Land Use Prof Blog

Real Estate Review is seeking articles for its Summer, 2019 edition

Real Estate Review is a quarterly Thomson Reuters publication aimed at legal professionals and the real estate industry more generally.  As editor-in-chief, I am seeking several additional 2,000 - 5,000 word articles for our upcoming edition.  I would need the submissions by late August.  The articles do not need to be copiously footnoted.  Excerpts of larger articles--where permitted by previous publisher--are also welcome.  While articles tend to focus on legal issues, the broader areas of real estate practice are also encouraged!  Case studies are also welcome.

E-mail me if you have interest at [email protected].

Famed NYC bookstore "The Strand" is landmarked, and the owner is "pissed" about "needless red tape"

Full story, with big emotions (and expletives), over at Publisher's Weekly and Curbed.

 

 

Can you identify cities solely by their densities? Take the quiz!

Test your knowledge of the density of world cities at this Guardian quiz...

New FEMA podcast on building fire-adapted communities

Yeah, that's right, FEMA has a podcast.  And it's pretty good.  The recent edition focuses on building fire-adapted communities.  Worth checking out...

From the FEMA press release:

Today, FEMA released the podcast “Advancing Wildfire Resilience through the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network.” Since 2013, the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (FAC Net) has connected and supported people and communities who are striving to live more safely with wildfire. FAC Net serves as a catalyst for spreading best practices and innovations in fire adaptation concepts nationwide.

FEMA Region 10 visited Ashland, Oregon, in April, interviewing members of FAC Net during its annual workshop. Michelle Medley-Daniel with the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, Allie Lerch and Chris Chambers with Ashland Fire & Rescue, and Hilary Lundgren with the Washington Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network shared perspectives and experiences on successes, tools and growth of the network from eight to 24 communities.

Download this episode of the FEMA podcast at www.fema.gov/podcast. The FEMA podcast is available on Apple iTunes and Google Play to stream or download.

About the FEMA Podcast

The FEMA podcast is an audio program series available to anyone interested in learning more about the Agency, hearing about innovation in the field of emergency management, and listening to stories about communities and individuals recovering after disasters.

Approximately 20 to 30 minutes in length, new podcast episodes are updated weekly and each episode includes a link to its transcript.

Pace seeks Executive Director of Energy and Climate Center

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University is seeking an experienced energy innovator to become Executive Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center.  

The Pace Energy and Climate Center is a unique energy teaching and policy program.  The Executive Director will lead the Center’s experienced and multi-disciplinary team and its students in energy proceedings in New York and throughout the Northeast and in regional efforts to promote energy efficiency and clean energy use.​

Please circulate the position description that follows to contacts in the energy space: https://careers.pace.edu/postings/11480 

Oregon legislature considers single-parcel exemptions from state land use regs

Interesting op-ed about a couple of pieces of state legislation in Oregon targeted at providing single-parcel exemptions from statewide zoning regs.  Query:  how is this not spot zoning?  If it's state legislation, does that mean the spot zoning analysis doesn't apply?  (I have not looked at the underlying regs, which may be more generalized than described in this op-ed...)

 

HB 3384 seeks the expansion of a non-conforming use — Oak Hill School near Lane Community College — on land zoned exclusive farm use (EFU). This school, on property once owned by Ed King of King Estate and attended by his children, was approved in the EFU zone in 1994 as a conversion of a single-family dwelling. Then it was fast-tracked by staff to help the school obtain a building permit before the adoption of a rule that may have inhibited its conversion.

The school has been allowed to continue as a non-conforming use — a use not normally allowed in the zone — since 2009, and the property and development, together assessed at close to $4.5 million, are paying no taxes. In exchange for these generous concessions came a certain responsibility: The school could not become more non-conforming by expanding uses and activities inappropriate in the farm zone and could not cross the divide between urban and rural.

Notwithstanding, Oak Hill expanded in 2012. Now it wants to expand again and is asking the Legislature to nullify two court decisions that the proposed expansion violates state law, first by the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) and then by the state Court of Appeals, agreeing with LandWatch Lane County, a nonprofit dedicated to the protection of Lane County’s rural lands.

Passing HB 3384 will not only promote a special interest that has lost twice in the court system, it will also corrupt the intent of the non-conforming use provision to protect our resource land and set a precedent by erasing the jurisdictional line that separates the powers of state government. That’s a long way down a slippery slope from the original promise of Oregon’s land use program.

In 2016 Kay King, member of a wealthy logging family, applied for a permit to replace three dwellings that had been demolished by the applicant 22 years ago on one tax lot zoned exclusive farm use (EFU). A statute enacted in 2013 reasonably allows farmers to replace dilapidated farm dwellings on which they’ve been paying taxes for the last five years. No taxes, however, had been paid on the King dwellings since they were demolished, and there was no indication that the new ones would be associated with farm operations. In a recent decision the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed LandWatch Lane County’s appeal to retain the existing regulation.

While that decision was pending, King found a freshman state representative from Redmond, heavily supported by timber and other extractive industries, to sponsor HB 3024 that would overturn the Supreme Court decision. If successful, this would give King what she wants and establish legislation that would allow more houses on farmland regardless of when they may have been removed in the past, whether taxes have been paid and whether they are associated with farm practices.

Is zoning a matter of fact or law?

According to an Illinois appellate case that came out this week, zoning can be a matter of fact, not just law, where a real estate broker mis-represented zoning that could not be verified by the buyer.  Fun case worth a read.  As the court notes:

Because Horwich misrepresented to Edson that the space was suitable for a grocer and Edson could not, through ordinary prudence, have discovered that the space was not zoned for commercial use, Horwich's misrepresentations were statements of fact. 

Westlaw cite:  Edson v. Fogarty, 2019 IL App (1st) 181135, ¶ 39,