Land Use Prof Blog

Online Professional Development Course in Adaptive Planning & Resilience

Land Use Prof colleagues -- please share the following information about an online self-paced course in adaptive planning and resilience as broadly as possible.  It's especially relevant for professionals who are engaged in planning and would benefit from skills to make their planning processes more adaptive and resilience-oriented.  Students, professors, and other professionals are welcome too.  Thanks for your interest and help!  All best wishes, Tony Arnold

I’m writing to let you know about an online self-paced professional development course in adaptive planning and resilience.  This course is aimed at any professional who engages in planning under conditions of uncertainty, complexity, or unstable conditions, whether in the public sector, private sector, local community, or multi-stakeholder partnerships. 

The course is ideal for professionals in sectors such as urban planning, community development water supply, water quality, disasters/hazards, environmental protection, land management, forestry, natural resources management, ecosystem restoration, climate change, public infrastructure, housing, sustainability, community resilience, energy, and many others.  I hope that you and the employees and/or members of your organization will consider enrolling in this course.

 The 12-hour course is offered by the University of Louisville for a cost of $150 and is taught by Professor Tony Arnold, a national expert in adaptive planning and resilience, and a team of professionals engaged in various aspects of adaptive planning.  The online lectures are asynchronous, and the course is self-paced; this offering will last until November 22.

 More information is provided below and at the registration web page: http://louisville.edu/law/flex-courses/adaptive-planning.  This offering of the course begins October 12 but registration will be accepted through November 15 due to the self-pacing of the course.  We are seeking AICP CM credits for the course in partnership with the Kentucky Chapter of the American Planning Association, but cannot make any representations or promises until our application is reviewed. 

Please share this blog post or information with anyone who might be interested.  Please contact me at [email protected], if you have any questions. 

Adaptive Planning and Resilience

Online and self-paced

Oct. 12 – Nov. 22, 2015

Adaptive Planning and Resilience is a professional development course in which professionals will develop the knowledge and skills to design and implement planning processes that will enable their governance systems, organizations, and/or communities to adapt to changing conditions and sudden shocks or disturbances.

Adaptive planning is more flexible and continuous than conventional planning processes, yet involves a greater amount of goal and strategy development than adaptive management methods. It helps communities, organizations, and governance systems to develop resilience and adaptive capacity: the capacity to resist disturbances, bounce back from disasters, and transform themselves under changing and uncertain conditions. Adaptive planning is needed most when systems or communities are vulnerable to surprise catastrophes, unprecedented conditions, or complex and difficult-to-resolve policy choices.

The course will cover the elements of adaptive planning and resilient systems, the legal issues in adaptive planning, how to design and implement adaptive planning processes, and case studies (including guest speakers) from various communities and organizations that are employing adaptive planning methods.  Enrollees will have the opportunity to design or redesign an adaptive planning process for their own professional situation and get feedback from course instructors.

The six-week course totals about 12 hours broken into 30-minute segments. It is conducted online and is asynchronous. Cost is $150.

 About Professor Tony Arnold

Professor Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold is the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use at the University of Louisville, where he teaches in both the Brandeis School of Law and the Department of Urban and Public Affairs and directs the interdisciplinary Center for Land Use and Environmental Responsibility. Professor Arnold is an internationally renowned and highly-cited scholar who studies how governance systems and institutions – including planning, law, policy, and resource management – can adapt to changing conditions and disturbances in order to improve social-ecological resilience. He has won numerous teaching awards, including the 2013 Trustee’s Award, the highest award for a faculty member at the University of Louisville.

Professor Arnold has clerked for a federal appellate judge on the 10th Circuit and practiced law in Texas, including serving as a city attorney and representing water districts. He served as Chairman of the Planning Commission of Anaheim, California, and on numerous government task forces and nonprofit boards. He had a land use planning internship with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, did rural poverty work in Kansas, and worked for two members of Congress. Professor Arnold received his Bachelor of Arts, with Highest Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1987 from the University of Kansas. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence, with Distinction, in 1990 from Stanford University, where he co-founded the Stanford Law & Policy Review and was a Graduate Student Fellow in the Stanford Center for Conflict and Negotiation. He has affiliations with interdisciplinary research centers at six major universities nationwide and is a part of an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars studying adaptive governance and resilience.

