Land Use Law

After LEBOR: Can the Rights of Nature Movement Stand Back Up?

Desmond Nichols

Abstract The Rights of Nature Movement, a global political movement that seeks to expand the legal rights traditionally granted to humans and corporations to natural entities like lakes, rivers, and ecosystems, is becoming more mainstream. In the United States, the movement has had successes in passing local ordinances that grant lakes and rivers the right […]

Reallocating Redevelopment Risk

Michael C. Pollack

Abstract Scores of cities across the country face devastating financial crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more to the brink. But economically distressed municipalities have few places to turn for help. Saddled by rising unemployment, weak tax bases, and state law limitations on deficit spending and debt assumption, they generally cannot spend their […]

Differentiating Exclusionary Tendencies

John Infranca

Abstract Despite an academic consensus that easing land use regulations toincrease the supply of housing can help lower housing prices, localopposition to new development remains prevalent. Onerous zoningregulations and resistance to new housing persist not only in wealthysuburbs, but also in lower income urban neighborhoods. In addition tomaking housing more expensive, such policies increase residentialsegregation, […]

Allowing the Tree to be Cut Down: Quo Warranto Writs in Florida

John W. Wilcox

League of Women Voters of Florida v. Scott, 232 So. 3d 264 (Fla. 2017).

Takings and Extortion

Written by: Daniel P. Selmi

Abstract The Supreme Court has repeatedly employed an extortion narrative in deciding when governmental actions imposing exactions on development projects constitute takings under the Fifth Amendment. In that narrative, local officials act in ever-present bad faith by misusing their regulatory powers to coerce concessions by developers seeking land use approvals. While the extortion narrative has […]

Sean F. Nolon, Bargaining for Development Post-Koontz: How the Supreme Court Invaded Local Government

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District injected significant confusion into negotiations over land development approvals. The principal source of this confusion is the majority’s unwillingness to clarify when and how a proposed condition offered in a negotiation becomes a demand that triggers heightened scrutiny under the Takings […]