This paper defends Israel's expropriation of property under the Absentee Property Law within the state’s pre-1967 borders on constitutional grounds, but holds that the Law’s increased use in the region of East Jerusalem is invalid under Israel's constitutional scheme. This distinction turns upon the state’s application of the Law for necessary purposes. I hold that Israel’s justification for breaching human rights explicitly protected must be based on the state’s need to preserve its foundational ideology and national purpose in times of extra-normal circumstances. Israel may act undemocratically only to the extent imperative to preserve the Jewish nation and the existence of the Jewish state for generations to come.

Portland, Oregon, is steward to a 5,126 acre wilderness park called Forest Park. The park's size and proximity to downtown make it a dominate feature of Portland's skyline. Despite its urban location the park provides respite from city life with its seventy miles of trails, which wind through stands of Douglas fir, western red cedar, and western hemlock. Portland citizens enjoy this easy access to nature as well as the park's health and environmental benefits.

Between 1845 and 1980 the Portland waterfront between southwest Washington and Clay Streets, east of Front Street, metamorphosed from wilderness to trade center, to highway, to inner-city vacant lot. No place in Portland has more graphically illustrated the rapidly changing forces of the modern age in which the city has grown. For much of its history this stretch of waterfront was mired in law suits. The struggles centered on public versus private ownership. Originally dedicated as public property, but left unimproved by the city, the waterfront was usurped by private investors. Eventually, private owners allowed their property to decay prompting the public to encourage improvements. The legal battles even became reversed as private investors sought to force the sale of the waterfront to the city. Through all the confusion of legal battles this stretch of waterfront played a central role in the development and identity of Portland. It has finally become, undisputed public territory. The tension and greed of private investment have been replaced by the lack of municipal funds for aesthetic improvement and have left this stretch of land, a potentially fine and important urban park, a vacant lot.

Theoretical literature on the politics of land use is so limited that original research into the problem was required. The drafting and enactment of Senate Bill 100 by the Fifty-seventh Session of the Oregon Legislature provided the basis for researching my premise of need equals want. The bill designated state land use planning organizational structure. The Land Use Policy Committee minutes and Legislative minutes were merged with information attained through personal interviews from a variety of participants in the drafting of the Senate Bill 100. Theoretical literature was equally available in Public Administration, Law and Land Use Planning. The Constitutions of the United States and the State of Oregon plus the Oregon Revised Statutes were fundamental in the research. The research material on the politics of land use was found by sifting through public and private records and four separate libraries: Oregon State Archives, the Oregon State Law Library, Multnomah County Law Library and Portland State University Library. Personal interviews provided valuable additional data. The politics of land use is the lengthy saga of the enactment of Senate Bill 100 (1973) by the Oregon Legislature. It is the story of the bill’s conception, conflicts and compromises. The Land Use Policy Committee (LUPC), Created and chaired by State Senator Hector Macpherson, drafted the original SB 100 in 1972, which was assigned to the Oregon Senate Environment and Land Use Committee (SELUC) in January, 1973. The LUPC bill was designed of, by and for proponents of land use planning. When the opponents to the planning concept were heard by the SELUC, need vs. want made passage of Senate Bill 100 a political impossibility. The issues that surfaced generated a series of conflicts which required political compromises. In addition to the primary conflict, need vs. want, there were provocations concerning localism vs. regionalism; economy vs. environment and who holds what reins of power. The Drafting Subcommittee of the Ad Hoc Committee of the SELUC made six significant changed in SB 100 to insure legislative enactment of the bill in 1973. The changes, while resolving most of the conflicts, still did not equate need and want, so the SELUC added a Statement of Legislative Intent, not to SB 100, but to the Senate Journal as a limit on administrative power. The last political compromise was made during the Senate Floor Debate on SB 100 when the emergency clause was removed from the bill. To all intents and purposed, need equaled want with Senate passage.