Welcome to the Future!
The train route: The Great Lakes Basin Railroad
The homestate for legislators wanting to stop eminent domain for the train: Wisconsin
The method to stop the train: End eminent domain for all private entities
Northern Public Radio | Beloit-Area State Lawmakers Try To Stop A Train By Changing State Law
Home sharing platform Airbnb has agreed to:
These limitations were agreed to with regulators in London and Amsterdam.
The Hill | Airbnb backs down on rental limits in Amsterdam, London
The town of DeWitt, NY is facing zombies in the shape of zombie properties. Here’s the town’s strategy to erradicate zombies:
Eagle News Online | DeWitt Town Board makes strides to combat ‘zombie properties’
The land taken by eminent domain: A developer in Connecticut had land taken for a baseball stadium.
The courts compensation award:
WNPR | Hartford Loses Eminent Domain Fight, Ordered to Pay Nearly $3 Million More
The city: Bowling Green, Ohio
The city council vote: 7 to 0 to deny right of way access for a pipeline in the city
The takeaways:
The Toledo Blade | Bowling Green council votes down pipeline plan
According to the 14th Court of Appeals, No court costs and fees are not tantmount to eminent domain.
Texas Lawyer | Joe Lee Bowden v. The State of Texas, 14-14-00955-CR (TexApp Dist 10/18/2016)
How was Florida land effecively taken by regulation? By first limiting development to 1 house per acre, then 1 house per 10 acres, and finally by designating the land a bird rookery.
What’s happening with the land now?
Florida Watchdog | Family asks Florida high court to lift bird ban on their private property
The Senate IGR Interim Committee Report has a laundry list of municipal management district (MMD) reforms. Here’s what you need to know:
IGR Interim Committee Report skips specific recommendations and offers 15 broad recommendations for handling local governments:
The legislature should consider providing consistency and eliminating the possibility of variances by strengthening the uniformity in ordinance procedures and standards.
The legislature should improve transparency and find a more appropriate balance between drafting ordinances and providing ordinance information to voters by supporting reforms that provide increased transparency through best practices in Texas statutes that provide a common-sense standard in regard to the process, form, and model language.
The legislature should weigh-in and afford, at minimum, critical criteria to ensure that ballot language is not misleading by codifying the recent Texas Supreme Court decision that establishes the “definiteness and certainty” standard in the wording of the ordinances.
The legislature should take steps to ensure that when local jurisdictions are found by a court of law to have purposely included misleading chief features of an ordinance, measured through their word choice, that safeguards are provided in statutes to eliminate the burden on taxpayers challenging propositions that lack definiteness and certainty.
The legislature should consider developing a process or establishing an advisory entity that can develop model guidelines, language, and enforcement measures to ensure greater transparency and compliance with state law in ordinance development, drafting, and balloting.
The legislature should find a better balance in election contests so as to encourage greater citizen participation, while safeguarding the integrity of ordinance making by jurisdictions.
The legislature should strengthen the delicate balance between cities wishing to expand their jurisdiction and safeguarding private property rights by increasing transparency in the annexation process through greater notice requirements for impacted stakeholders.
In order to improve the annexation process and provide greater transparency and informed consent to those impacted, the legislature should consider updating the annexation process to provide guidance regarding parcels of land subject to a 3-year annexation plan.
The legislature should strengthen the annexation process by encouraging greater citizen participation from those impacted by a proposed annexation plan.
The legislature should ensure uniform structure and procedures that eliminate unnecessary and burdensome administrative requirements that impede citizen interaction in locally-driven petitions.
The legislature should build-in better statutory safeguards to facilitate greater citizen compliance with administrative petition requirements.
In order to enhance greater citizen participation and increase uniformity, the legislature should establish uniform thresholds for citizen petitions.
The legislature should consider providing basic essential information that will inform voters of the potential impact of the issuance of new fiscal obligations.
The legislature should consider the different possibilities of informing potential voters of the chief measures found in aggregate-item elections.
The term of new bond debt should not exceed the life of the capital improvements financed by bond proceeds; and unspent bond proceeds should not be used for projects other than those approved by voters at the ballot box.
Senate State Affairs Committee Interim Report offers the following recommendations for eminent domain reform: