URBS/PLSI 513 GEOG 654 "Politics, Law & the Urban Environment"
R.T. LeGates Fall, 1997
Office HSS 265 Office Hrs. TTH 1- 12; TH 4:00 - 5:00
Phone (415) 338-61786 X (415) 338-2391
e-mail dlegates@sfsu.edu
Term Project
30% of the course grade in "Politics, Law, and the Urban Environment" will be based on a class project. Each student is required to do one of the following:
(a) a moot court exercise (there will be two moot courts in the course);
(b) a book report on a book related to the course;
(c) an policy report on a topic related to the course.
Moot courts will take place on October 28 and December 2
Book and Policy Reports are due December 2 and students will make oral reports on them on Dec 2 and 9
Papers which are not turned in at the December 2 class session will be marked down 1/3 of a letter grade; not
turned in by the December 9 class session by 2/3 of a letter grade. Students who do not turn in a paper by the time grades are due will be marked down one full letter grade for the course.
Following is a description of the projects. Students who would like to participate in the first moot court should make that decision by next class session. Others should decide on their project within one week.
A. Moot Court Problems
I will select plaintiffs, defendants, and judges; meet with them individually to describe what is required in the moot court; and show them examples of briefs and opinions from prior years.
Plaintiff's and Defendants's will prepare written briefs based exclusively on class readings (no library research is necessary), 8 pages single spaced maximum length; make enough Xeroxed copies for each moot court participant and me; and orally argue the case. Oral argument will take place as follows:
P's opening statement (uninterrupted): 5 minutes
D's opening statement (uninterrupted): 5 minutes
P's first cause of action (w/ judges questions): 10 minutes
D's first cause of action (w/ judges questions): 10 minutes
P's second cause of action (w/ judges questions): 10 minutes
D's second cause of action (w/ judges questions): 10 minutes
Recess: 5 minutes
Judges final questions: 5 minutes
P's closing statement (uninterrupted): 5 minutes
D's closing statement (uninterrupted): 5 minutes
Judges are responsible for vigorous questioning during the trial.. It is not sufficient for the judges to passively listen to the case or to ask for clarification of the lawyer’s positions. Judges should press lawyers on both sides of the case to explain exactly what they are arguing and justify it. To do a good job of questioning the lawyers, the judges will have to carefully review the briefs, re-read applicable cases, and prepared questions for the lawyers in advance. I would like to meet with the judges and go over the questions they plan to ask, in writing, in advance of the moot court trial. The judges should divide responsibility for which judge is to take lead responsibility questioning which plaintiff during oral argument, but all judges may participate in questioning all lawyers. The judges should confer about how the case is to be decided after the case has been argued. Separate, individual written opinions are due one week after trial--one three page single spaced (separate) opinion per judge. Judges will describe their decisions orally in class.
Moot Court Hypothetical # 1: Playmate Theaters vs. City of Pueblo Escondido
Pueblo Escondido, California is a charming town near Northridge. Most of the town is zoned R-1 and consists of single family detached residences. There are also schools, churches, and parks within the R-1 zone. There is a C-1 zone in the downtown with stores and other commercial and governmental uses. About 20 block 5% of Pueblo Escondido lies across a freeway on the South side of town zoned MU-1 (mixed use). Apartment houses, warehousing, and auto-malls are permitted in the MU-1 zone as well as the city dump. There are a number of vacant lots and empty buildings for sale in the MU-1 zone. Most buildings in Pueblo Escondido are of recent construction and meet modern earthquake standards, but about 100 older buildings were constructed from unreinforced masonry.
Pueblo Escondido has a number of problems. Unemployment is high, some retail stores in the downtown have closed, crime is on the increase. Playmate Theaters Inc. purchases an existing movie theater next to city hall, puts up a 100 square foot neon sign showing a scantily-clad woman, and begins showing x-rated movies. Then an earthquake strikes damaging 10 of the city's 100 unreinforced masonry buildings, including Playmate's theater. Without examining studies of the impact adult theaters have on communities, the city council passes the following ordinance:
"Whereas preservation of public safety, preservation of property values, promotion of retail trade, maintenance of aesthetic charm, and preservation of a high quality of life are important to the citizens of Pueblo Escondido;
And whereas adult movie theaters negatively affect the above cherished values;
It is therefore enacted that:
1. No person or corporation may repair or reconstruct any unreinforced masonry building in Pueblo Escondido until the city completes a study and adopts a revised building code. [The city projects that this process will take five years];
2. Adult movie theaters may only be located within the MU-1 zone of Pueblo Escondido.
3. Signs on adult movie theaters may be no larger than 16 square feet, may not be illuminated, and may only state the name of the theater, its hours of operation, and the name of films currently playing.
Playmate theaters sues Pueblo Escondido attacking all three parts of the ordinance. Playmate Theaters Inc. vs. City of Pueblo Escondido will be heard in Room 285 of the San Francisco County Moot Court at 6:10 on October 28.
P's draft brief due: September 30
P's final brief due w/ 10 copies: October7
D's draft brief due: October 14
D's final brief due w/ 10 copies: October 21
Moot court oral argument: October 28
Judges Opinion (3 pages single spaced): November 11
Moot Court Hypothetical # 2 Clerics of St. Viator vs. Smallton
Smallton, California is a small community located in California's gold country about 50 miles north and east of Sacramento. During gold rush days Smallton was an important mining town with an assay office, Wells Fargo depot, stores, hotels, saloons, brothels, and houses.