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, University of the Witwatersrand. September 2016. / The cause of the transformation of agricultural land to other land uses has been investigated, especially in the Northern Service Delivery of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality within Gauteng Province. This was achieved by evaluating the processes undertaken during the review of the land use applications and what was considered by the decision makers when making decisions on land use applications in order to determine the effectiveness of the legislations and policies in protecting agricultural land from been transformed to other uses such as residential and industrial activities. The literature review undertaken in this study showed that for South Africa, and particularly the Gauteng Province to be more successful in addressing the transformation of agricultural land to other land uses, different approaches are necessary. The review of literature showed that the South African legislations are fragmented and contribute to the transformation of agricultural land. In addition, it was highlighted that the South African government’s priority is on infrastructure development which is also considered the cause of the transformation of agricultural land, and this compels government to continuously amend the planning policies in order to accommodate pressure of development. Lastly, several studies highlighted that government is also focusing on the land reform programmes which are not sustainable hence failed due to lack of support from government. The results of the investigation confirmed that there is fragmentation of legislations and operational structure resulting in conflicting mandate and inconsistent decision making. This was pointed out through the experience of the participants during the questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. Data from the questionnaires, interviews and literature review was analysed to find information in order to address the research questions. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that legislations should be amended and ensures that the administration process is simple and aligned. Key words: Transformation of agricultural land, fragmented legislations, fragmented institutions and processes. / LG2017

Since the early 1800's, many studies have recognized increased heat in urban areas, known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect, as one of the results of human modification to the natural landscape. UHI is related to differences in land surface temperature (LST) between rural areas and urban areas where factors of the built environment such as the thermodynamic capacities of materials, structural geometry, and heat generating activities cause increased storage and re-radiation of heat to the atmosphere. This thesis examines the correlation between factors of urbanization and differences in land surface temperature (LST) in the subtropical climate of Pinellas County, Florida using remote sensing techniques. It describes the spatial pattern of LST, analyzes its relationship to factors of urbanization relative to NDVI, percentage of impervious surface, and land use land cover in the study area. It also assesses the effectiveness of remote sensing as an efficient method of identifying LST patterns at the local and neighborhood level for mitigation strategies. Landsat TM thermal band imagery for three dates; April 1986, 2001 and 2009 was processed using Qin's mono-window algorithm (MWA) technique to derive LST levels. This data was compared to in-situ readings, then normalized and statistically analyzed for correlation with vegetation ratio (NDVI) and imperviousness percentages derived using linear spectral mixing/unmixing, and also with land use/land cover classification. The resulting LST spatial pattern is a gradient across the peninsular landscape, from cooler water and wetland areas to a generally warmer interior, interspersed with micro-urban heat islands (MUHIs), corresponding to urban structures and "cool-islands" of parkland and lakes. Correspondence between LST pattern and urban structures and land use demonstrates the suitability of medium resolution remote sensing data and techniques for identifying micro-urban heat islands (MUHIs) for possible mitigation. Mitigation could include relatively low-cost measures like replacement of inefficient asphalt roofs with more reflective and emissive "cool roofs," placement of "street trees" to enhance shade, and replacement of impervious pavements by permeable surfaces. The thesis concludes that Landsat TM imagery processed with the MWA provides an efficient, relatively low-cost method for locating MUHIs. Satellite remote sensing, combined with aerial photography can facilitate neighborhood level analysis for the implementation of low-cost mitigation techniques. Previous studies have demonstrated that these are successful ways to mitigate the UHI effect at the micro-scale level; lowering urban heat and saving energy, and also facilitating the reintegration of natural elements into the urban environment.

