- As wildlife policy goes wrong, it’s guano on the rocks for La Jolla [Matt Welch, language]
- Georgia-Pacific West vs. NEDC: “Millions of jobs at stake in logging case” [David Hampton, Wash. Times; Henry Miller, Forbes]
- Ontario environment ministry won’t investigate complaint of noise from neighbor’s basketball play [National Post, earlier]
- Maryland: Following state mandate, Howard County prepares to stifle farmland development without compensation [HoCoRising]
- Role of local government structure: “New England vs. Midwest Culture” [George Mattei, Urbanophile]
- More re: suits vs. utilities over Sandy outages [Bloomberg (Long Island), NJ.com] Pre-Sandy, NY pols kicked around Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) for decades [Nicole Gelinas/ NYP]
- “Reckless Endangerment: Global Warming in the Courts” [Michael Greve, Liberty and Law] Various interest groups have already locked themselves into EPA’s jury-rigged scheme to limit carbon emissions [Greve]
Posts Tagged ‘land use and zoning’
Environmental roundup
- Texas whups Administration in court on cross-state air pollution rule and coal-fired power: “It is unfortunate that EPA continues to misuse the Clean Air Act.” [TCEQ press release, WSJ editorial]
- As upstate New York hopes for Greek-yogurt boom, enviros defend extra-strict factory-farm (“CAFO”) regs [Abby Wisse Schachter, NY Post]
- Land-use control and economic inequality in America [Virginia Postrel, Bloomberg; Randal O’Toole, Cato]
- House Oversight report confirms EPA lead-paint renovation rule continues to frustrate Main Street [Angela Logomasini; earlier here, etc.]
- Illegal in some Western states to collect rainwater for one’s own use [Fox, Oregon; N.Y. Times, 2009]
- GAO releases report on attorney fee awards for environmental citizen suits [Michael Tremoglie, LNL] “Mandate Madness: When Sue and Settle Just Isn’t Enough” [House Oversight hearing]
- “EPA exonerates fracking in Pennsylvania” [Ken Green, AEIdeas; Dimock, Pa., of “Gasland” fame]
Food roundup
- Why eating local isn’t necessarily good for the environment [Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu, The Locavore’s Dilemma via David Boaz/Cato, BoingBoing]
- “Can Behavioral Economics Combat Obesity?” [Michael Marlow and Sherzod Abdukadirov, Cato Regulation mag, PDF] Get cranberry juice out of the schools. Must we? [Scott Shackford]
- Portland might deem you a subsidy-worthy “food desert” even if you’re six blocks from a Safeway [City Journal]
- “Policemen eying giant iced-coffee I bought near 96th and Broadway. I’m imagining a future of ‘stop and sip.’ ‘Is that sweetened, sir?'” [Conor Friedersdorf]
- Crise de foie: California’s ban on livers of overfed fowl results in evasion, coinage of word “duckeasy” [Nancy Friedman]
- In defense of policy entrepreneur Rick Berman [David Henderson]
- The federal definition of macaroni [Ryan Young, CEI]
- How food safety regulation can kill [Baylen Linneken, Reason] We’ve got a nice little town here, don’t try to grow food in it [same] And the prolific Linnekin is guest-blogging at Radley Balko’s along with Ken and Patrick from Popehat, Maggie McNeill, and Chattanooga libertarian editorialist Drew Johnson.
Historic preservation as tactical bludgeon
It’s not just New York:
In Georgetown, for instance, Eastbanc has proposed to replace the Canal Rd. Exxon with a five story condo building. From a true historic preservation perspective, there’s not much of a case against the project. It wouldn’t break up the rhythm of the block and the proposed style, while not particularly elegant, was at least not discordant.
But neighbors along Prospect Street would lose a part of their fabulous view across the Potomac. So they argued vociferously during the design review process that the project should be reduced to preserve their views. This had little to nothing to do with genuine historic preservation. … This pattern is repeated frequently in Georgetown and in other historic districts.
The local opponents have thus far blocked the project, which means the historic district is still adorned with the Key Bridge Exxon. One might ask the neighbors whether they feel a gas station enhances the neighborhood’s quaint Nineteenth Century ambiance, except that, taking a leaf from lower Manhattanites, they might say it does.
