Land Use Law Commons^™

Stewart V. Inhabitants Of Durham: An Exclusionary Purpose Ignored, Peter Alexander Meyer

Maine Law Review

Exclusionary zoning of mobile homes has become an increasingly important issue in Maine because of escalating costs of conventional housing and rising unmet housing needs. Although towns may regulate mobile home or any other housing use in order to foster public health, safety, morals, or general welfare, they may not enact a zoning ordinance to exclude people of lower income in an attempt to avoid the "increased governmental costs and the stresses upon public services which generally accompany such an incursion." In Stewart v. Inhabitants of Durham, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was confronted with an exclusionary purpose in a …

Corner Post V. Board Of Governors Of Federal Reserve System, Alexis Karbowicz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System resolved a circuit split on when claims against the federal government “accrue” under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2401(a). The Supreme Court clarified whether plaintiffs must file challenges within six years of a regulation’s enactment or may wait until they are directly affected by an agency action, even if that occurs years later. Examining the case’s factual and procedural background provides insight into the relevant regulatory context. The Court’s analysis offers a detailed interpretation of statutory language and establishes principles of claim accrual, alongside the policy considerations of regulatory finality and …

The Biopiracy Of Traditional Knowledge In United States Patent Law, Hannah Green

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States intellectual property (“IP”) system is deeply intertwined with our country’s history and constitution. t is foundational in favoring young American inventors. George Washington signed the first patent act in 1790 in hopes of promoting the innovation and progress of science and useful arts. Yet, our patent system was also built around the Western tradition of individualism and competition, which failed to recognize the communal nature and traditional knowledge of tribal communities. This disparity allows the biopiracy of traditional knowledge to be lawful. This comment will explore the harmful toll that United States patent law has taken on …

Local Land Use Controls: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

The suggestion that local land use control powers are not working well—that they may not be susceptible to modest but useful reforms or modifications and thus ought to be more drastically altered or abandoned altogether—is not new. Beginning nearly twenty years ago with Richard Babcock's publication of The Zoning Game, the literature and case law in the field is rife with express and implied suggestions that too much land use control power has been given to local governments. More recently Professor Jan Krasnowiecki suggested we abolish zoning, and the New Jersey court in its latest Mount Laurel decision underscored the …

The Public Trust Doctrine In Maine's Submerged Lands: Public Rights, State Obligation And The Role Of The Courts, Mitchell M. Tannenbaum

Maine Law Review

The State of Maine has within its borders over three thousand miles of coastline and numerous navigable rivers and lakes. The productive use of these waterways and the lands which lie beneath them historically has been linked to the quality of life within Maine and continues to be essential to the social and economic development of the state. Both the state's control over its thousands of acres of submerged lands and the public's right to use these lands derive from what has come to be known as the "public trust doctrine." The basic tenet of the doctrine is that the …

Wilderness, Trust, And Finality: The Baxter State Park Snowmobile Dispute, Ellen Kandoian, Brooke E. Barnes

Maine Law Review

The recent controversies surrounding the use of snowmobiles in Baxter State Park exemplify the human essence of the trust relationship and the law's awkwardness in addressing the inherently nonlegalistic principles of trust. Baxter State Park is an area of 201,018 acres in northern Maine, purchased by former Governor Percival Proctor Baxter and then donated to the State of Maine in trust. The park includes Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine and the head of the Appalachian Trail. As Chief Justice McKusick wrote in a recent decision construing the trust, "in its combination of size, uniqueness, permanence, and vision, his …

Managing The Cumulative Effects Of Coastal Land Development: Can Maine Law Meet The Challenge?, Alison Rieser

Maine Law Review

Following a period of slow economic growth for the State of Maine in the early part of this decade, improved economic conditions and new demographic trends have renewed the demand for commercial, residential, and recreational development in coastal communities across the state. For many years, Maine has tried to stimulate growth in its communities. Now, many of its coastal towns face a huge development boom, particularly in the southern and mid-coast areas, in communities such as York, Wells, Ogunquit, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Portland, Camden, and Belfast. These towns are struggling to find ways to control the increasing density of development along …

Abdication Of Power: Arizona V. Navajo Nation And Judicial Refusal To Enforce The Federal Trust Relationship, Jessica Yin

Washington Law Review

Over 150 years ago, the federal government signed a treaty promising the Navajo people a permanent home within the bounds of their ancestral homeland. To this day, that promise remains unfulfilled because the Navajo people face a severe water access crisis. When the Navajo Nation brought the United States to the Supreme Court to enforce its promise, the Court declined to hold the federal government accountable.

This Comment analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation through the lens of the judiciary’s historical approach to the federal trust relationship. The Court has traditionally defined the federal trust relationship …

Zoning And Land Use Law, Newton M. Galloway, Steven L. Jones, Joshua Williams

Mercer Law Review

For the first time since 2017, the cases reviewed for the Zoning and Land Use Law Survey did not focus on judicial decisions attempting to transform legislative zoning decisions into quasi-judicial actions. ...

For this Survey period, attention shifts to the impact of State v. SASS Group, LLC, the first case arising after the 2020 amendment to the Georgia Constitution of 1983 in which Georgia voters approved a constitutional amendment (the Amendment) which permitted a limited waiver of the state’s sovereign immunity for declaratory judgment claims seeking a judicial determination that an action of a governmental official was unconstitutional. …

Exploring Keebet Von Benda-Beckmann's Legal Pluralism In Slum Transformation: An Ethnographic Study Of Urban Revitalization In Indonesia, Imam Koeswahyono, Diah Pawestri Maharani, Nadyah Maylika Rahmawati, Ika Ismudyahwati

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Slum areas in Indonesia present a significant challenge, with government programs such as the National Slum Upgrading Program (NSUP) aiming to address urban poverty and improve living conditions. Despite the implementation of formal policies, the interplay between legal frameworks and local practices often determines the success of such initiatives. Drawing on Keebet von Benda-Beckmann’s theory of legal pluralism, this research examines the transformation of slums into productive and sustainable zones, focusing on Kampung Jodipan, Kampung Heritage Kajoetangan, and Kampung Kreatif Dago Pojok. These case studies reveal how formal legal systems interact with informal norms and community-driven practices in achieving urban …

Repurposed Energy, Alexandra B. Klass, Hannah Wiseman

Articles

Wildfires, weather extremes, and other conditions induced partially by climate change add urgency to the project of accelerating the clean energy transition from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy infrastructure. Yet the hurdles to accomplishing such a massive industrial-scale transition are daunting. Indeed, large renewable energy generation projects regularly face denials or project-killing delays across the United States. This Article proposes a national policy to channel the bulk of new clean energy projects to targeted categories of both rural lands and urban, post-industrial lands that we define collectively as “repurposed energy” sites. Such lands will consist of marginal farmland, abandoned coal …

(Un)Worlding With Karipuna’S Shadowy Alliances: The Mirangã And The Isolados, Hanmin Kin

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This ethnographically inspired article investigates the ways in which the Karipuna Indigenous people in Rondônia defend their land in the Western Brazilian Amazon against forces of deforestation and dispossession. I focus on the Karipuna’s plurivalent and collective forest spirits called the mirangã, through life experience accounts of two survivors from the “pre-contact” era who embody the Karipuna-mirangã connection. Through an analysis of the onto-epistemological entanglements in which the mirangã and my interlocutors are situated, I articulate another front of the Karipuna’s multi-faceted resistance: the struggle of worlding vis-à-vis the non-indigenous world. This process also reveals the association (from …

Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series: Owning Our Values: Supplementing Our Textbooks For Those Engaged In Social Justice, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

General Discretion Under Maine's Site Location Of Development Law, Tybe Ann Brett

Maine Law Review

The 1960s brought nationwide concern about the environmental impact of post-World War II development and industrial growth. Efforts to protect the environment took many different forms. Part of Maine's response to the growing need for environmental improvement measures was the Legislature's enactment in 1970 of the Site Location of Development Law (Site Law). The Site Law gives the state control over the location of developments that would substantially affect the environment, rather than leaving such decisions to single towns and individual developers. The Law also addresses concerns beyond those dealt with in air and water pollution control legislation. The Site …

Construing "Consideration" In Maine's Recreational Use Statute: Robbins V. Great Northern Paper Co., Russell B. Pierce Jr.

Maine Law Review

Since 1961, when the Legislature enacted the original version of Maine's "recreational use statute," the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has had little opportunity to construe the statute's several components. The recent case of Robbins v. Great Northern Paper Co., however, allowed the court to interpret the "consideration" exception of the statute for the first time. In a 4-3 decision, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, ruled that a $95.00 annual rental fee for noncommercial, recreational use of a lot on the defendant's property did not constitute "consideration" so as to fall within the exception to landowner …

Rethinking The History Of The Seventeenth-Century Colonial Ordinance: A Reinterpretation Of An Ancient Statute, Mark Cheung

Maine Law Review

In 1648, the Massachusetts colonial government ordered into print The Book of the General Laws and Libertyes that included an ordinance, commonly known as the Colonial Ordinance. The Ordinance extended private seashore property rights to the low water mark but to no more than one hundred rods beyond the high-water mark. The 1648 Ordinance replaced an earlier version enacted in the Body of Liberties of 1641. While both versions of the Ordinance enumerated public rights of fishing, fowling, and navigation in the foreshore, the 1648 Ordinance provided the critical language extending the private boundary to the low water mark. Prior …

Shoreline Access In Rhode Island: A Case Study Of Black Point, Michael Rubin

Maine Law Review

Access to the shoreline in Rhode Island has been a strong tradition since the colonial era. However, with increasing development pressures on the formerly rural shore areas, especially in the region of the state commonly called "South County," it was only a matter of time before public and private interests collided over the diminishing resource. That inevitable collision occurred at a particular piece of shorefront property known as Black Point, in the Town of Narragansett, when a developer purchased this large tract of ocean-front property and proposed the construction of luxury condominiums. The project would entail the closing of an …

Expanding Public Access By Codifying The Public Trust Doctrine: The Massachusetts Experience, William L. Lahey, Lauren Sandler Zurier, Kenneth W. Salinger

Maine Law Review

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is dramatically expanding public access to the coast through statutory and regulatory codification of the public trust doctrine. Is this legislative and administrative experiment relevant to other states, particularly to Maine? The initial answer to this question may depend on the meaning of the Bell v. Town of Wells decision. For better or for worse, Massachusetts jurisprudence set the course followed by the majority of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in Bell. To some, including several of the authors in this symposium, the bearing of the Massachusetts courts leads to a civic wasteland where the public's …

Intellectual Indifference—Intellectual Dishonesty: The Colonial Ordinance, The Equal Footing Doctrine, And The Maine Law Court, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the recent Bell decision was the fact that it was 4-3, that significant public interests were lost because a bare majority refused to examine, in the detail necessary, the Colonial Ordinance, old and new United States Supreme Court cases, Maine law, or the reasoning of their own colleagues who filed a compelling dissenting opinion in the case. A mere recitation of the dissenting opinion would serve no useful purpose—it is a part of the public record; its rationale speaks for itself. Had the rationale of the dissent been adopted by the majority it would …

Public Access And The New England Shoreline: Editors' Foreword, Kathryn L. Vezina Editor-In-Chief

Maine Law Review

In August 1989, the Marine Law Institute and the Maine Law Review cosponsored a symposium, "Moody Beach and Beyond: Public Use and Private Rights in the New England Shoreline," in Portland, Maine, to provide a forum for presentation of ideas regarding public access rights to intertidal lands. The controversy at Moody Beach was the starting point for the discussion, but the conference included papers dealing with public access issues in other states as well. Four of the papers from this symposium are included in this issue of the Maine Law Review. As were the presentations last August, these articles are …