The state of Vermont faces increasing risk of costly damage from catastrophic flooding events as climate change increases the frequency of heavy rains and cumulative precipitation. In addition to increasing flood inundation risk, extreme precipitation events are leading to high rates damage from fluvial erosion—erosion caused by the force of floodwater and the materials it carries. As in all U.S. states, flood hazard governance in Vermont is shared by multiple levels of government and involves a complex compliance model that relies on local governments to regulate private property owners to achieve community, state, or federal goals. To encourage municipalities to adopt higher-standard flood regulations, the State government created higher-standard model flood hazard bylaws and has incentivized their adoption through the State Emergency Relief and Assistance Fund program. The higher standards modeled by the State apply no-fill, no-build, and an assortment of additional standards that exceed the Federal Emergency Management Association’s National Flood Insurance Program’s minimum standards. The State encourages the application of higher standards not only to the federally mapped flood hazard area but also to the State-mapped “river corridor.” Though these regulations are enforced through the local flood hazard permitting process, State floodplain managers are meant to play a substantial advisory role in their regulation. A decade after the first of these flood hazard regulations appeared in Vermont municipalities, little is known about how much encroachment still happens in flood hazard areas and how municipalities have handled permitting projects under these new controls. A better understanding of the local governance of flood hazard regulations can further inform State flood hazard governance. This study of twelve Vermont towns found in those towns a fairly high degree of conformance to local regulations but a mixed record on compliance with the State’s expectations for the permitting process. There was on average a little under one investment per town over a 4.3-year period that was significant enough to, by law, trigger a conditional permit review. Within the study sample, activity in the regulated flood hazard zone conformed to local bylaws at a rate of about 88%. However, only three of the ten projects that triggered conditional review were reviewed at the State level, as is the expectation for new, replacement, or improved structures, and the fact that none of the suspected non-conforming structures received a State-level review (and some missed local review) suggests that receiving full review will increase the rate of individual permit conformance. Interviews with State officials indicated that the State may be more interested in changing the culture of local flood hazard mitigation than in achieving perfect land use conformance. When local actions that promote access to information and the capacity to regulate are compared with a Town’s permitting compliance rate, a slight pattern emerges showing that communities that have flood regulation information available online, town-wide zoning, and a zoning administrator, are more likely to have projects be permitted by the Town and sent to the State for review. Interviews with State-employed flood managers and local floodplain administrators also suggest that additional social factors, such as whether bylaws have community “champions” and who acts as the zoning administrator, may influence the degree of community compliance. Often local authorities rely on their own discretion to regulate activity in the flood hazard area as a way of navigating tensions between regulations and private property rights, representing both a valuable point of flexibility for compliance and a potential sticking point in the State’s effort to facilitate a culture shift. Flood hazard mitigation regulation in Vermont most closely aligns with a cooperative enforcement model, which relies on long-term relationships and credible threat of enforcement (among other factors) in order to work. Because the findings show that breakdowns in the expected relationship between Town and State government clearly occur, one important approach to achieving a cultural shift would appear to be strengthening State-local relationships. This may involve increasing the State staff-to-community ratio, conducting more community visits and trainings, distributing a flood regulations enforcement manual, strengthening the capacity of regional planning agencies, and/or reducing the barriers to preparing permits for State review. Focusing on long-term relationship-building with a number of community members may help prevent the breakdown in communication that can occur as individual floodplain administrators come and go. A second strategy would continue to support the state-wide housing buyout program to mitigate inequitable outcomes and general resentment over property loss. And because the ERAF incentive program does not have any penalties that incentivize enforcement, a third beneficial approach would involve creating stronger incentives for local enforcement and compliance, such as ERAF criteria that mandates local enforcement actions and improved State-level monitoring of compliance. Yet while there may be room for strengthening flood hazard regulation enforcement, Vermont’s innovative regulations and incentives for adoption appear to be translating fairly well into local-level conformance and compliance, and could serve a model for other states.