 Professor Arnold will be joined in co-teaching the course by a team of his former students who are

professionals knowledgeable in adaptive planning. They include:

• Brian      O’Neill, an aquatic ecologist and environmental planner in Chicago
• Heather      Kenny, a local-government and land-use lawyer in California and adjunct      professor at Lincoln Law School of Sacramento
• Sherry      Fuller, a business manager at the Irvine Ranch Conservancy in Orange      County, California, and former community redevelopment project manager
• Andrew      Black, who is Associate Dean of Career Planning and Applied Learning at      Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a former field      representative for two U.S. Senators in New Mexico
• Andrea      Pompei Lacy, AICP, who directs the Center for Hazards Research and Policy      Development at the University of Louisville
• Jennifer-Grace      Ewa, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Inequality and the Provision of Open Space      at the University of Denver
• Alexandra      Chase, a recent graduate of the Brandeis School of Law who has worked on      watershed and urban resilience issues with the Center for Land Use and      Environmental Responsibility and now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Dates

October 12 – November 22, 2015,

Online, asynchronous, and self-paced

Cost

$150

For more information

Visit louisville.edu/law/flex-courses.

 

What if They Don't Build It and/or No One Comes?: Combating Zombie Subdivisions

Jim Holway (Sonoran Institute), along with Don Elliot and Anna Trentadue, has written Combating Zombie Subdivisions: How Three Communities Redressed Excess Development Entitlements, Land Lines Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 4-13.  Not only is the article available through the Land Lines website, but so is the larger report on which it is based.   That is called Arrested Developments:  Combating Zombie Subdivisions and Other Excess Entitlements.  Here's a summary of the magazine piece:

The Teton County Valley Advocates for Responsible Development (VARD) stepped in and petitioned the county to create a process to encourage the redesign of distressed subdivisions and facilitate replatting. VARD realized that a plat redesign could reduce intrusion into sensitive natural areas of the county, reduce governmental costs associated with scattered development, and potentially reduce the number of vacant lots by working with landowners and developers to expedite changes to recorded plats.

On November 22, 2010, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously adopted a replatting ordinance that would allow the inexpensive and quick replatting of subdivisions, PUDs, and recorded development agreements. The ordinance created a solution-oriented process that allows Teton County to work with developers, landowners, lenders, and other stakeholders to untangle complicated projects with multiple ownership interests and oftentimes millions of dollars in infrastructure.

The ordinance first classifies the extent of any changes proposed by a replat into four categories: 1) major increase in scale and impact, 2) minor increase in scale and impact, 3) major decrease in scale and impact, 4) minor decrease in scale and impact. Any increases in impact may require additional public hearings and studies, whereas these requirements and agency review are waived (where possible) for decreases in impact. In addition, the ordinance waives the unnecessary duplication of studies and analyses that may have been required as part of the initial plat application and approval. Teton County also waived its fees for processing replat applications.

The first success story was the replatting of Canyon Creek Ranch Planned Unit Development, finalized in June 2013. More than 23 miles from city services, Canyon Creek Ranch was originally approved in 2009 as a 350-lot ranch-style resort on roughly 2,700 acres including approximately 25 commercial lots, a horse arena, and a lodge. After extensive negotiations between the Canyon Creek development team and the Teton County Planning Commission staff, the developer proposed a replat that dramatically scaled back the footprint and impact of this project to include only 21 lots over the 2,700 acre property. For the developer, this new design reduces the price tag for infrastructure by 97 percent, from $24 million to roughly $800,000, enabling the property to remain in the conservation reserve program and creating a source of revenue on it while reducing the property tax liability. The reduced scale and impact of this new design will help preserve this critical habitat and maintain the rural landscape, which is a public benefit to the general community.

Conclusion

While recovery from the most recent boom and bust cycle is nearly complete in some areas of the country, other communities will be impacted by vacant lots and distressed subdivisions well into the future. Future real estate booms will also inevitably result in new busts, and vulnerable communities can build a solid foundation of policies, laws, and programs now to minimize new problems stemming from the excess entitlement of land. Communities and others involved in real estate development would be well-served by ensuring they have mechanisms in place to adapt and adjust to evolving market conditions. For jurisdictions already struggling with distressed subdivisions, a willingness to reconsider past approvals and projects and to acknowledge problems is an essential ingredient to success. Communities that are able to serve as effective facilitators as well as regulators, as demonstrated in the case studies presented here, will be best prepared to prevent and then respond and treat distressed subdivisions and any problems that may arise from excess development entitlements.

