Land Use Prof Blog

April 21-22 - Zoom in to Idaho Law Review symposium on growth and development in the American West

Joins us for a discussion on growth and development in the American West!  Congratulations to Idaho Law Review symposium editors Charlotte Cunnington, Natalie Lussier, and Victoria Wright for putting together a great mix of local and national leaders.  The panels are all online, and I will be moderating the two panels on Thursday.  (And if you are an Idaho attorney, get 5.5 CLE in the process...)

Schedule and link below.

 

The Idaho Law Review presents . . .

Boomtown! Growth & A Clash of Identity in the American West

All panels will be hosted via zoom at: https://uidaho.zoom.us/s/81635495822

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Financing Growth

Time: 9:30 - 11:00 AM MT

Introductory remarks by Dean Kalb & Professor Stephen Miller

Panelists: Robert McQuade; Justin Ruen; Seth Grigg; Nicholas Warden; William Doyle

 

Growth in Other Cities & Lessons Learned

Time: 12:00 – 1:30 PM MT

Panelists: Brian Connolly; Edward Sullivan; Daniel Dansie; Thomas Dansie; Robert Liberty

Friday, April 22, 2022

Homelessness & Issues with Affordable Housing

Time: 9:30 – 11:00 AM MT

Panelists: Jodi Peterson-Stigers; Howard Belodoff; Susan Bennett

 

Eviction Moratorium: Landlord/Tenant Law & COVID

Time: 12:00 – 1:30 PM MT

Panelists: Jim Cook; Zoe Anne Olsen; Evan Stewart; Morgan DeCarl

 

Land Use Issues in Idaho

Time: 2:00 – 3:30 PM MT

Panelists: Jaap Vos; Elizabeth Koeckeritz; Meghan Sullivan Conrad

Panelist Biographies

 

FINANCING GROWTH 

Robert McQuade 

Rob McQuade serves as the General Counsel to the Association of Idaho Cities (AIC) where he provides education, training, and advocacy services to Idaho’s 199 cities. Rob has the unique perspective of practicing law at the federal, state, and local level and uses that experience to problem solve on behalf of his client.  Prior to joining AIC, he worked for the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses where he practiced administrative law and oversaw the implementation of the Red Tape Reduction Act for 29 regulatory bodies, helping to achieve a historic reduction in Idaho’s Administrative Code.  Rob’s first exposure to municipal law was at the City of Boise, where he spent five years advising the City on a variety of matters, including land use and procurement.  After graduating from the University of Idaho, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Larry Craig and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  

Rob attended the George Mason University School of Law and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he received his juris doctorate.  

Justin Ruen 

Justin Ruen has served as a Policy Analyst for the Association of Idaho Cities for 21 years.  He is responsible for monitoring the state policy process, reviewing bills that affect city governments, and providing resources and technical assistance to help city officials to govern and serve their communities more effectively.  

Mr. Ruen is a graduate of the University of Idaho, B.A. in Political Science, where he taught Political Science 101 while in graduate school.  

Seth Grigg 

Seth Grigg is the Executive Director for the Idaho Association of Counties, where he carries out the objectives as set by the IAC Board of Directors by providing overall strategic and operational oversight of IAC’s staff, member service programs, financial operations, and legislative advocacy. Prior to this position with the IAC, Mr. Grigg was the Executive Director for the Association of Idaho Cities and a Policy Analyst for the Idaho Association of Counties.  

Mr. Grigg holds an MPA from Boise State University. 

Nicholas Warden  

Nick Warden is an attorney at Bailey Glasser, where he predominantly practices commercial litigation, including employment litigation and complex business litigation. Prior to this position with Bailey Glasser, Mr. Warden spent three years with the Civil Litigation Division of the Idaho Office of Attorney General representing employers in cases involving claims of civil rights violations, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower claims, and wrongful discharge.

Mr. Warden received his J.D. from the University of California, Davis School of Law and B.A., Master of Science from the University of Oxford, and B.A. from the University of Southern California.  

William Doyle –   forthcoming

GROWTH IN OTHER CITIES & LESSONS LEARNED  

Brian Connolly 

Brian Connolly is an attorney at Otten, Johnson, Robinson, Neff & Ragonetti, P.C., where he practices a broad range of land use matters, including zoning compliance, rezonings and other regulatory amendments, planned unit developments, development agreements, private covenants and restrictions, land use and zoning litigation, initiatives and referenda associated with land use approvals, and real estate transactions. Mr. Connolly serves as an adjunct professor of law at both the University of Colorado School of Law and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where he teaches land use planning.

Mr. Connolly holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and a B.S. in urban and regional studies and Master of Regional Planning degrees from Cornell University. 

