Water rights | Public trust

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The Land Use Institute, a program that for many years has been planned by co-chairs Frank Schnidman and Gideon Kanner, has found a new home with the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law as the main sponsor. It also has a new Planning co-chair, Dean Patty Salkin of Touro Law School, who has stepped in for Professor Kanner.

This program is designed for attorneys, professional planners, and government officials involved in land use planning, zoning, permitting, property development, conservation and environmental protection, and related litigation. It not only addresses and analyzes the state-of-the-art efforts by government to manage land use and development, but also presents the key issues faced by property owners and developers in obtaining necessary governmental approvals.

This year, the one-day program is being held in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago. It will be held on Thursday, July 30, 2015…

Continue Reading Land Use Institute: Planning, Regulation, Litigation, Eminent Domain, and Compensation – 31st Annual Conference, Chicago, July 30, 2015

It’s not often that we say a law review article is a “must-read.” But this one definitely is, especially for all you regulatory takings mavens: David L. Callies, Through a Glass Clearly: Predicting the Future in Land Use Takings Law, 54 Washburn L. Rev. 43 (2014). A pdf of the article is posted here. 

From the Introduction:

The subject of takings—the government taking of an interest in real property, either through eminent domain or through the exercise of the police power—has been the subject of continuous litigation for nearly a century. The past ten years have been particularly fruitful, as litigants struggle with the meaning and extent of the Fifth Amendment’s Public Use Clause and the extent to which the overzealous exercise of the police power can sufficiently deprive a landowner of rights in property so that the property has been “taken” by regulation, ever since Justice Holmes…

Continue Reading New Law Review Article Worth Reading: “Through a Glass Clearly: Predicting the Future in Land Use Takings Law”

Worth reading: “Legislative Exactions after Koontz v. St. Johns River Management District,” an article by colleagues Luke Wake and Jarod Bona, recently posted to SSRN. Here’s the abstract:

Decided in June, 2013, Koontz v. St. Johns River Management District settled a long-running debate among scholars as to whether the nexus test — first pronounced in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission — applies in review of monetary exactions. In the preceding years, the lower courts had largely resolved this question in the government’s favor — limiting Nollan to its facts, and holding the nexus test inapplicable if a challenged permit requires the applicant to pay or expend money as a condition of permit approval. Further, the trend among the lower courts held the nexus test inapplicable in review of legislatively imposed exactions, regardless of whether the contested condition requires a dedication of real property or money.

Without question…

Continue Reading New Article: “Legislative Exactions after Koontz v. St. Johns River Management District”

Here’s one with a somewhat unusual twist: the condemnee objecting to the taking by a public utility district was the state.

In Public Utility Dist. No. 1 of Okanogan Cnty. v. State of Washington, No. 88949-0 (Jan. 29, 2015), the Washington Supreme Court affirmed the power of the county utility district to take an easement over “school trust lands” for the construction of an high-voltage, high-capacity transmission line and corridor. The land was owned by the public and held in trust for schools, was “a portion of the largest publicly owned tract of shrub-steppe habitat in the Methow Valley,” and was being used for cattle grazing. The grazing leases generated $3,000 per year for the state’s public schools, and also acknowledged that the land may be subject to easements and condemnation. 

The court first concluded that an environmental organization could intervene to address the power of the utility district to take…

Continue Reading Washington: State Trust Land Can Be Condemned By County Utility

Back in February, we blogged about an opinion from the Maine Supreme Court involving littoral property (that’s beachfront property to all you non-lawyers and Navy people), in which the court concluded that those who were asserting a prescriptive easement over the plaintiffs’ beachfront property– the Town  and several neighbors — had not rebutted Maine’s presumption of permissive recreational use of open land, when they introduced evidence that people generally made recreational use of the beach in front of the plaintiffs’ properties, without showing specifically where. Which meant that the public did not have a right of access over the plaintiffs’ beachfront land. The court also held that Maine does not recognize an “easement by custom.” 

Maine apparently allows a party who is disappointed with the court’s ruling to ask for reargument. Similar rules for reconsideration also are present in other courts, but with rare exception in our experience, those…

Continue Reading Maine: On Second Thought, We Were Right When We Said That Beach Property Is Not Subject To Special Rules

Here’s the Verified Complaint in a case recently filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey:

Plaintiffs Jenkinson’s Pavilion, a corporation of the State of New Jersey and Jenkinson’s South, Inc., a corporation of the State of New Jersey, (collectively “Plaintiffs”), bring this action, inter alia, (a) for a declaration as a matter of law that the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“USACOE”) has not required, and does not require, for purposes of the “Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet Storm Damage Reduction Project,” the acquisition of perpetual rights in privateproperty for purposes of establishing recreational public beaches landward of the area already subject to public ownership and rights of public user pursuant to the New Jersey Public Trust Doctrine, and (b) enjoining the Defendants from taking actions in furtherance of the “Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet Storm Damage Reduction Project,” in advance of a determination on the relief…

Continue Reading Federal Court Challenge To NJ’s Beach Replenishment Plan

Here’s the Brief in Opposition filed by the city Kentner v. City of Sanibel, No. 14-404, the case asking the Supreme Court to review an 11th Circuit decision in which the court concluded that riparian rights, although recognized by Florida as property rights, are not “fundamental rights” protected by the Due Process Clause. The court concluded that the City’s ban on the construction of docks and piers (except, apparently, city-owned docks and piers) was not subject to due process review because the plaintiffs’ riparian rights are not fundamental rights because they are merely “state-created” rights. 

The property owners filed a cert petition, and we joined an amicus brief in support. Quite naturally, the BIO doesn’t agree with our view of the issues, and phrases the Questions Presented this way:  

(1) Whether a riparian landowner’s “qualified” right to construct a dock on adjoining state-owned submerged lands is a “fundamental&rdquo…

Continue Reading BIO In Riparian Rights Due Process Case

There’s still time to register for one or more upcoming CLE programs sponsored by the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law:

I’ll be part of the “Hot Topics in Land Use” panel, speaking about recent developments in regulatory takings. These are replays of the in-person programs we put on at the recent Spring Meeting in Asheville, NC.

Register for all three programs and receive a 20% discount. Continue Reading Upcoming CLE Trifecta: Hot Topics In Land Use Law, Heirs Property, Urban Ag (July 15, 2014)

Here’s what we’re reading today:

  • Eminent Domain, Ultra Vires, and Adverse Possession Walk Into a Bar… – from SCOV Law, a blog about the decisions of the Vermont Supreme Court: “Get ready to dust off your nineteenth-century-property-law hats, folks, cause this case is chock-full of neglected old cases about rail beds, public trails, adverse possession, eminent domain, and railroad corporations venturing outside the realm of their existential purpose.”
  • Writ to Watch: Ruggles v. Yagong – from Rebecca Copeland at Record on Appeal, about a case which the Hawaii Supreme Court recently agreed to review. The issue is whether an ordinance adopted by the voters of the County of Hawaii (the Big Island) is preempted by state law. The initiative ordinance made it the official policy of the County to make enforcement of personal use of marijuana the lowest priority for the police and prosecutors. Oh my. The trial court

…
Continue Reading Wednesday’s Reading List: Vermont Eminent Domain, The Big Island’s Weed Ordinance, And Quo Warranto

The case that seemingly wouldn’t end — Coy Koontz, Jr.’s continuation of his late father’s case against the St. Johns River Water Management District over the WMD’s demand that they “pay to play” — has ended with its eighth appellate decision (including the now-famous visit to the U.S. Supreme Court), with another win for Koontz.

In St. Johns River Water Management District v. Koontz, No. 5D06-01116 (Apr. 30, 2014), the Florida District Court of Appeals made short work of the WMD’s argument that there were some loose threads left over from the prior decisions. The opinion doesn’t say much about the substantive law, except to say “we said this all before, and we haven’t changed our minds.” 

Because our decision in Koontz IV is entirely consistent with the decision of the United States Supreme Court, we adopt and reaffirm Koontz IV in its entirety and affirm the judgment below. We…

Continue Reading Fla App In Koontz VIII: We Were Right Before, Koontz Wins Again