Here’s a quick update on a recent post about an Orlando church which is being targeted by the city so it can build a new stadium for a privately-owned soccer franchise.
Turns out the church has hired our Owners’ Counsel colleague and friend Andrew Brigham, and will be opposing the taking on public use grounds, among others. More about the church’s response here and here.
This just got really interesting.
Here is the oral argument recording in Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. Chock, Nos. 12-15971, 12-16076, case argued yesterday in the Ninth Circuit at its session in Honolulu. As we previewed, the issues involved Pullman abstention and immunity. As for Williamson County ripeness, an issue the court asked the parties to brief separately, one of the judges (it sounds to us like Judge William Fletcher) said he was “haunted by Williamson County” (click forward to the 12:25 mark). Aren’t we all, Your Honor, aren’t we all.
Ninth Circuit Oral Argument No.12-15971
Next up, the oral arguments in the Hawaii Supreme Court in the state court case, scheduled for June 25, 2014, which may have an impact on the federal appeal (one judge asked counsel, “What if we wait until the Hawaii Supreme Court does whatever it’s about to do, will that illuminate these issues for us?”). More
For those of you who follow the issue, here’s the latest in the “genetically modified organisms” issue, yet another one where Hawaii is apparently the epicenter. As we posted earlier, the County of Kauai adopted an ordinance regulating GMO’s which was immediately challenged in Federal District Court in Honolulu, while the County of Hawaii (Big Island) also adopted an ordinance that was challenged in state court by a farmer.
The Big Island ordinance is now being challenged in Federal Court on a number of grounds (preemption, Commerce Clause, and takings). Read the complaint for yourself, below.
Continue Reading Latest Federal Court Salvo In The GMO Front
For you rails-to-trails fans, here’s the latest from the Federal Circuit. In Biery v . United States, No. 13-5082 (June 2, 2014), the court held that interests which certain Kansas property owners conveyed to railroads back in the day were grants in fee simple, and some were grants of an easement.
The issue was dispositive because if the grants were in fee simple, then when the railroad abandoned railroad operations, the land could be converted to public recreational trail use without triggering a taking, but if the grants were easements, then upon abandonment, the owners should have got the land back, and are owed compensation.
As noted, in 2004, the stretch of rail corridor at issue was converted to a public trail pursuant to the Trails Act. If, prior to the conversion, the BNSF held fee-simple title to the land underlying the corridor, then, for their part, plaintiffs-appellants possess no compensable property interests.
Continue Reading The Latest Takings Decision From The Federal Circuit On Railway “Rights Of Way”
The high mountains of Hawaii, with their altitude and clear air, are some of the best places in the entire planet to build the telescopes which allow us to look beyond our world into deep space. But given that it seems that every development in Hawaii is subject to attack — even those you believed might be welcomed — perhaps it is no surprise that even a star trek is not immune.
In Kilakila O Haleakala v. University of Hawaii, No. CAAP-13-0000182 (June 9, 2014), the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals rejected a challenge under Hawaii’s environmental review statute to the State’s approval of the high-tech telescope up on the top of Maui’s Haleakala. Another part of this case was decided last year by the Hawaii Supreme Court, which held that an appeal to a trial court under the Adminstrative Procedures Act lies from an agency’s decision to grant
Continue Reading HAWICA: No EIS Required For Haleakala Telescope
It’s been our experience that when a court of appeals — particularly when it’s the Ninth Circuit, and it’s the eve of oral argument — raises an issue on its own after the briefs have been filed and requests supplemental briefing, then whatever that issue is must really be on the judges’ minds. They’re the cream of the crop (right?) and along with their cohort of law clerks (the next generation cream), they know the law (right?). And, as one Ninth Circuit judge candidly revealed at one of those bench/bar tip sessions last year, law clerks like nothing better than to catch the advocates in a misstatement or to find a missed argument, so they can present the issue to their judge like a cat bringing home a dead bird to its master (we’re paraphrasing that last bit, of course, but the judge did say that clerks groove on finding things
Our friends and colleagues over at RLUIPA Defense blog Evan Seeman and Dwight Merriam have posted on a case is generating some media attention, and might be interesting to watch.
Orlando wants — what else — a new sports venue. A soccer stadium. And the city is using — what else — eminent domain to get it. One property standing in the way is a family-owned parcel which currently is being used for a church. [Barista’s note: soccer, you have hit the Big Leagues when municipalities are using their eminent domain power to take private property for your stadiums.] You know the drill: city offers low, owners want high, a deal doesn’t materialize, and the next thing you know, eminent domain complaint filed.
So check out “RLUIPA & Eminent Domain – City of Orlando to Take Church Property to Construct Major League Soccer Stadium.” And while you are at it, see
Continue Reading RLUIPA And The Condemnation Of Church-Owned Property
You remember Battle for Brooklyn, the documentary which chronicles the eminent domain fight over New York’s Atlantic Yards project? (Read our review of the film here to refresh your recollection.)
Well here’s the latest chapter. Or perhaps “epilogue” is more appropriate, because the former property owners have long since been evicted, the homes have been razed, and the New Jersey Brooklyn Nets are ensconced in the Barclays Center. (The promised affordable housing and “jobs, jobs, jobs?” Eh, not so much, but who’s counting?)
According to this story in the New York Times, preservationists are planning to award the private beneficiaries of the city’s exercise of eminent domain something called the “Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal.” Seriously:
The Municipal Art Society is well known for campaigns to save Grand Central Terminal and Lever House and to stop towers that would have cast long shadows over
Continue Reading Atlantic Yards: How About Calling It The “Jay Z” Medal?