Edward Sullivan 

Ed Sullivan specialized in land use law for over 45 years and is now retired from practice. Before going into private practice, he served as Assistant County Counsel and County Counsel for Washington County, Oregon, and as Legal Counsel to the Governor of Oregon. Over the course of Mr. Sullivan’s career, he has taught and mentored countless law and land use planning students, as well as published a body of work that aims to explain land use law in Oregon and beyond.

Mr. Sullivan holds an L.L.M. from University College in London, a J.D. from Willamette University College of Law, a Diploma in Law from University College in Oxford, an M.A. from Portland State University and the University of Durham, and a B.A. from John’s University. 

Daniel Dansie 

Daniel Dansie is an attorney at Kirton McConkie in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is licensed to practice in Utah and Idaho and focuses his practice on real estate. For three years he practiced at Holden, Kidwell, Hahn & Crapo in Idaho Falls. He received a J.D. from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and a B.A. from Brigham Young University. 

Thomas Dansie 

Thomas Dansie is the Director of Community Development for Springdale, Utah. Prior to this position, Mr. Dansie was a Planning Consultant for Leeds, Utah. His expertise includes land use policy analysis, ordinance development, design and development review, and public outreach. He received an M.S. from the University of Arizona and a B.S. from Brigham Young University. 

Robert Liberty 

Robert has almost forty years of experience with the design, implementation, evaluation and politics of land use and transportation plans at the local, regional, and state levels. His advice has been sought from places as different as Bozeman, Montana, and Beijing, China. Robert has a JD from Harvard Law School, an MA from Oxford University, a BA from the University of Oregon Honors College, and was a Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. 

HOMELESSNESS & ISSUES WITH AFFORDABLE HOUSING 

Jodi Peterson-Stigers 

Jodi Peterson-Stigers is the co-director of Interfaith Sanctuary, an overnight shelter that serves 164 men, women and families with children each night in Boise. Ms. Peterson graduated from Boston University with a degree in communications and sociology and for many years worked in marketing, communications, and public relations. 

Howard Belodoff 

Howard Belodoff is the Associate Director for Idaho Legal Aid Services where he provides free civil legal representation to low-income Idahoans. Mr. Belodoff began working at Idaho Legal Aid Services after graduating law school. His cases primarily concern the civil rights of low-income persons, prison and jail inmates, adults and children who suffer from mental illness, persons who are homeless, disabled and people with HIV/AIDS, Native Americans, and farm workers. 

Mr. Belodoff has practiced advocacy work at ILAS for his entire career. He received his JD from the University of Idaho College of Law. 

Susan Bennett 

Susan Bennett is a Professor of Law Emerita at American University Washington College of Law, where she founded and directed the Community and Economic Development Law Clinic, through which students provide transactional representation to non-profit organizations, small businesses, and affordable housing cooperatives in under-served neighborhoods in D.C. and the metro area.  

She held the position of Director of Clinical Programs for the Washington College of Law from 2003 to 2006. In addition to her clinical teaching, she taught first year Property, Law and Poverty, and seminars on community development, and law and homelessness. Before coming to WCL, she specialized in housing and consumer litigation at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. 

Ms. Bennett holds a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, as well as an M.A. and A.B. from Yale University. 

EVICTION MORATORIUM: LANDLORD/TENANT LAW AND COVID 

Jim Cook 

Jim Cook is the Executive Director for Idaho Legal Aid Services where he provides free civil legal representation to low-income Idahoans. Prior to his time at ILAS, he was an Associate Attorney at Thompson, Ashcraft and Burnham, where he practiced in state and federal litigation with an environmental law emphasis.  

Mr. Cook received his J.D. from the University of Idaho College of Law, where he spent his third year participating in a law school clinic project with Idaho Legal Aid Services to provide free legal representation to low-income Native Americans on the Nez Perce Reservation. Mr. Cook also has his B.S. from the University of Idaho. 

Zoe Anne Olsen 

Zoe Anne Olsen is the Executive Director for Intermountain Fair Housing Council. Prior to this position, Ms. Olsen was an attorney for Idaho Legal Aid Services. She has extensive housing law experience, including the Fair Housing Act (FHA), Idaho State housing law, reasonable accommodations and modifications, public housing cases, wrongful evictions, repairs, security deposits, mobile home park cases, foreclosures, and predatory lending.  

Ms. Olsen received a J.D. and M.P.A. from Seattle University and a B.A. from the University of Washington. 

Evan Stewart  

Evan Stewart is a Program Manager for Jesse Tree, an organization that provides financial assistance and case management to households at risk of eviction and homelessness who are unable to pay rent. 

Mr. Stewart is from Missoula, Montana where he earned a doctorate degree in Applied Anthropology at the University of Montana. During his time at the University of Montana, he conducted his dissertation project in the high Himalayas of Nepal working with local communities and addressing water, sanitation, and hygiene needs in the region. Mr. Stewart also worked as an anthropology instructor for the university.  

