Municipal & Local Govt law

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nailhouse

According to “Moats dug around Chinese villagers’ houses to drive them out,” they’re now resorting siege tactics to deal with holdout “nail houses” in southern China:

Forced evictions and land disputes are a major cause of social unrest in China, where there are tens of thousands of mass incidents each year.

This week, Chinese internet users weighed in on the unusual tactics being used to force Yangji’s remaining families from their homes.

“The property developer is really smart,” wrote one micro-blogger.

“The idea of natural moats is shockingly unprecedented. Really clever!”

Actually, the idea of a moat is very precedented. It appears that the situation we’re familiar with, where they merely build roads around holdouts, is devolving. What’s next, siege engines and cauldrons of boiling oil?Continue Reading They’re Getting Positively Medieval On Holdout “Nail Houses”

Worth listening: a 17-minute podcast by Professor Richard Epstein, with his thoughts — apparently without a script and seemingly in a single breath — on the oral arguments in Koontz v. St Johns River Water Mgmt Dist., No. 11-1447 (cert. granted Oct. 5, 2012). 

Download the mp3 here. If that doesn’t work, go here.

Continue Reading Epstein’s Podcast On Koontz: “The Vexed Doctrine Of Unconstitutional Conditions”

The oral argument calendar of the Hawaii Supreme Court  looks pretty interesting:

  • Thursday, February 7, 2013, 11:00 a.m. – Sierra Club v. Land Use Comm’n, No SCWC-11-0000625, a case about the qualifications of holdover Land Use Commissioners, which we previewed here. 
  • Thursday, February 21, 2013, 10:00 a.m. – Kanahele v. Maui County Council, No. SCWC-29649, a case involving the “Sunshine Law” and the council’s consideration of a development project on Maui. More here from Record on Appeal.
  • Thursday, February 21, 2013, 11:00 a.m. – County of Hawaii v. UNIDEV, LLC, No. SCWC-10-0000188, a case about contracts between a private developer and the County to build affordable housing. It’s more about arbitration and appellate jurisdiction, but an interesting case nonetheless. More here from Record on Appeal.
  • Thursday, March 14, 2013, 9:30 a.m. – State of Hawaii v. Woodhall, No. SCWC-11-0000097, in which the court

…
Continue Reading Upcoming Hawaii Appellate Arguments Of Interest

Most federal takings claims against state and local government do not get heard in federal court (except to dismiss them on res judicata grounds), under the one-two punch of Williamson County and San Remo Hotel.  

Williamson County forces property owners into state court because a claim under the Fifth Amendment is not ripe until the state has denied compensation, which includes pursuit of a state law takings claim in state court, while San Remo Hotel penalizes a property owner for pursuing a state law claim in state court by concluding that she will unwillingly litigate her federal takings claim in the course of litigating her state law takings claim, thus, when her federal claim has been ripened by the visit to state court, the preclusion doctrines kick in to prevent her from raising it in federal court.

All of this presumes that the state law of whatever jurisdiction…

Continue Reading Alabama Guys: Gear Up For Federal Court. Your Supreme Court Concluded That Alabama Law Does Not Recognize Regulatory Takings

The speed of the internet: we were all set to summarize our thoughts on the South Carolina Supreme Court’s opinion in Dunes West Golf Club, LLC v. Town of Mount Pleasant, No. 2011-194211 (Jan. 9, 2013), a case involving equal protection, substantive due process, and takings claims, when Dean Patty Salkin at the Law of the Land blog beat us to it. See “SC Supreme Court Finds No Takings After Council Denies Rezoning for Golf Club Property” for the details.

This one thing caught our eye in the opinion. The court held that the “substantially advance a legitimate state interest” test, which the U.S. Supreme Court in Lingle v. Chevron USA Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005) held was a test of substantive due process and not one of takings law, was the same thing as the “rational/conceivable basis” test. In other words, the term “substantially advance” is…

Continue Reading S. Carolina: “Substantially Advance” Means “Not Arbitrary And Capricious”

Here’s the inevitable reaction to U. Hawaii law Professor David Callies’ recently-published law review article (and follow-up interview) about the stunning success rates certain parties enjoy in the Hawaii Supreme Court. In that article, the good professor labeled the record of the 1993-2010 Hawaii Supreme Court on property issues “appalling,” so it should come as no surprise that two of the beneficiaries of those rulings have now rallied to that court’s defense.

In “Hawaii Court Upholds Public Responsibility In Environmental Cases,” an opinion piece in Honolulu Civil Beat, an Earthjustice lawyer and the Director of the Hawaii Sierra Club jointly write:

Callies complains that the Supreme Court “created out of whole cloth” the requirement that the Turtle Bay Resort supplement its 25-year old Environmental Impact Statement. He was on the losing end of that argument before the Court, and he’s still wrong now. Supplemental EISs are…

Continue Reading The Empire Strikes Back: Reaction To UH Lawprof’s Study Of Success Rates In Hawaii Supreme Court Cases

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, in a unanimous panel opinion authored by Judge Foley, held that a “zoning verification” by the Director of the City and County’s Department of Planning and Permitting is not a “decision of the Director” which a property owner must administratively appeal to the Honolulu Zoning Board of Appeals. Hoku Lele, LLC v. City and County of Honolulu, No. CAAP-11-0001064 (Jan. 25, 2013). The circuit court had dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction because the property owner did not seek administrative review.

We represent the property owner/plaintiff/appellant in the case, so we’re not going to analyze the issue in detail, and leave it up to you to read the opinion. Needless to say, we think it is a correct and well-reasoned decision.

Hoku Lele, LLC v. City and County of Honolulu, No. CAAP-11-0001064 (Jan. 25, 2013)


Continue Reading HAWICA Clarifies What Actions By Planning Dept Trigger Administrative Zoning Appeals

Didn’t the California Supreme Court already deal the final blow to California’s redevelopment agencies when it held that the state legislature could eliminate redevelopment agencies without violating the California Constitution because what the lege giveth, the lege may taketh away? In California Redevelopment Association v. Matosantos, No. S194861 (Dec. 29, 2011) the court upheld the statute dissolving redevelopment agencies.

Apparently, however, there are residual issues. In 2009, “the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill No. 26, requiring redevelopment agencies throughout the state to contribute portions of their property tax increment funding for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 fiscal years into supplemental educational revenue augmentation funds (SERAF‘s) to be used for financing K-12 education in redevelopment areas.” As a result, redevelopment agencies were forced to transfer funds to the state general fund to offset other state-funded local programs.

In the latest case, California Redevelopment Ass’n v. Matosantos, No. C064907 (Cal. App. Jan…

Continue Reading Cal App: If Lege Can Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies, It Can Grab Redevelopment Money Too

This morning at the ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Conference, we made a presentation (along with Cornell lawprof Robert Hockett and moderator Jim Burling) on the issue of the use of eminent domain to seize “underwater” mortgages.

Late breaking: it must have been something we said – the Joint Powers Authority (the agency formed by San Bernardino County and two county municipalities to study the issue) today announced it would not use eminent domain to take underwater mortgages, noting that “the group decided to give up on the idea due to a lack of public support. ‘We are taking that off the table,’ [the chief executive and chairman of the JPA] said Thursday.”

Here’s the video we mentioned, an interview with the chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners for the views from the outfit that stands to benefit from the use of using eminent domain to take underwater mortgages.

Continue Reading Materials And Links From Today’s ALI-CLE Presentation On Condemnation Of Underwater Mortgages