After a 100-year history, traditional zoning practices are being challenged as a contributing factor in a number of social, heath and economic problems facing cities in the United States. In this context, form based codes have emerged as a possible alternative way for cities to guide development. Growing out of the New Urbanist movement, form based codes frequently mix uses, allow for a greater variety of housing types and encourage development that is both denser and more compact. Despite an established literature which links land-use regulations, and zoning in particular, to fiscal outcomes, the impacts that form based codes have on public finance in the growing number of cities which have adopted them has yet to be fully investigated. The goal of this research is to examine if and how form based codes alter property tax and sales tax generation in the cities that adopt them. To examine the relationship between form based codes and public finance a series of two multivariate regression analyses were conducted using historic property and sales tax data. The first regression analysis was performed using the full list of 122 cities which have adopted form based standards from between 1984 and 2009. In an attempt to limit the diversity of sample cities and improve the ability to generalize results a second regression analysis was performed using a smaller list of 47 cities with populations between 50,000 and 200,000 thousand that had adopted form based standards between 1984 and 2009. The results of the first analysis established that a statistically significant positive relationship existed between the presence of form based standards which were implemented citywide and observed property tax revenue both in total and on a per capita basis. Similarly, a statistically significant positive relationship between the presence of form based standards implemented at the neighborhood level and total property tax revenue was observed. No significant relationship was found between the presence of neighborhood level standards and per capita property tax revenue. Further no significant relationship was found between form based standards and sales tax revenue. In general, these findings support the theory that form based codes and the development they allow, does alter the amount of property tax a city collects, but does not support the theory that form based codes affect sales tax revenues by facilitating the development of a more conducive urban, walkable environment or for any other reason. The results of the second regression analysis using data from cities with populations between 50,000 and 200,000 showed a significant positive relationship between the presences of citywide form based standards and total property tax revenue and per capita property tax revenue. Analysis of sales tax data showed a positive relationship between total sales tax revenue and the presence of form based standards at the neighborhood level. No other significant relationship between form based standards and sales tax revenue was observed. Similar, to analysis of all cities, the results for cities with population of 50,000 to 200,000 support the theory that form based codes and the development they allow does alter the amount of property tax a city collects, and that form based codes do not affect sales tax revenues except in the case of codes adopted at the neighborhood level, where a generally positive relationship was identified at the 10% confidence interval. Following this multivariate regression analysis, a case study of Saratoga Springs, New York was completed. Located in the far reaches of the Albany Metropolitan Area, Saratoga Springs developed as a popular tourist destination in the mid 1800’s. After experiencing economic decline in line with that of its peer cities in the mid to late 20th century, Saratoga Springs has experience a boom and now boast some of the highest home values in Upstate New York. In 2003 the city was one of the first in country to adopt form based standards, which have guided a significant amount of development in the city’s historic downtown as the city re-emerged as a popular tourist destination. Since the adoption of form based standards in Saratoga Springs both property tax and sales tax receipts have doubled.

There is a low supply of the missing middle housing types (MMH) in walkable urban core neighborhoods. That is, a variety of compact low- to mid-rise housing in walkable areas that are accessible to entertainment, recreational and other amenities. The largest demographic, the millennials, followed by the baby boomers, prefer the MMH types. The MMH types is a new name for a variety of compact housing types that existed in traditional neighborhoods in urban areas pre-World War II. However, due to changes in housing preferences after World War II, the requisite land use and zoning changes facilitated larger single-family homes phasing out the MMH types. Efforts to reintroduce the MMH types is these areas are met with opposition. This research investigates increasing the supply of the MMH types in walkable urban core neighborhoods. The literature review reveals, prior to this one, no academic study at this level was done to understand how to increase the supply of MMH types in these areas. This research explores the views of stakeholders in urban planning and various professions related to housing and the MMH types in the Tampa Bay Area, to better understand the issues involved in the low supply of the MMH types in urban core areas. The data for this qualitative research was guided by a grounded theory methodology (Corbin & Strauss, 2014) and was derived from thirty-nine semi-structured interviews with stakeholders to find out what factors inhibit and ways to improve the supply of the MMH types in the Tampa Bay area.