After graduating in May 2019, Mr. Stewart remained in Missoula working as a social worker at a child abuse prevention agency where he provided direct services, taught the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACEs), family education classes, and resilience-building to members of the community. 

Morgan DeCarl 

Morgan DeCarl is an Eviction Court Program Manager. Before coming to work for Jesse Tree she worked as a case manager for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and fell in love with social work and the impact it has on the quality of life of others as well as their communities. Ms. DeCarl became a Professional Mediator in 2019 upon moving to Idaho and has experience providing mediation services in Ada County eviction court. 

Ms. DeCarl has a Bachelor of Science in Human Development from Purdue Global, and is starting her Masters in Social Work this year. 

LAND USE ISSUES IN IDAHO (AOI) 

Jaap Vos 

Jaap Vos is a professor of Planning and Natural Resources at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources. At the University of Idaho, he teaches courses about community planning, sustainable communities, and rural planning issues. He also teaches a community assessment course and the advanced class of the Northwest Community Development Institute. He is the founding co-chair of APA Idaho’s Ag Chat, a group of planners and other stakeholders from throughout Idaho that meet monthly to discuss emerging planning issues in rural communities. 

His research is focused on planning for rural places. Most recently he and his students wrote an article about how traditional planning practices lead to the fragmentation of rural places. He was the lead author for the Infrastructure Section of the McClure Center for Public Policy Research’s Idaho Climate-Economy Impacts Assessment. He is currently analyzing driver’s license surrender data from ITD’s DMV from 2011-2021 to get a better understanding of population changes in different areas of Idaho. 

Mr. Vos has a Ph.D. in regional planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and an M.S. in Environmental Science from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. 

Elizabeth Koerckeritz  

Elizabeth Koerckeritz is a Partner at Givens Pursley and provides advice to developers and businesses on the acquisition, entitlement, financing, and development of both large and small scale projects. She helps clients obtain economic incentives and entitlements from all levels of the government and represents clients on judicial reviews and administrative hearings before state agencies. She also assists airports in a wide range of federal regulatory matters and the negotiation of complex airport transactions. 

Prior to joining Givens Pursley, Ms. Koerckeritz was the senior managing attorney for the Boise City attorney’s office, where she supervised all of the attorneys and staff providing advice to the municipal departments within the City. In addition to her supervisory responsibility, she served as the attorney for the Boise Airport and was the lead attorney in the City’s efforts aimed at reducing homelessness and increasing affordable housing within the City. Ms. Koerckeritz has also been a solo practitioner, was a deputy attorney general for the State of Idaho specializing in criminal appeals, and a prosecutor in Jackson, Wyoming. 

Ms. Koerckeritz received her law and MBA’s degrees from the University of Colorado – Boulder. She graduated from Colorado College with a degree in anthropology. 

Meghan Sullivan Conrad 

Meghan Sullivan Conrad’s practices at Elam & Burke and focuses on local economic development with extensive representation to urban renewal agencies throughout the state on issues including structuring of private-public partnerships, government contracts, tax increment financing, litigation, appeals and governmental relations. Ms. Conrad’s practice also includes representation of a commodity promotion and research program, consumer and commercial lenders in foreclosures and collections, and she participates in insurance defense litigation. Ms. Conrad represented issuers in connection with both tax-exempt and taxable bond transactions and has worked as special Idaho counsel on a large energy (solar) financing project. 

Ms. Conrad has had the opportunity to speak at numerous conferences on the topic of urban renewal.  In 2014, Ms. Conrad was recognized by the Idaho Business Review as a Leader in Law, Firm Associated: Associate.  She is currently the Vice-Chair of the University of Idaho College of Law Advisory Council and is a member of State Law Resources, Inc., Idaho Women Lawyers and the Idaho Association of Defense Counsel.  

Ms. Conrad received her J.D. at the University of Idaho and graduated from Colgate University with a B.A. in International Relations and French. 

Student Note on housing appeals

Dan Mandelker forwarded a note by one of his students that might interest readers.  The note is by Bob Neel and entitled, "Combating Exclusion & Achieving Affordable Housing:  The Case for Broad Adoption of Housing Appeals Statutes."  The note was published in Washington University's law review.  You can download the note below.

Download Housing Appeals Boards Note

100th anniversary of the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SZEA)

For those with an eye towards history, we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act (SZEA).  Whether this is the appropriate year for celebrating (or shaking fists at) the SZEA depends on how you count it.

On September 15, 1922, the first version of the SZEA was released by the U.S. Commerce Department.  Subsequent drafts were released in December, 1922.  Other slightly-edited versions were released in 1924 and 1926.  A history is here.   

For students, it would make a lovely topic for a law review symposium this year or in the next few years!