Jim K.

 

Bipartisan Policy Center Housing Commission Report

I am just finished streaming the press conference for the release of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Housing Commision Report.  Led by its Co-Chairs, Sens. George Mitchell, Mel Martinez and Kit Bond, as well as former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, the Commission is offering a far-reaching set of recommendations regarding the housing finance system, public subsidy for affordable housing development and preservation (particularly in rural areas) and promotion of housing counseling as a vital resource.  Even if the Executive Summary is too long for you, I would encourage you to check out a two-page article available on Politico authored by the four co-chairs.   

Jim K.

Ghent on the Historical Origins of America's Mortgage Laws

Andra C. Ghent (Arizona State--Finance) has posted The Historical Origins of America's Mortgage Laws.  This paper would be a really good resource for students, teachers, or practitioners who are interested in a concise but explanatory introduction to the development of state mortgage laws, including mortgage theory, foreclosure, and other important topics.  The paper is a report for the Research Institute for Housing America.  The abstract:

This paper examines the different legal frameworks for mortgage markets in different states, focusing on how and when they came into existence, including the British influence on laws in some of the older states, with a particular emphasis on foreclosures, including judicial vs. non-judicial regimes, redemption rights and deficiency judgments. The paper concludes that mortgage laws in America are a patchwork driven by path dependence, rather than a coordinated effort or a reaction to some economic event or condition.

Matt Festa

ABA Professor's Corner on Eminent Domain for Mortgage Modifications

This month's installment of the ABA Section on Real Property's "Professor's Corner"--a free monthly teleconference featuring scholars' takes on important new property cases and issues--will feature a really hot topic, the proposal for municipal governments to take property by eminent domain to combat the mortgage/foreclosure crisis.  The info, via David Reiss (who also recently posted a related public comment):

 FREE Professors’ Corner teleconference, sponsored by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section and its Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group.

The program is Wednesday, October 10, at 12:30 pm EDT; 11:30 am CDT; 10:30 am MDT; 9:30 am PDT.

Call-in number: 866-646-6488
Participant Passcode: 5577419753

This month’s topic is Can/Should Municipalities Use Eminent Domain to Take Mortgages to Facilitate Mortgage Modifications? This conference call will be moderated by Professor James Geoffrey Durham, University of Dayton School of Law. Professor Steven J. Eagle, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading scholars on eminent domain and regulatory takings. Professor Eagle will discuss whether it is possible for local governments to use eminent domain to acquire notes secured by mortgages in order to resell them to a private party which will then modify them, both under the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and also under state constitution taking clauses as they have been limited by amendments and statutes seeking to define what is a public use. Professor Robert C. Hockett, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, is the scholar who in June proposed that municipalities could use eminent domain to acquire mortgages, in order to facilitate mortgage modifications to benefit underwater homeowners, in his article: It Takes a Village: Municipal Condemnation Proceedings and Public/Private Partnerships for Mortgage Loan Modification, Value Preservation, and Local Economic Recovery (download paper). Professor Hockett will discuss his proposal, which has received widespread attention. Professor Dale A. Whitman, James E. Campbell Missouri Endowed Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Missouri, Columbia, School of Law, is one of the premier experts on American property law and one of the nation’s foremost mortgage law scholars. Professor Whitman will discuss the impact that implementation of Professor Hockett’s proposal might have on the mortgage markets.

Check out the free telecast on this very interesting and current issue.

Matt Festa

Reiss on the Use of Eminent Domain to Restructure Mortgages

David J. Reiss (Brooklyn) has posted Comment on the Use of Eminent Domain to Restructure Performing Loans, which was submitted to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (No. 2012–N–11) (2012).  The abstract:

There has been a lot of fear-mongering by financial industry trade groups over the widespread use of eminent domain to restructure residential mortgages. While there may be legitimate business reasons to oppose its use, its inconsistency with Takings jurisprudence should not be one of them. To date, the federal government’s responses to the current crisis in the housing markets have been at cross purposes, half-hearted and self-defeating. So it is not surprising that local governments are attempting to fashion solutions to the problem with the tools at their disposal. Courts should, and likely will, give these democratically-implemented and constitutionally-sound solutions a wide berth as the ship of state tries to right itself after being swamped by a tidal wave of mortgage defaults.

