorer than the average suburb.

Substantive Due Process By Another Name: Koontz, Exactions, And The Regulatory Takings Doctrine, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, a 5-4 majority of the United States Supreme Court reversed a state court decision that had limited the application of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. City of Tigard. Nollan and Dolan concern the imposition of regulatory conditions on proposed development, also called exactions, which commonly occurs in land use regulation. In Koontz, a property owner challenged a regulatory agency's denial of his permit application following failed negotiations over exactions. The Florida Supreme Court had concluded that Nollan and Dolan did not extend to conditions that …

Mitigating The Impacts Of The Renewable Energy Gold Rush, Amy Wilson Morris, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

Weathering Nepa Review: Superstorms And Super Slow Urban Recovery, John Travis Marshall

Faculty Publications By Year

Delays in implementing long-term neighborhood housing recovery measures following urban disasters profoundly disrupt a city's revitalization and resurgence. Following recent large-scale urban disasters, some blame the National Environmental Policy Act environmental and historical review requirement for greatly slowing the long-term recovery process. They claim that the National Environmental Policy Act review is ill suited for the exigencies of disasters. Finding effective ways to advance urban disaster recovery as quickly as possible, while not compromising key environmental quality objectives, is a central challenge to implementing effective post-disaster recovery plans. This Article addresses how best to balance necessary regulation with critical disaster …

Of Trees, Vegetation, And Torts: Re-Conceptualizing Reasonable Land Use, L. Daniel Bidwell

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Environmental Limitations To Property Rights In Brazil And The United States Of America, Leonardo Munhoz

Dissertations & Theses

This thesis aims to comparatively analyze the legislative evolution that environmental protection has experienced in the Brazilian versus the American legal systems and their relationship with property rights.

Demonstrably, Brazil’s concern with the environment actually came into focus in the 1980s and it therefore received treatment within the Federal Constitution of 1988, as a diffuse right, contributing to better, stronger environmental protection.

Similarly, the protection of the environment in the American Constitution and its statutes as well as their enforcement and interpretation within the legal system are explored.

Of concern is the notion that environmental protection and third-generation rights consequently …

State Preemption Of Local Land Use Ordinances And North Carolina's "Fracking" Legislation, Michael B. Kent Jr.

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Regional Integration In Africa, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Ademola Abass

Articles

No abstract provided.

On The Waterfront: New York City's Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation Challenge (Part 1 Of 2), Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

New York City is a city on the waterfront. With 520 miles of coastline, New York City’s coastline is longer than the coastlines of Miami, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. Nearly nine million New Yorkers live in areas vulnerable to flooding, storm surges and other natural disaster-related risks that are increasing as a result of climate change.

New York City didn’t wait for a devastating storm to begin comprehensively addressing the effects of climate change. The City’s extensive climate change mitigation and resiliency efforts and communications strategy have put the City in a league of its own. But, …

Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation: A Local Solution To A Global Problem, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

Local land use laws offer powerful tools for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, notwithstanding New York municipalities’ many impressive efforts, local laws are not yet being utilized sufficiently to create disaster-resilient or disaster-adaptive communities. New York City has done substantially more than many other cities, including, critically, setting specific CO2 emissions reduction targets and amending zoning and building codes. But, in light of the evidence of climate change and its impacts, local decision makers, resource managers, and planners throughout the state must ask whether we are doing enough. Failure to do so will continue to be costly in terms …

On The Waterfront: New York City's Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation Challenge (Part 2 Of 2), Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

New York City, like other major cities around the world, has acknowledged the problem of climate change and begun to implement proactive policies to decrease the city’s contribution to the problem (i.e., mitigation) and to make the city less vulnerable to the effects of climate change (i.e., adaptation). The City’s initiatives have been comprehensive and progressive, especially its climate change-related data analysis and communication initiatives including NPCC, and its comprehensive reform of building and other related codes. The City’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 and its progress toward that goal are also laudable, but the …

It's A 'Criming Shame': Moving From Land Use Ethics To Criminalization Of Behavior Leading To Permits And Other Zoning Related Acts, Patricia E. Salkin, Bailey Ince

Scholarly Works

In the past, land use ethics inquiries predominately involved conflicts of interest or an official holding public office while engaging in a previously held business or law practice. Now, prosecutors are looking at the underlying criminality of the unethical acts carried out in the context of land use decisions. With a wide array of criminal statutes in the hands of federal prosecutors, almost all forms of unethical conduct could in some way also violate a federal criminal statute.

Part II of this article reviews the federal statutes most often used by federal prosecutors and provides some examples of recent reported …