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 appropriatenessof settlement agreements between municipalities and controversialzoning permit applicants. The author examines a recent ninth courtdecision, League of Residential Neighborhood Advocates v. City of LosAngeles, in which the court struck down a settlement agreement betweena city and an Orthodox Jewish synagogue wishing to locate in aresidential zone, finding that the settlement was not a substitute fora conditional use-permit. The author then examines several analogouscases which present variations of the issue and possible solutions formunicipalities.
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.