Real Estate & Property Law

Settling Land Use Litigation: Private Agreements and Public Process

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

A worthwhile article in the latest edition of The Urban Lawyer about settling land use disputes with processes that may not adhere strictly to the usual permit consideration procedures.  Here's the summary from the ABA's site:

Paul D. Wilson, Of Synagogues and Nude Juice Bars: Can a Municipality Settle Land Use Litigation Without a Permitting Process?, 40 Urb. Law. 535 (Summer 2008). This article examines conditional use permits and the appropriateness of settlement agreements between municipalities and controversial zoning permit applicants. The author examines a recent ninth court decision, League of Residential Neighborhood Advocates v. City of Los Angeles, in which the court struck down a settlement agreement between a city and an Orthodox Jewish synagogue wishing to locate in a residential zone, finding that the settlement was not a substitute for a conditional use-permit. The author then examines several analogous cases which present variations of the issue and possible solutions for municipalities.

The Urban Lawyer is the law review published by the ABA's Section on State and Local Government Law, and this article is well worth reading.

We have followed this issue for many years, and have posted a summary of the League of Residential Advocates case here.  This post contains summaries of, and links to, several recent cases on the issue of whether a municipal government may by agreement avoid the usual public processes in rezoning, eminent domain, or the consideration of land use permits.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).