A Blog About North Carolina Land Use and Zoning Law
I live in a city that’s pretty screwed up. In many ways. But last month a cavalry rode into town with sabers drawn and bugle blaring, and our salvation may be at hand.
In land use planning there is no official category termed “screwed up city” but it fits.
I grew up – and returned…
This past Sunday’s New York Times had a fascinating article on the culture of corruption in Spain and other southern European countries – countries which for centuries allowed local mayors and magistrates to enrich themselves through graft and bribery.
Three short paragraphs were harsh:
Spain is by no means Europe’s most corrupt nation — Greece…
Two nights ago I attended a public hearing in Asheboro where Randolph County considered approving a new landfill next to its old landfill. Granted, landfill hearings generate their share of emotion, but civility is civility and this hearing was in short supply.
[Fair disclosure: the county is my client]
According to the Courier Tribune article…
As a quarter-century veteran of land use battles in every corner of this state there’s little I haven’t heard. But this much I know. What people think is often not reflected in what they say at the public podium.
And being a veteran Southerner in my mid-fifties, I have decently honed skills in recognizing coded…
Three years ago this morning I poured the first cup of coffee of 2010, closed the door to my study, and wrote a melancholy reflection of the economic devastation we had witnessed the preceding year. One year ago I republished the original post (Ringing in the New Year with Appropriate Punctuation) with a…
Last week the Court of Appeals published an opinion (MNC Holdings v. Town of Matthews) that analyzed how to interpret poorly written zoning ordinances, especially when a citizen’s property and rights are on the line.
Full and complete disclosure: I was lead counsel for the prevailing party. I have strong opinions about the underlying…
Swing state voters in 2012 – including the good people of North Carolina – got a taste of what it’s like to live in Iowa and New Hampshire every four years, and for most folks in my generation it wasn’t fun. You see, folks my age still use land lines to make phone calls and…
In case you haven’t seen the news articles, Harry Potter series author, J.K. Rowling, had to get permission from the Edinburgh City Council to construct a couple of tree houses for her children amidst a deluge of protests from neighbors. I’ve enjoyed several articles on this guerre du jour because it illustrates how a neighborhood’s…
Leviathan. Li-VAYH-uh thuhn – (1) “Anything of immense size and power, as a huge, oceangoing ship. (2) The title of Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 philosophical work which asserts that a strong central government is the only means of averting social chaos and civil war.”
Thomas Hobbes, meet the North Carolina Supreme Court, which heard arguments…
When I traveled through Europe by train 30 years ago I marveled at how cities seemed to stop and start at defined points on the broad landscape, in stark contrast to American cities that bleed forever into the rural (or at least “non-urban”) periphery.
Thirty years later I marvel again as I travel by car…
