Land Use and Sustainable Development Law, Cases and Materials

The new edition enables professors to teach a broad range of traditional and innovative land use law subjects, ranging from zoning and site planning to sustainable development.

The first six chapters of the book focus on traditional practice areas in land use regulation at the state and local levels, and includes a full range of federal First and Fifth Amendment issues as well as preemption (all from the existing chapters in the book which have updated notes/commentary and a sprinkling of new principal cases, enough to modernize the book without requiring significant teaching overhauls). For a nuts-and-bolts approach to land use law the first two-thirds of the book will fully cover a three-credit course.

The next three chapters explore land use techniques that go beyond traditional planning and Euclidean zoning such as smart growth, transit-oriented development, new urbanism, and form based zoning. Energy and building codes that address environmental and social concerns are explored, as is the topic of local environmental law that includes: aquifer, wetlands, habitat, and steep slopes protection; storm water control; and floodplains management. How environmental impact review, biological sequestration, and climate change mitigation integrate with local land use reg(more...)