On the day we celebrate Constitution Day (or should we say Khaaaaan-stitution Day?) we have to admit that pretty much nothing beats One Named Kirk’s reading of the Preamble.
He might be from Iowa, but that guy who plays him is from north of the border, so our kudos to a Canadian for…
In a cert petition filed yesterday, five Hawaii taxpayers argue that they have standing to challenge the constitutionality of property tax exemptions conferred on lessees of Hawaiian Homesteads. Only “native Hawaiians” are eligible to lease homestead land, and thus only those possessing the appropriate blood quantum are entitled to the tax exemptions.
The petitioners…
No, it’s not a takings claim, so Williamson County ripeness isn’t a part of the opinion. In Potrero Hills Landfill, Inc. v. County of Solano, No. 10-15229 (Sep. 13, 2011), the Ninth Circuit held that the Younger abstention doctrine did not prevent the district court from considering a § 1983 claim for declaratory and…
“This is not what we normally do. We do land use, real estate, development law. Heck, I can get you zoning to be an airport if that’s what you want. But I don’t represent inmates, I don’t represent people charged with crime, I don’t represent criminals.”
— Land use lawyer Joshua…
“Property rights” often are portrayed as belonging only to the rich and powerful and protecting only the politically connected. But as we recently were reminded, this is a very inaccurate picture because property rights — as the “guardian of every other right” — form the foundation on which all other rights rest…
There’s been yet another cert petition asking the Suprme Court to revist and discard the ripeness rules of Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985).
In Colony Cove Properties, LLC v. City of Carson, 640 F.3d 948 (9th Cir. 2011), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the…
A cert petition has been filed by the property owners in a case we’ve been following about what the takings ripeness doctrine of Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985) requires.
In Downing/Salt Pond Partners v. Rhode Island, 643 F.3d 16 (1st Cir. 2011), the…
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following. In Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. State of Hawaii Land Use Comm’n, the plaintiff filed its complaint in state circuit court alleging that the LUC violated state and federal law (due process, takings, vested rights, and more) when it reclassified “urban” land on the Big…
In Edwards v. City of Jonesboro, No. 10-2405 (July 14, 2011), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that a takings claim brought in federal court after the property owner prevailed on the same claim in state court was not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, but that the state court judgment…
We tend not to think of churches as “blighting” their neighborhoods. But what about a church in a downtown “entertainment” district, where the nearby businesses are bars, nightclubs, and liquor stores, and placing a church in the area might limit the availability of liquor licenses?
In a sort of reversal of the usual LULU (locally…