A concise and thoughtful public comment on what is emerging as a hot, hot issue.

Matt Festa

Levitin & Wachter ask Why Housing?

Adam J. Levitin (Georgetown Law) and Susan Wachter (Penn--Wharton--Real Estate) have posted Why Housing?, Housing Policy Debate, vol. 23 (2012).  The abstract:

Asset bubbles come and go. Only the housing bubble, however, brought the economy to its knees. Why? What makes housing uniquely a cause of macroeconomic risk?

This Article examines the workings of the housing market as well as theories and empirical evidence about the housing bubble. It explains why housing is a particular source of macroeconomic risk and how changes in the housing finance channel were the critical element in the formation of the bubble.

Interesting stuff.  A lot has been written about the mortgage/financial crisis, but this is a good point in time for looking back with a more long-term perspective. 

Matt Festa

Stein on China's Housing Market: Heading Toward a US-Style Crash?

Gregory M. Stein (Tennessee), who has written a bunch on real estate and land use in contemporary China, has posted Is China's Housing Market Heading Toward a US-Style Crash?, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2011 .  The abstract:

This article aims to determine whether China is heading toward a U.S.-style market crash in its housing market. Rather than attempting to maintain any suspense, I will disclose here that my conclusion is, “Who knows?” China and the United States have dramatically different histories, cultures, governments, economies, and legal systems. Anyone who claims to have a definitive answer to this question is overly confident.

My more modest goals in this article are to examine the available evidence and see which way it seems to point. The article begins by listing and describing several different ways in which the American housing market failed. It then evaluates the consequences of these failures for the U.S. housing market. Next, the article demonstrates some of the key respects in which the Chinese market differs from the market in the United States. This central portion of the article emphasizes just how difficult it is to make predictions about what might happen in one nation’s housing market based on the experiences of another nation that differs in so many significant ways. Finally, the article provides a description of some of the worrisome similarities between the Chinese and American housing markets. To the extent the previous analysis may have comforted the reader into believing that the Chinese market is unlikely to experience a downturn anytime soon, this last discussion will create some apprehension by highlighting some of the ways in which China might, in fact, be heading down the same path as the United States.

Matt Festa

Can Eminent Domain Solve the Mortgage Crisis?

There has been some discussion over the past couple of months over an innovative proposal to have governments use the eminent domain power to take ownership of underwater mortgages, to decrease the risk of default and then refinance the obligations, all to promote the common good.  Here are some links to give you a sense of the major points of this debate.

The launch of this idea comes from a proposal by Law Professor Robert C. Hockett (Cornell) in his piece It Takes a Village: Municipal Condemnation Proceedings and Public/Private Partnerships for Mortgage Loan Modification, Value Preservation, and Local Economic Recovery.  The abstract:

Respected real estate analysts now forecast that the U.S. is poised to experience a renewed round of home mortgage foreclosures over the coming 6 years. Up to 11 million underwater mortgages will be affected. Neither our families, our neighborhoods, nor our state and national economies can bear a resumption of crisis on this order of magnitude.

I argue that ongoing and self-worsening slump in the primary and secondary mortgage markets is rooted in a host of recursive collective action challenges structurally akin to those that brought on the real estate bubble and bust themselves. Collective action problems of this sort require duly authorized collective agents for their solution. At present, the optimally situated such agents for purposes of mortgage market clearing are municipal governments exercising their traditional eminent domain authority.

I sketch a plan pursuant to which municipalities, in partnership with investors, can condemn underwater mortgage notes, pay mortgagees fair market value for the same, and systematically write down principal. Because in so doing they will be doing what parties themselves would do voluntarily were they not challenged by structural impediments to collective action, municipalities acting on this plan will be rendering all better off. They will also be leading the urgently necessary project of eliminating debt overhang nationwide and thereby at last ending our ongoing debt deflation.

Professor Hockett's idea was then promoted in the media by, among others, Prof. Robert J. Shiller (Yale--Economics & Finance), in the New York Times Piece Reviving Real Estate Requires Collective Action.  As the title indicates, Schiller theorizes the mortgage crisis as in part a collective action problem that can be addressed by Hockett's proposal to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages. 

But eminent domain law needn’t be restricted to real estate. It could be applied to mortgages as well. Governments could seize underwater mortgages, paying investors fair market value for them. This is common sense too. The true fair market value for these mortgages is arguably far below their face value, given the likelihood of default, with its attendant costs.

Professor Hockett argues that a government, whether federal, state or local, can start doing just this right now, using large databases of information about mortgage pools and homeowner credit scores. After a market analysis, it seizes the mortgages. Then it can pay them off at fair value, or a little over that, with money from new investors, issuing new mortgages with smaller balances to the homeowners.

Yesterday in The Atlantic Cities, Amanda Erickson published an excellent overview story about the proposal, Can Eminent Domain Solve our Mortgage Woes?.  Of note to us are the comments by the eminent eminent domain expert (that's not a typo) Prof. Thomas Merrill (Columbia). 

It's a clever idea. But is it legal? "It's very unusual," says Thomas W. Merrill, a law professor at Columbia University who specializes in property law. But, he notes, "this doesn't mean it's unconstitutional."

Before the landmark 2005 Kelo vs. New London decision, Merrill says, there's little doubt that the courts have upheld this kind of law. "Before Kelo, courts took a hands-off approach," Merrill says. In the 1984 case Hawaii Housing Authority vs. Midkiff, the Supreme Court ruled that the Hawaiian legislature could take a property controlled by landlords and sell it back to leasees. "Condemning a landlord's interest in property to transfer to a tenant is not too different," Merrill says.

But Kelo changed that. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that cities could use eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another, and that doing so for economic development purposes constitutes a public use. "At this point, I guess you'd have to say all bets are off in terms of what is and isn't eminent domain," Merrill says.

And finally for now, Prof. Richard Epstein is critical of the idea. From More Nonsense on the Home Mortgage Front: Don't Let Municipal Governments Condemn Mortgages at Bargain Rates:

The idea has already been rightly panned by the Wall Street Journal. But the entire proposal needs still further consideration. First off, Hockett and his group insist that there is a huge collective action problem that prevents the rationalization of mortgage matters. And there is. It is called local government regulations that have blocked the foreclosure measures set out above. Handle those and the externalities to which they refer disappear. No longer do we have owners neglecting property or clogging the courts with endless motions.

Again, this post is just to give you some links to look at the arguments.  From my perspective, these are some fascinating arguments that illuminate not only the mortgage crisis but also the general debate over eminent domain. 

Matt Festa

Lind on Housing Code Compliance in the Mortgage Crisis

Kermit Lind, a long-time clinician at Cleveland Marshall School of Law, has posted Collateral Matters: Housing Code Compliance in the Mortgage Crisis. Cleveland has been ground zero for foreclosure crisis response, especially as it concerns the impact of subprime lending practices on vacant and abandoned properties. Here's the abstract:

This article first describes the paradigm shift in mortgage loan servicing over the past two decades. Securitization of mortgages as commodities and exotic financing products changed the position and role of mortgage loan collateral. As new and unregulated mortgage servicing and debt collection practices were increasingly insulated from mortgage ownership, collateral as a securing factor became remote and overlooked by mortgagees. Meanwhile, the collateral matters greatly to those proximately affected by the neglect of its condition. Mortgagees, but not servicers, are listed in public records as the party holding the legal interest in the property while the mortgage industry deems the servicers to have complete control over the real property abandoned by owners. This change renders conventional housing code compliance procedures obsolete in the face of massive loan failures. The article then suggests that new strategic thinking is needed to redesign and retool code compliance processes. It offers some examples of changes that are needed. There is still imminent disaster for many homeowners, neighborhoods and communities from serious blight. Upgrading local code enforcement and being strategic in its application is essential in order to limit the damage resulting from the mortgage crisis.

Jim K.