More: David Schleicher, Prawfs, on the municipal political economy of zoning.
April 18 roundup
- “MPAA: you can infringe copyright just by embedding a video” [Timothy Lee, Ars Technica]
- NYC: fee for court-appointed fire department race-bias monitor is rather steep [Reuters]
- Larry Schonbron on VW class action [Washington Times] Watch out, world: “U.S. class action lawyers look abroad” [Reuters] Deborah LaFetra, “Non-injury class actions don’t belong in federal court” [PLF]
- Will animal rights groups have to pay hefty legal bill after losing Ringling Bros. suit? [BLT]
- You shouldn’t need a lobbyist to build a house [Mead, Yglesias]
- “Astorino and Westchester Win Against Obama’s HUD” [Brennan, NRO] My two cents [City Journal] Why not abolish HUD? [Kaus]
- “Community organized breaking and entering,” Chicago style [Kevin Funnell; earlier, NYC]
Urban development, the NYC way
“A 2-story Whole Foods on an empty lot in the heart of brownstone Brooklyn should not take 8 yrs to (maybe) get permits” [@MarketUrbanism on NYT coverage]
December 19 roundup
- Too much of a stretch: US nixes copyright in yoga exercises [Bloomberg, earlier]
- “Know your rights dealing with cops” material construed as probative of criminality [Popehat] Is Justice Scalia really an “unlikely” champion of defendants’ Constitutional rights? [LATimes, Adler] “Overcriminalization: The Legislative Side of the Problem” [Larkin/Heritage, related Meese] When feds spring false-statements trap, it won’t matter whether you committed underlying offense being investigated [Popehat] “‘Clean Up Government Act’ sparks overcriminalization concerns” [PoL]
- Former Attorney General Mukasey on ObamaCare recusal flap [Adler]
- American Antitrust Institute proposals might be discounted given group’s longstanding pro-plaintiff bias [Thom Lambert]
- NYC: “The tour guide said that the way to get rich is to be a zoning lawyer.” [Arnold Kling]
- “Obama’s Top Ten Constitutional Violations” [Ilya Shapiro, Daily Caller] In at least two major areas, “Obama has broken with precedent to curtail religious freedom” [Steve Chapman]
- Ted Frank-Shirley Svorny med mal debate wraps up [PoL, Bader]
Glendale bans fake grass
The Los Angeles suburb claims it adopted the ban because of dangers posed by chemicals, toxins and plastics present in artificial turf. Might there perhaps be an alternative motive, that of policing residents’ aesthetic taste in landscaping? Well, the ban applies only to front yards: “When asked why the fake grass would continue to be allowed in backyards, officials had no answer.” [CBS Los Angeles]
Privatizing retail permitting
The Washington Post offers an editorial caution to lawmakers in Montgomery County, the famously liberal slice of Maryland suburbia:
A bill before the Montgomery County Council would force big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target to negotiate with neighborhood groups as a condition for getting their new stores approved. This is such a spectacularly bad idea, on so many levels, that it’s hard to imagine how it came to be taken seriously in the first place.
By contrast, the nearby District of Columbia, often seen as a challenging place to do business, seems to be making its peace with Wal-Mart, which has announced plans to open six new stores there.
California’s CEQA, cont’d
Following up on last week’s post, Gideon Kanner calls our attention to this summer’s case of Clover Valley Foundation v. City of Rocklin. As Prof. Kanner wrote at the time in the L.A. Daily Journal:
This was a lawsuit challenging a housing project on environmental grounds some 30 years after the subject property was zoned for housing development, 20 years after the developer’s request for a permit, and after 10 years of planning and environmental review, plus a nearly one-half reduction in the number of permitted dwellings, a five-fold increase in open space, and after millions of dollars were exacted for in-lieu payments. The city approved the project in 2007.
Then the NIMBYs attacked in court. To its credit, the court in effect said “enough already” and rejected the NIMBY challenge. But the court also said that this was a case in which environmental laws “worked.” I would hate to see what it would take for their Lordships to acknowledge a case in which those laws didn’t work.
For more of a flavor of the Clover Valley case, see the write-up from the Meyers Nave law firm.