Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s stories include: Minnesota’s zoning reform bills stall in the Legislature. New York’s housing deal does little for new supply and leaves everyone unhappy. Colorado bans laws regulating how many unrelated people can live together. But first, we have this week’s lead item about […]
While pundits and lawyers cross swords over free speech on social media, a quieter yet critically important principle is being ignored: property rights. In addition to violating the First Amendment, the rush to force social media platforms to host content violates the Fifth Amendment as well—in particular, the Takings Clause. The Takings Clause says that […]
(NA) In Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, decided today, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there is no “legislative exception” to the Takings Clause. In previous cases such as Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. City of Tigard, the Court ruled that state and local governments sometimes violate the Takings Clause […]
A Florida judge yesterday ruled against a Lantana homeowner who faces more than $165,000 in fines for three minor code violations that harmed no one. Sandy Martinez, who is represented by the Institute for Justice (I.J.), argued that the financially crippling demand, which stems from driveway cracks, a storm-damaged fence, and cars that were parked […]
A new National Bureau of Economic Research study by economists Alina Arefeva, Kay Jowers, Qihui Hu, and Christopher Timmins finds that eviction moratoria enacted during Covid led increased racial discrimination against black potential tenants. Here is the abstract: We provide evidence of intensified discriminatory behavior by landlords in the rental housing market during the eviction […]
(NA) The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment says the government may only “take” private property for a “public use.” In cases like Berman v. Parker and Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court has ruled (wrongly, in my view) that almost any potential benefit to the public qualifies as a “public use.” […]
In a recent article in the Jesuit publication America, urban policy commentator Addison Del Mastro explains “Why Catholics Should Resist NIMBYism”: The cost and supply of housing has gone from a problem associated with a handful of high-growth cities to a national crisis. Anybody who has moved in the last three years understands this. Calls […]
New Zealand flag. (NA) The United States is far from the only country that has experienced serious housing shortages in recent years. Canada, Britain, and several continental European nations also have similar problems. But one country, New Zealand, has managed to significantly mitigate theirs through the simple expedient of cutting back on zoning regulations […]
(NA) Joe Selvaggi of the Pioneer Institute (a Boston-based think tank) recently interviewed me about exclusionary zoning, and my forthcoming Texas Law Review article on that subject (coauthored with Josh Braver of the University of Wisconsin). We cover the harm caused by exclusionary zoning, its undermining of property rights, and the reasons why it violates […]
A man’s home is his castle. Or is it? Over the past couple of weeks, squatters’ rights—whereby someone who isn’t a legal owner or tenant claims a right to stay in someone else’s property—has moved from a 30 Rock joke to the subject of white-hot internet discourse. Kicking off this controversy have been several viral […]