The key quote from the Illinois Appellate Court’s recent opinion in Robinson v. City of Chicago, No. 1-23-2174 (Mar. 24, 2025), in which a property owner challenged the inclusion of his property in a new Chicago historic preservation district? This seemingly innocuous sentence setting out the standard of review:
The plaintiff acknowledges that his
These days, when we have cases where there’s tinkering with the terms of rental agreements, we most often see local governments using their police power to force property owners to rent their properties on a long-term (more than 30 days) basis.
But in Bigelow Arizona TX-344, LP v. Town of Addison, No. 05-23-00642-CV (Apr.
Today we have a guest post by New York colleague Jennifer Polovetsky, who writes about an exactions case that is headed for the New York Court of Appeals. Disclosure: our firm represents the property owners in that court.
Thanks to Jennifer (and to the New York Law Journal) for allowing us to republish her
Registration is open and underway for this year’s edition of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute in Denver, March 5-7, 2025. Location: University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
This conference is more what we’ll call “land usey” than ALI-CLE’s Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference (as the respective titles suggest), but there’s a
Check this out, a recent Fourth Branch pod featuring lawprof Donald Kochan and our law firm colleague Jeremy Talcott, “Explainer Episode 85 – Rebuilding California: Lessons from the Pacific Palisades Fire.”
Here’s the description:
The 2025 Pacific Palisades Fire has underscored the challenges of building in California’s complex regulatory landscape. In response
Nothing to do with the case, beyond the owner’s name.
But c’mon, its ABBA.
Ms. Money and her spouse own a home in San Marcos, Texas. That home is in a historic district.
But it turns out that some of that history isn’t pretty: one of the previous owners was “notoriously associated with the
Shands Key, with the City of Marathon in the background
This just in: in Shands v. City of Marathon, No. 3D21-1987 (Fed. 5, 2025), Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals sitting en banc held that the city’s downzoning of property (Shands Key, shown above in an exhibit from the Key West trial we participated
What to say about the Colorado Supreme Court’s recent decision in Nonhuman Rights Project v. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, No. 24SA21 (Jan. 21, 2025), wherein the court resolved the momentous and highly controversial question of whether an elephant is a person?
Our first temptation is to see this through the takings lens (surprise), and snark
Here’s what we’re reading this day:
The only courthouse we know where the Supreme Court
is below the Court of Appeals (SJC on the second floor,
appellate court on the third)
A brief one from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
In Attorney General v. Town of Milton, No. SJC-13580 (Jan. 8, 2025), the court rejected a challenge to