Analysis of Zoning Barriers that Limit the Construction of Manufactured Housing
April 7, 2017
In the Portland metropolitan region, we often think of affordable housing in urban terms – increased density, homelessness, and accessory dwelling units, but considering the issue in rural areas requires a different lens on how to build low cost housing. This post reviews zoning barriers that limit the construction of manufactured housing that were identified by renowned land use law…
Oregon’s Land Use and Conservation Development Commission Issues Final Enforcement Order Against the City of Corvallis
March 24, 2017
The tension around whether clear and objective standards must apply to a proposed residential development gripped the City of Corvallis and one developer in a multi-year legal battle at the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (“LUBA”) that left the developer in a cycle of remands about how the city would apply its standards. Fed up with the cycle, the…
Big Win for the Confederated Tribes: Oil Trains in Oregon Face New Hurdle
March 11, 2017
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and Bands of the Yakima Nation (collectively the “Treaty Tribes”) have been opposed to an Union Pacific oil-by-rail project that called for trains from oil-producing regions to deliver the crude to ports where ships could move it to refineries along the West Coast. Notwithstanding the oil train derailment in…
Recent Developments in Comprehensive Planning Law
February 22, 2017
Ed Sullivan and Jennifer Bragar co-authored the annual comprehensive plan update for the American Bar Association’s State and Local Government Law Section. The most recent update was just published by the Urban Lawyer and you can read about it here. The article undertakes an annual survey of state and federal cases dealing with the role of the comprehensive plan (sometimes called the “General” or…