Justia Zoning, Planning & Land Use Opinion Summaries

In Puerto Rico, the Controlled Access Law (CAL) allows private citizens to protect themselves against violent crimes by maintaining gated residential communities that incorporate public streets. In 2004, two corporations operated by the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses brought suit against municipal defendants alleging that the CAL unconstitutionally infringed on the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ right to engage in door-to-door ministry. The district court established a remedial scheme that attempted to balance the competing interests of the parties. Both the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the municipalities appealed. The First Circuit upheld the district court’s solution but modified it in some aspects, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in crafting the remedy at issue. View "Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc. v. Colombani" on Justia Law

Springfield has an ordinance that prohibits panhandling in its “downtown historic district”—less than 2% of the city’s area but containing its principal shopping, entertainment, and governmental areas, including the Statehouse and many state-government buildings. The ordinance defines panhandling as an oral request for an immediate donation of money. Signs requesting money are allowed; as are oral pleas to send money later. Plaintiffs have received citations for violating this ordinance and allege that they will continue panhandling but fear liability. They unsuccessfully sought a preliminary injunction. The parties agreed that panhandling is a form of speech, to which the First Amendment applies, and that if it drew lines on the basis of speech’s content it would be unconstitutional. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, upholding the ordinance, which it called “indifferent to the solicitor’s stated reason for seeking money, or whether the requester states any reason at all…. Springfield has not meddled with the marketplace of ideas.” The prohibition is based on where a person says something rather than what position a person takes. View "Norton v. City of Springfield" on Justia Law

The City of Lebanon sought to annex several hundred acres of nearby property. The owners of the property subject to the annexation, including Appellees, filed a lawsuit against the City to invalidate the annexation ordinance. The trial court granted Appellees’ motion for summary judgment, concluding that the City, by intentionally manipulating the annexation boundaries to guarantee a successful annexation, violated Appellees’ constitutional rights. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that the boundaries of territory to be annexed must be “natural or regular” and that the boundaries of the proposed annexation in this case did not meet this standard. The Supreme Court reversed and declared the annexation valid, holding (1) the court of appeals erred in applying a “natural or regular” standard; and (2) the City’s annexation fully complied the the statutory requirements and did not violate Appellees’ constitutional rights.View "City of Lebanon v. Goodin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit challenging his arrests for refusing to obey Officer Early's repeated orders to confine his leafleting to the area designated for protest activities outside the First Mariner Arena in Baltimore. The designated protest area was defined by a written policy of the City and the BCPD. The court held that the policy was facially valid under the First Amendment as a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction. The court found that the district court committed no reversible error as to plaintiff's remaining claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants.View "Ross v. Early" on Justia Law

Landowners filed a complaint against the City of North Las Vegas for inverse condemnation and precondemnation damages. The district court awarded Landowners precondemnation damages and attorney fees, costs, and prejudgment interest. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s orders with the exception of the prejudgment interest award, which the Court reversed, concluding that the district court erred in failing to calculate prejudgment interest from the date on which the resulting injury arose. The City sought rehearing of that order on the prejudgment issue and on issues concerning the statute of limitations and standing. Although rehearing was not warranted, the Court took the opportunity to clarify the relevant law, holding (1) the Court’s dispositional order properly concluded that prejudgment interest should be calculated from the date of taking, which was the first date of compensable injury; (2) the City could not raise its statute of limitations argument for the first time on rehearing, and even if it could, that defense was inapplicable to the facts of this case; and (3) rehearing was not warranted to clarify whether the City can assert a standing defense on remand. View "City of N. Las Vegas v. 5th & Centennial, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and his family filed suit against Lewisville for damages and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff and his family challenged the constitutionality of a Lewisville ordinance prohibiting registered child sex offenders from residing within 1,500 feet of "where children commonly gather." Plaintiff, a registered child sex offender, asserts that he and his family cannot find a house to rent or buy based on the challenged ordinance. The district court dismissed the claims based on lack of standing and, alternatively, as moot. The court concluded that the family's inability to find a home in Lewisville is fairly traceable to the challenged ordinance and it was likely that a judgment in the family's favor would at least make it easier for them to find a residence to rent or buy in Lewisville. Although the family has moved to another town, their claims for monetary relief are sufficient to defeat mootness. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court because the family has met the traceable and redressable requirements of standing and their claim is not moot. View "Duarte, et al. v. City of Lewisville, TX" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was the City's enactment of an ordinance which had the practical effect of prohibiting new group homes - i.e., homes in which recovering alcoholics and drug users live communally and mutually support each other's recovery - from opening in most residential zones. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' disparate treatment claims; plaintiffs have created a triable fact that the ordinance was enacted in order to discriminate against them on the basis of disability, and that its enactment and enforcement harmed them; and the court reversed the district court's dismissal of all of plaintiffs' damages claims, except for its dismissal of Terri Bridgeman's claim for emotional distress. View "Pac. Shores Properties v. City of Newport Beach" on Justia Law

Landowners protested pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. 76-2-205(6) to block the Board of County Commissioners of Missoula County from establishing a special zoning district north of Lolo, Montana. Landowners effectively blocked the zoning proposal pursuant to section 76-2-205(6). L. Reed Williams filed a complaint against Commissioners, challenging the constitutionality of the statute. Landowners intervened in the action. The district court denied Landowners' motion to dismiss and granted summary judgment to Williams and Commissioners, concluding that section 76-2-205(6) was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power and an unconstitutional violation of the right to equal protection and the right to suffrage. The Supreme Court upheld the Commissioners' adoption of the special zoning district and affirmed the district court, holding that the district court did not err in (1) denying Landowners' motion to dismiss Williams' complaint for failure to join them as necessary parties; (2) determining that section 76-2-205(6) was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power; and (3) ruling that section 76-2-205(6) was severable from the remainder of the statute. View "Williams v. Bd. of County Commr's" on Justia Law

This case concerned efforts by the Town of Nags Head, North Carolina, to declare beachfront properties that encroach onto "public trust lands" a nuisance, and regulate them accordingly. In the related appeal of Sansotta v. Town of Nags Head, the district court adjudicated the claims but concluded that it was inappropriate for a "federal court to intervene in such delicate state-law matters," and abstained from decision under Burford v. Sun Oil Co. The court reversed the district court's decision to abstain in this case where resolving the claims in this case was not sufficiently difficult or disruptive of that policy to free the district court from its "unflagging obligation to exercise its jurisdiction." Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Town of Nags Head v. Toloczko" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the city alleging that the city's zoning scheme violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The court concluded that the zoning ordinances at issue were content-neutral, time, place and manner regulations subject to intermediate scrutiny; the zoning scheme was narrowly tailored to serve a substantial government interest; and there were reasonable alternative avenues in which plaintiffs could operate an adult entertainment business despite the zoning ordinances. Accordingly, the zoning ordinances did not violate plaintiffs' constitutional rights and the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Peterson, et al. v. City of Florence" on Justia Law