Municipal & Local Govt law

Don’t miss out!

We promise: this is the last time we’re going to try to entice you to the upcoming ALI-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference in New Orleans. We are getting close to capacity, but there is still room. In recent years, we have standing room only in the Conference halls, and

This season of the Institute for Justice‘s podcast series “Bound by Oath” is devoted to property rights. It’s a fascinating series — produced by John Ross, it is more like an audio documentary than a typical podcast — focusing on constitutional issues. And we say this not just because we’ve been a

“No need to ask, he’s a smooth operator…”

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case we’ve  been following closely because it involves the fundamental limitation on the sovereign power to take private property. In our system, the sovereign indeed has the power to take private property against the

Here is a collection of commentary on the oral arguments in Sheetz v. El Dorado County, heard by the Supreme Court earlier this week. (Our own thoughts here.)

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If you were looking for deep clarity from the Justices about land use law and whether a legislature imposing monetary conditions on property development always gets the free judicial pass of rational basis review in this morning’s oral arguments in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, you may not discover a lot of predictive

Conf-2024-flyer
Bismarck in January is looking pretty good.

Here’s what we’re reading today:

  • Christian Britschgi, Court’s Wild Zoning Decision Blocks ‘Montana Miracle’, Reason (Jan. 2, 2024) (“In an eyebrow-raising decision, a Montana judge has halted the implementation of two laws legalizing duplexes and accessory dwelling units on residential land across the state, writing that they’d

Screenshot 2024-01-04 at 09-57-31 Keeping the Surplus Colorado Lawyer

How thrilled are we that an alum of our William and Mary Law School courses, up-and-coming Colorado property lawyer Makenna X. Johnson, has published an article in the area of law we all love (dirt law)?

Let’s just say that we’re thrilled. Makenna writes:

Colorado’s real property tax system resembles Minnesota’s principally in

Sheetz

Get ready for Sheetz v. El Dorado County, No. 22-1074, the “legislative exactions” case at the Supreme Court. [Disclosure: this is one of our firm’s cases, so we won’t be doing an analysis here. Besides, you already know where we stand on the issue.]

With the final merits brief filed last week (Petitioner’s

HAWSCT

We’re not going to go into very much detail or provide commentary on the Hawaii Supreme Court’s unanimous 88-page opinion in an eminent domain case we’ve been following, City and County of Honolulu v. Victoria Ward, Ltd., No. SCAP-22-0000335 (Dec. 29, 2023), because before we departed private practice for public interest law

Here are the cases that Michael Berger and I discussed in today’s presentation to the ABA State and Local Government Law Section’s Land Use group. It was good seeing everyone, even virtually: