Welcome to the Future!
Whether short term rentals can operate in HOAs has been an ongoing legislative issue. A Court in North Carolina took a traditional approach and drew a clear line that said short term rentals can operate if the original covenants contained NO provisions to prevent short term rentals. The court denied an HOAs ability to amend the covenants to deny short term rentals.
McDougald v. White Oak Plantation Homeowners Ass’n, 904 S.E.2d 180 (N.C. Ct. App. 2024)
An Oklahoma lawmakers says 3D printed homes in Oklahoma could be built for as little as $14 per square foot. An Oklahoma State University structural engineering professor says 3D printed houses are built faster, with less waste, and save on labor costs.
Mighty Buildings, a 3D-printing construction company based in California, says that these homes are “stronger and lighter than concrete and resistant to mold, water, mildew, and insects and is created to weather a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a Category 5 hurricane.”
Opponents to a proposed data center in Reno, Nevada say that no public hearing was held. The City says it was an administrative decision and thus no hearing was necessary.
Opponents say city ordinances treat data centers like warehouses and that data centers are “unique in their impact to residential communities, the electric grid, and natural resources use, and therefore need to be considered under an ordinance that caters to their unique impacts.”
Route Fifty | Effort to block Reno data center offers glimpse of increasingly thorny issue in Nevada
Add South Dakota to the list of states that are working to prohibit the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. In 2024, 59% of South Dakota voters rejected the state’s Land Owner’s Bill of Rights because the proposition would have made it easier to build CO2 pipelines. Like Isaac Newton surmised, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, which brings us to SB 49 (2025 | SD). Legislators want to prohibit the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines, wind power, and solar power.
Sioux Land | CO2 lines could be barred from eminent-domain use
California’s AB 62 (2025 | CA) seeks to right the wrong of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Newsom in 2024. The veto message stated that the bill is impossible to implement as it concerns nonexistent state agencies.
A new legal case is nearing the U.S. Supreme Court and is being heralded by conservative lawyers as the next Kelo. Let’s meet Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency. According to the Institute for Justice, “New York’s courts said it was perfectly fine for a county redevelopment agency to condemn his property and give it to a rival developer to use as a private parking lot.”
HB 243 (2025 | TX) would allow for the use of eminent domain to take infrastructure related property. Infrastructure property is defined in the bill to include property related to financial services and energy that has foreign ownership whether public or private.
Macon, Ga. bought an abandoned hotel for $4.5. million at a bankruptcy sale. Are they rebuilding? no. The city intends to blow it up at midnight on New Years. Is blowing up vacant buildings the new fireworks?
Cities in California are prohibiting the use of AI software to set rent prices. local elected officials say that the software inflates prices. Federal prosecutors say the practice amounts to “an unlawful information-sharing scheme.” In August, The Department of Justice and the attorney generals of eight states — California, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington — filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, the leading rental pricing platform based in Texas. Here comes the legislation and the lawsuits…
Route Fifty | Landlords are using AI to raise rents — and cities are starting to push back
We’ve talked about agrivoltaics for a couple years now, maybe longer, time flies when you’re having fun. Farmers in Arkansas are discovering new dual use of their land by growing crops or raising livestock all while also having solar arrays on their farm land. A farmer in Arkansas talked about how agrivoltaics allow him to offset the cost of raising his herd of 800 sheep, making the business far more profitable than the cotton farming he used to do in Texas.
Governing | Can Agrivoltaics Grow With the Arkansas Delta Solar Boom?