Reiss on Reforming the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Market

David J. Reiss (Brooklyn) has posted Reforming the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Market, forthcoming in Hamline Law Review (2012).  The abstract:

This essay is a lightly-edited version of a talk given at the “Federal Housing Finance Policy, Secondary Mortgage Market Issues: Causes and Cures, Secondary Mortgage Market Reform” symposium at Hamline University School of Law. The issues that we are struggling with now are, in many ways, the equivalent of the issues that we struggled with during the Great Depression: what should housing policy look like and what decisions should be made in the next five years or so to bring us from crisis to stability? In all likelihood our answer to this question will define the housing market for generations. To help answer the question, this essay will proceed as follows. First, it will provide some context for American housing policy discussions. It will then outline three ethics that inform housing policy. The essay will then focus on one of the key issues that we face — what should happen with Fannie and Freddie as they exit conservatorship? It concludes by highlighting some of the other housing finance issues that must be addressed before we can move forward with a coherent plan of reform. These additional issues include, first, what is the future of the 30-year mortgage? Second, what is the fate of the lock-in, whereby a person could get a guaranteed interest rate prior to closing the loan? Third, what is the fate of the low-down-payment mortgage? Fourth, what is the appropriate role of the FHA in the context of the entire housing finance infrastructure, and in relationship to Fannie and Freddie in particular? And finally, how much will we allow the goal of increasing homeownership to impact the design of our housing finance system?

Matt Festa

Boudreaux on The Housing Bias

Paul Boudreaux (Stetson)--the original Founding Editor of the Land Use Prof Blog-- has published a book that addresses one of the most critical issues in American land use in the 21st century: The Housing Bias--Rethinking Land Use Laws for a Diverse New America (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).  Here's the SSRN abstract:

As more than 300 million Americans squeeze into our country, and as single-person households now outnumber families of parents and children, it's time to rethink our land use laws that favor the single-family house. Our zoning laws were created in an age that assumed that nearly everyone outside of central cities preferred to live a house separated from neighbors; this assumption is no longer valid and no longer sustainable for a crowded nation. The Housing Bias explores the legal discrimination against apartment buildings and other forms of low-cost residences and how these laws make housing more expensive for modest-income Americans – a key factor in the development of subprime loans and other risky practices that eventually sparked our current economic crisis. Why do our laws prohibit the construction of low-cost housing? It is largely because existing homeowners prefer to exclude them – an astonishing example of law’s granting a legal privilege to wealthier citizens, a privilege that our nation can no longer afford.

This provocative book explores real-world 21st-century controversies of the housing bias. It visits the recent effort of Virginia suburbs to enforce “overcrowding” laws against mostly Latino families who migrated to the area to build new subdivisions, and then moves to New York, where eminent domain is used through a dubious interpretation of law to seize condominiums of middle-class families to build a new pro basketball arena. The book reports on the story of how laws requiring large house lots prevented the construction of a mobile-home community in a growing rural county in southern Michigan, and then examines the failed effort to legalize the widespread phenomenon of small “granny flats” in the backyards of the middle-class homes in the packed city of Los Angeles.

The Housing Bias concludes by exploring how we could update our laws to accommodate the housing needs of a diverse new America, in which half of all households now consist of only one or two persons. The prescriptions range from the complex, such as using state laws to override the power of local homeowners to zone out low-cost housing in certain zones, to the simple, such as facilitating the construction of apartments above suburban malls. It is useful for libraries and for college courses on society or law or for any intelligent reader. Written in an entertaining and jargon-free style, The Housing Bias is essential reading for understanding the flaws and the future of the American community.

One of the great things about land use is that it is fundamentally about places and their stories, and in this book Paul uses these examples to make a larger point about a critical issue of law and policy.  The Housing Bias is definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Matt Festa

NPR on Demolition of Vacant and Abandoned Homes

On today's Morning Edition, NPR broadcast this story by WCPN on Cleveland's ramping up of demolition of vacant and abandoned properties.  The piece features a sound bite from Jim Rokakis, the dynamic founder of Cleveland's new county-wide land bank, which is using part of the $75 million that Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has appropriated for vacant house demolition from the State's share of the $25 billion AG settlement with five major mortgage lenders.  Rokakis wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier this year urging national action on demolition funding.

As co-chair, with South Bend's new mayor, Pete Buttigieg, of the City's Vacant and Abandoned Property Task Force, I would have loved to see Indiana follow Ohio's lead, but last month the Legislature here decided to use its AG settlement money to resolve funding issues it was facing with the home energy assistance fund. 

