Land use law

Check this out. A report from the Maui News that “Environmental court would be perfect fit here – judge.” Apparently, there is an effort to get the Judiciary or the Legislature to form another court with specialized jurisdiction, either formally like the Family Courts, or more likely on a less formalized basis like…

An interesting new complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Hawaii, asserting claims for substantive due process, violation of the zoning enabling act, and the Kauai County Charter.

A owner of property that has been designated for resort development for 35 years is asserting that the adoption by the County’s voters of a charter amendment…

This just in: as we predicted after oral arguments (see HAWSCT Oral Argument Recap – Who Defines The “Project” For Archaeological Review? and The Real “Descendants” Plays Out In The Hawaii Supreme Court – Honolulu’s $4+ Billion Rail Project In Grave Danger), in a unanimous opinion, Hawaii Supreme Court has slapped down the…

For those of you sticking around Chicago after the ABA Annual Meeting, there’s the opportunity for even more land use, zoning, takings, and condemnation programming. ALI-CLE (fka ALI-ABA) is putting on it’s annual Land Use Institute later this week. It looks like Planning Co-Chairs Gideon Kanner and Frank Schnidman have put together a wide-ranging…

This just in: in Leone v. County of Maui, No. 29696 (June 22, 2012), the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff alleging a regulatory taking is not required to seek an amendment to a Community Plan in order to ripen her claim. A CP amendment is a legislative act, and plaintiffs…

Thanks to the Land Use Prof Blog for getting the word out about the most recent documentary from filmmaker Gary Hustwit, “Urbanized,” which will have its Hawaii premier this weekend as part of Interisland Terminal‘s “Manufacturing Reality” film series.

The film examines how cities are designed — whether on purpose or though…

Recently, in Intellectual Laziness on the Supreme Court, a short essay about the Supreme Court’s recent Equal Protection decision about unequal property assessments, Professor Richard Epstein wrote, “[i]t’s time to scrap the irrational ‘rational basis test.'” Decisions like the Ninth Circuit’s recent opinion in Samson v. City of Bainbridge Island, No. 10-35352…

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals issued an opinion yesterday in Pavsek v. Sandvold, No. 29179 (June 13, 2012), holding that a person complaining about a vacation rental cannot circumvent the City’s enforcement procedures and the administrative appeal process by instituting an original jurisdiction lawsuit claiming that a homeowner is renting her property in…