Zoning & Planning

If you need another reminder of what land use and zoning law looks like on Kauai in practice (and, in turn, in Hawaii generally), see this article, Hanalei vs. Hanalei in The Garden Island newspaper. It’s about a proposal to develop a new resort that (not surprisingly) is “meeting staunch opposition from a rapidly growing

Rice-cookerCheck out this complaint, filed last week in federal court in Honolulu by a Kauai councilmember against the County of Kauai, a Planning Department Official, and the Kauai prosecutor. The councilmember claims the defendants maliciously prosecuted him for a zoning violation.

And just what was the alleged zoning violation?

While the Planning official was

Here’s a follow up to our earlier brief post about the opinion in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, No.11-56253 (Sep. 5, 2012), in which a 2-1 Ninth Circuit panel held that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments protect the homeless against the City of L.A.’s seizure and destruction of their “momentarily unattended” property. The

In Moore v. City of Middletown, No 2012-1363 (Aug. 30, 2012), the Ohio Supreme Court held that a property owner did not have standing to bring a regulatory takings claim when a “foreign municipality” (the neighboring city) rezoned an adjacent parcel, because the municipality did not have jurisdiction to exercise eminent domain over his

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

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

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

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