For those interested in the land use implications of responses to vacant and abandoned property issues, you may also want to check out the stories NPR has done on land banking and "blotting" (the creation of multi-parcel open spaces in dense urban neighborhoods).   As always, the Center for Community Progress is a great general resource on all things vacant and abandoned.

Jim K.

Remarks by the President on Housing

President Obama gave a speech yesterday in Falls Church, VA, explaining his State of the Union thoughts on housing.  From the White House transcript:

As I indicated at the State of the Union last week, I am sending Congress a plan that will give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage by refinancing at historically low rates. (Applause.) No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. And a small fee on the largest financial institutions will make sure it doesn’t add to our deficit.

I want to be clear: This plan, like the other actions we’ve taken, will not help the neighbors down the street who bought a house they couldn’t afford, and then walked away and left a foreclosed home behind. It’s not designed for those who’ve acted irresponsibly, but it can help those who’ve acted responsibly. It’s not going to help those who bought multiple homes just to speculate and flip the house and make a quick buck, but it can help those who’ve acted responsibly.

What this plan will do is help millions of responsible homeowners who make their payments on time but find themselves trapped under falling home values or wrapped up in red tape.

Matt Festa

Walter Russell Mead on the Crisis of the American Dream

Walter Russell Mead (Bard College) has posted a fascinating essay at The American Interest called Beyond Blue Part One: The Crisis of the American Dream.  An excerpt:

I’ve written in earlier posts about the shift from the first American Dream to the second: from the family farm to the suburban “homestead.” It was a profound change in American life and culture that has not yet been fully explored.  The family farm integrated production and consumption, work and leisure, family and business.  The family wasn’t just a union of sentiment: it was an element of production.  Mom and Dad worked as a team to feed, house and clothe the family, and as the kids grew up they took on greater and greater responsibilities in the common effort.  Their lives at home prepared them for the new lives they would lead on their own: the kids would grow up, marry, and start farms.

The 20th century suburban homestead was a very different place. 

This is almost exactly the theme of an article I am writing, so naturally I find it interesting!  Mead's essay ranges well beyond land use, but his grounding of the "American Dream" in patterns of living and social organization speaks to how incredibly relevant land use models are to the compelling issues facing American society in the 21st Century.

Matt Festa

Farmers Take Back Land Slated For Housing

On Morning Edition today, NPR ran a story about farmers who sold land for development repurchasing it for agriculural use.  Here's the summary:

Over the past half-century more than 20 million acres of U.S. farmland were transformed into housing developments. With new home construction all but stopped, farmers in many areas are buying or leasing land once slated for development and planting crops on it.

Jim K.

Voicu, Been, Weselcouch, & Tschirart on HAMP vs. non-HAMP Loan Modifications

Ioan Voicu (US Gov't--Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), Vicki Been (NYU), Mary Weselcouch (NYU Furman Center), and Andrew Tschirart (US Gov't--OCC) have posted Performance of HAMP versus non-HAMP Loan Modifications--Evidence from New York City.  The abstract:

Policymakers have heralded mortgage modifications as a key to addressing the ongoing foreclosure crisis. However, there is a lack of research about whether modifications are successful at helping borrowers stay current on their loans over the long run and what kinds of modifications are most successful. Our empirical strategy employs logit models in a hazard framework to explain how loan, borrower, property, servicer and neighborhood characteristics, along with differences in the types of modifications, affect the likelihood of redefault. The dataset includes both HAMP modifications and proprietary modifications. Our results demonstrate that borrowers who receive HAMP modifications have been considerably more successful in staying current than those receiving non-HAMP modifications.

Matt Festa

Renuart on the Ibañez Time Bomb

Elizabeth Renuart (Albany) has posted Property Title Trouble in Non-Judicial Foreclosure States: The Ibanez Time Bomb? It's the first piece that I've come across to explore the title law ramifications of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court's Ibañez decision that I alluded to in a post earlier this year.  Hat tip to my colleague, Judy Fox, for sharing it with me. Here's the abstract:

The economic crisis gripping the United States began when large numbers of homeowners defaulted on poorly underwritten subprime mortgage loans. Demand from Wall Street seduced mortgage lenders, brokers, and other players to churn out mortgage loans in extraordinary numbers. Securitization, the process of utilizing mortgage loans to back investment instruments, not only fanned the fire; the parties to these deals often handled and transferred the legally important documents that secure the resulting investments — the loan notes and mortgages — in a careless manner. 
The consequences of this behavior are now becoming evident. All over the country, courts are scrutinizing whether the parties initiating foreclosures against homeowners legally possess the authority to repossess those homes. When the authority is absent, foreclosure sales may be reversed. The concern about authority to foreclose is most acute in the majority of states where foreclosures occur with little or no judicial oversight before the sale, such as Massachusetts. Due to the decision in U.S. Bank N.A. v. Ibanez, in which the Supreme Judicial Court voided two foreclosure sales where the foreclosing parties did not hold the mortgage, Massachusetts is the focal jurisdiction where an important conflict is unfolding. 
This article explores the extent to which the Ibanez ruling may have traction in other nonjudicial foreclosure states and the likelihood that clear title to foreclosed properties is jeopardized by shoddy handling of notes and mortgages. I focused on Arizona, California, Georgia, and Nevada because they permit nonjudicial foreclosures and they are experiencing high seriously delinquent foreclosure rates. After comparing the law in these states to that of Massachusetts, I conclude that Ibanez should be persuasive authority in the four nonjudicial foreclosure states highlighted herein. However, property title trouble resulting from defective foreclosures may be more limited in Arizona and Nevada. The article also provides a roadmap for others to assess the extent to which title to properties purchased at foreclosure sales or from lenders’ REO inventories might be defective in other states. Finally, the article addresses the potential consequences of reversing foreclosure sales and responds to the securitization industry’s worry about homeowners getting free houses. 

Jim K.

Morgan Stanley says US moving toward "Rentership Society"

I came across a link to this Bloomberg report in reading for my previous post on the Leinberger-Kotkin debate.  The article is a few months old, but I still think it's highly relevant: U.S. Moves Toward Home 'Rentership Society,' Morgan Stanley Says, discussing a report on housing.

The U.S. homeownership rate has fallen below 60 percent when delinquent borrowers are excluded, a sign of the country’s move toward a “rentership society,”Morgan Stanley said in a report today. . . .

The homeownership rate reached an all-time high of 69.2 percent in 2004 as relaxed lending standards fueled home sales and President George W. Bush promoted an “ownership society.” Mortgage delinquencies, foreclosures and tighter credit for housing loans are reducing property buying, [Morgan Stanley analysi Oliver] Chang said.

“Taken together they are forcibly moving the country away from being an ownership society,” Chang, based in San Francisco, said in an e-mail. “This change is only beginning, and is moving the country towards becoming a rentership society.”

A real estate professional demurs, but look at the reason why:

Most Americans still aspire to own their houses and don’t want to be renters forever, said Rick Davidson, president and chief executive officer of Century 21 Real Estate LLC in Parsippany, New Jersey.

“It isn’t about the financial aspects, but about building a family and having a part of the American dream,” Davidson, whose company is a unit of Realogy Corp., said today during an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in New York. “What really drives purchases at the end of the day is emotional and has to do with lifestyle.”

We're still conditioned to think of homeownership as the sine qua non of the American Dream--but it's not necessarily in our financial or economic interest; it's emotional and about lifestyle.  But is there an adequate range of opportunities presented for Americans to choose (emotionally?) between different forms of lifestyle?  I believe that at their base, issues of housing, community, and urban form are primarily cultural.

Matt Festa

Alexander and Powell on Neighborhood Strategies for Vacant Properties

Frank Alexander (Emory) and Leslie Powell have posted Neighborhood Stabilization Strategies for Vacant and Abandoned Properties, 34-8 Zoning and Planning Law Report 1 (2011). Here's the abstract:

Vacant and abandoned properties are a growing inventory in many American neighborhoods as a result of unusually high foreclosure numbers, population loss, and property value declines. The impact of vacant and abandoned properties is tangible and requires a willingness by local governments to acknowledge and address the problem. This article outlines the problems caused by vacant and abandoned properties and suggests a variety of potential strategies, from property tax foreclosure reform to land banking. 

Frank has co-founded along with Dan Kildee the Center for Community Progress (f/k/a The National Vacant Properties Campaign).  His scholarly and consulting work with affordable housing, title-clearing and land bank present a model of engaged scholarship that should inspire all law teachers as Frank himself does for those who have the pleasure to meet him.

Jim K.