Oregon's land use planning system is often recognized as having been successful in its goals of limiting urban sprawl and protecting resource lands from development. However, it is difficult to quantify the impact of these regulations, because we cannot observe what would have happened in the absence of land use planning. The three essays in this dissertation explore the effects of Oregon's land use planning regulations on development patterns in the state, and also examine how the land use regulations are administered at the local level. The first essay in this dissertation asks if Oregon’s land use regulations have successfully restricted sprawl outside of urban areas. Urban containment policies, including Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), are a common tool used by city planners to promote compact development. We analyze how well UGBs do in containing development using fine-scale GIS data on cities in Oregon. Earlier studies on UGBs yield mixed results, with some authors finding no effects of UGBs on housing market variables and urbanization rates and others finding significant effects. A challenge in measuring these effects is that the location of the UGB is unlikely to be an exogenous determinant of a land parcel's value for development. The panel structure of our dataset allows us to estimate the UGB's effect on the probability of development using a difference-in-difference estimator. This estimator controls for time-invariant unobservable variables and common temporal effects among parcels, thereby mitigating the potential for biased estimates due to the endogeneity of the UGB's location. We also pursue a novel approach to controlling for time-varying factors inspired by regression discontinuity design. We find that UGBs are effective in containing development in many of the Oregon cities we examine, although there are some cities in which development rates are the same inside and outside of the UGB. Our results show that we would greatly overstate the effects of the UGBs were we to evaluate cross-sectional differences in development rates, as is common in previous studies. Besides the creation of UGBs, another goal of Oregon's land use regulations is to encourage citizen involvement in the planning process. The second essay in this dissertation examines the use of voter annexation as a form of citizen involvement. More specifically, this paper addresses the following two questions. First, does voter annexation cause changes in city demographics and characteristics? Second, assuming that a city votes for amendments and annexations to the UGB and city limits, what factors impact the outcome of the vote? We analyze the first question using the method of propensity score matching, which has not previously been used to explore this topic. This allows us to account for the endogeneity that stems from the fact that cities with certain characteristics may be more likely to use voter annexation in the first place. The second question, which is only evaluated for cities that employ voter annexation, is analyzed with the use of the logit model. Oregon's land use regulations must be approved at the state level, but are administered locally. Therefore, unlike past studies, we are able to isolate specific differences in the way the program is administered, and are not evaluating the stringency of the program itself. Previous studies have found that voter-approved annexation causes developers to provide more public goods and increase the scale of development, thereby shifting community demographics. Once a land use decision is on the ballot, it is also noted that cities that are whiter, wealthier, and more liberal are more likely to pass referenda that promote preservation and restrict development. For the first question, we compare specific demographic indicators between the two groups of cities. Contrary to the results of previous studies, we find no effect of voter annexation on these indicators. Our results for the second question indicate that the characteristics of the voting process itself impact the outcome more than community characteristics, which also differs from the results of previous analyses. The third essay in this dissertation is an extension of the first essay, and focuses on the impact of Oregon's land use regulations on the protection of land in riparian corridors and land that has been designated for exclusive farm use (EFU). Riparian corridors are protected with the use of Oregon Goal 5, which focuses on development of natural resource lands inside of UGBs, while EFU land is protected with the use of Oregon Goal 3, which focuses on protection of agricultural land at the county level. The LCT dataset that was used in the first essay is also used in this essay. EFU land by definition has no probability of development in the initial period. Land located in riparian corridors may also face different initial levels of protection than other land. We deal with this endogeneity, and also account for location inside or outside of a UGB, with the use of the difference -in-difference-in-differences estimator. This is an approach that has not been used to explore the effect of Oregon's land use regulations on these land categories. Most of the past studies that have examined the impact of land use planning on development of agricultural land in Oregon have relied on analysis of general trends and indicators, and have concluded that land use regulations have been successful in protecting this land. Previous research on riparian zone protection has focused on protection of aquatic wildlife, and for the most part has not examined the protection of riparian corridors inside of UGBs. The limited studies that have studied the effect of these regulations in UGBs have determined them to be effective in slowing, but not stopping, development in these areas. Overall, we find that Oregon's land use regulations have been successful in protecting both county level agricultural land and riparian corridors located inside of UGBs from development. It is less clear whether these regulations have protected riparian corridors located inside of UGBs from other anthropogenic uses. / Graduation date: 2012