Articles

The answer to that question should be simple. After all, the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects “life, liberty, or property” without qualification. And, for nearly a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently treated property as a fundamental right, forbidding the government from imposing arbitrary or irrational ...

Earlier this week, the Washington State Supreme Court denied review of the very troubling appellate decision in Olympic Stewardship Foundation v. State of Washington Environmental and Land Use Hearings Office, in which PLF submitted an amicus brief. The appellate decision upheld a Jefferson County ordinance that requires all shoreline property own ...

Earlier this week, the Washington State Court of Appeals issued its decision in Olympic Stewardship Foundation v. State of Washington Environmental and Land Use Hearings Office, in which PLF submitted an amicus brief.  The decision upholds a Jefferson County ordinance that requires all shoreline property owners to dedicate a 150-foot buffer as a m ...

San Juan County’s scheme to force shoreline property owners into dedicating water treatment buffers is now pending on a certiorari petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Common Sense Alliance v. San Juan County. As you may recall, in order to address a Washington state statute requiring that cities and counties adopt measures R ...

There’s an interesting issue lurking in PLF’s petition for review in Common Sense Alliance v. Growth Management Hearings Board: Is a conservation buffer an interest in real property? Briefly about the case: Common Sense Alliance involves a challenge to San Juan County’s newly updated critical areas ordinance, which conditions the ...

Washington’s “growth management” approach to regulating land-use adjacent to environmentally sensitive areas relies almost exclusively on presumptions and generalizations—demanding that landowners dedicate oversized buffers based on assumed impacts rather than any actual determination that a proposed development will or will not ...

On June 2, 2015, Division I of the Washington State Court of Appeals is set to hear oral argument in the first state case seeking to limit government’s ability to coerce property from land use applicants since PLF’s landmark victory in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist. (2013). The case, Common Sense Alliance … ...

Environment — Victory for common sense in permitting reviews The California Supreme Court issued this opinion in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley, a case dealing with environmental reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA.) That statute, much like its federal anal ...