Articles

Author: Brian T. Hodges Why are the feds trying to convince Washington's cities and counties to adopt new development regulations that could limit a landowner's right to have an outhouse, trailer, or even mow his lawn?  It's because 6 years ago, in National Wildlife Federation v. FEMA, 345 F. Supp. 2d 1151 (W. Dist. Wash. 2004), envir ...

Author:  Paul J. Beard II The short answer is:  "No!"  Robert Thomas, the Managing Attorney for PLF's Hawaii Center, has two excellent blog posts discussing the extent to which Hawaii's land-use laws are strangling the island's economy, and revealing the unsettling fact that the Hawaii Supreme Court fav ...

Author: Daniel Himebaugh Reason Foundation's new Annual Privatization Report 2010 concludes that Houston, Texas weathered the recent housing crisis better than any other major city, with housing prices declining far less than in the rest of the country.  Why did Houston survive when others struggle?  The answer lies in Houston's ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges Washington's Growth Management Act (GMA) envisions a scheme where every city and county, in every nook and cranny of the state, adopts land use regulations responsive to a host of general societal interests  (e.g, affordable housing, preserving property rights, protecting rural lands from urban development, protecting ...

At PLF, we litigate for judicial acceptance of the idea that property owners should be allowed to reasonably use their property without undue interference from the government.  Many of our clients, such as Wendy Birnbaum, believe in this principle, but find themselves tangled in red tape when they actually exercise their property rights. Ms. Birn ...

It is said that a person's home is his castle, but it is apparently not a personal billboard, at least according to a recent decision from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In Brown v. Town of Cary, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 1423 (4th Cir., Jan 22, 2013), that court held that a homeowner had no free speech right to put a "Screwed by the Town of Cary" me ...

On Tuesday, the city council of Newport Beach (California) voted against a resolution supporting additional state funding for the California Coastal Commission.  The Commission---which regulates coastal property owners' use of their lands with an iron fist---has for years been complaining about its lack of resources and staffing levels.  Conse ...

In 1945, Friedrich Hayek wrote an essay explaining why central planners were doomed to fail at economic planning. I saw this essay come to life recently during a county commission hearing in Florida.  The commission is in the midst of making its long term land-use plans for the county, so it hired a company to research how to aid economic growth w ...

The Montana Property Rights Conference will take place next week, on August 14 and August 15, at the Northern Hotel in Billings, Montana.  As a keynote speaker, I will open the conference at 1:00 p.m. with a discussion of environmental and land-use issues, including PLF's United States Supreme Court win last year in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water ...