Real Estate & Property Law

Land Use Round-Up

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

Some interesting reports filtering across my screen today:

• Thanks to Charley Foster for sending notice about a post at Volokh Conspiracy about whether the Takings Clause was incorporated against the states by the Due Process Clause, "Regulatory Takings and the Fourteenth Amendment."  On that subject, check out "No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights" by Michael Kent Curtis (available on Amazon here), which makes a good case that the Reconstruction Congress meant for the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to incorporate all of the provisions of the Bill of Rights against the states as attributes of national citizenship.

• The New York Post -- with its own inimitable headline -- has published an op-ed about the eminent domain controversy in NYC's Manhattanville neighborhood: "College Cheats - Columbia Blighted Own Hood." More on the issue here.

• Reasononline posts "Not One More Acre!" about the opposition by Colorado ranchers, environmentalists, and scientists to the U.S. Army's proposed expansion of a training area.  

• The Maui News reports "Council reviews housing statute" (actually, it's an ordinance, but close enough) about possible amendment to Maui County's 40-50% "workforce" housing (aka affordable housing) ordinance. That ordinance is also being challenged in federal court, and the latest decision in the lawsuit is posted and analyzed here.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on February 17, 2009 (boomark / email).