After the gold rush Smallton languished. A little dredge mining, farming and lumber operations supported a shrunken and increasingly elderly population. A significant Hispanic farmworker population settled in an area of ugly miners sheds across the South fork of the Yuba River called Dogtown. All of the Dogtown buildings are so close to the river that their basements flood in the spring, creating stagnant standing water which may carry disease. For this reason the Dogtown housing violates current housing codes. Costs to fix the housing are prohibitive. Some of the Dogtown brothels have allegedly reopened. The narrow Dogtown streets are difficult for fire trucks to negotiate creating a risk of fire in the area. About Smallton's only claim to fame was a celebrated Klu Klux Klan rally in the late l960's.
With the growth of government in Sacramento, tourism in the Sierras, and relocation of a number of computer firms to Smallton in the late l980's Smallton began to grow. When a new airport opened in l993 Smallton boomed again. Prices of the Victorian houses in the center of the city have doubled in the last 4 years. Government workers and entrepreneurs involved in tourism have moved in. More Hispanic farmworkers have crowded into Dogtown seeking employment in town.
Now in l997 there are virtually no housing vacancies in Smallton. Five proposals to develop affordable housing have failed to obtain necessary land use approvals form the city council. Parking in the downtown has become a significant problem. Schools are on double session. A report to the city manager says that the cities antiquated sewer system is carrying 120% of capacity. Residents don't like the fast food restaurants Appearing among the old red brick gold rush buildings.
The Clerics of St. Viator have operated a monastery and training facility for priests in a site one quarter mile west of the Smallton airport since l947. Their proposal to offer this land to the Placer county housing development corporation for development of a 500 unit racially-integrated low and moderate income housing project has touched off a firestorm of controversy in Smallton and a move to draft a comprehensive growth management plan for the city.
Attendance at the city council meeting called to consider the new growth management ordinance was so large that the mayor limited comments on the plan to 5 minutes each instead of the half hour often accorded to speakers.
After the hearings the Smallton City Council unanimously passed the following ordinance:
Whereas balanced and orderly growth is essential to the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the citizens of
Smallton;
And whereas the citizens of Smallton are opposed to ugly, dangerous, and immoral slums;
And whereas careful study of land use in Smallton has determined that low density land use is essential to air
traffic and fire safety, improved health, morality and welfare.
Therefore, be it enacted that:
1. All land within one mile west of the Smallton airport is rezoned A-1-40 (one house per four acres).
2. A five year program of concentrated code enforcement will be applied to Dogtown. Buildings which are not brought up to current code must be demolished.
3. A permanent population cap is hereby established for Smallton at the current population level minus the
number of houses removed from the housing stock during the next five years.
Smallton has a vigorous program to provide federal Section 8 rent supplement payments to eligible low income households to permit them to rent market rate units in Smallton. The city declares its intention to apply for many more Section 8 subsidies in the future, though whether or not they will obtain the certificates is not clear.
California rural legal assistance is bringing suit on behalf of the Clerics of St. Viator and five Hispanic residents of Dogtown. They are challenging the constitutionality of the growth management ordinance on federal and state constitutional grounds. Assume that a California supreme court case adopts New Jersey law. Clerics of S. Viator vs. Smallton is set for trial on December 2 of the Placer county courthouse at 6:10.
P's draft brief due: October 28 D's final brief due w/ 10 copies: November 25
P’s final brief due: November 11 Moot court oral argument on: December 2
D’s draft brief due: November 18 Judges opinion (3 pages single spaced) due: At final exam,
December 16
Politics, Law, and the Urban Environment Book Reports
Politics, law and the urban environment book reports should be 10 pages double-spaced. They should be prepared using a computer in carefully edited first and final drafts. The final draft should be spell checked so that the final product is free of spelling errors. Book reports should identify who the author is, describe the books contents, relate the book to the subject matter of this course, indicate how the book adds to things we have studied, fills in gaps, or raises new questions, and provide a personal assessment of the book. It is better to focus on major themes in the book in some depth than to cover all of the book's contents thinly. Following is a list of books for book reports.
Babcock, Richard and Charles L. Siemon, The Zoning Game Revisited
Baldassare, Mark, Trouble in Paradise
Castells, Manuel, The Informational City
Castells, Manuel and Peter Hall, Technopoles of the World
Costonis, John, Icons and Aliens
Cranz, Galen, The Politics of Park Design
Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Davis, Michael, City of Quartz
DeLeon, Richard, Left Coast City
Frieden, Bernard and Lynne Sagalyn, Downtown Inc.
Garreau, Joel, Edge City
Hall, Peter, Great Planning Disasters
Hartman, Chester, The Transformation of San Francisco
Hayden, Dolores, Redesigning the American Dream
Jacobs, Alan, Great Streets
Jacobs, Alan, Looking at Cities
Jacobs, Alan, Making City Planning Work
David Kirp, Our Town: Race, Housing and the Soul of Suburbia
McCamant, Kathryn and Charles Durrett, Cohousing
Politics, Law, and Urban Environment Policy Reports
Politics, law and the urban environment policy reports should be 10 pages double-spaced typed. They should be prepared using a computer in carefully edited first and final drafts. The final draft should be spell checked so that it is free of spelling errors and should include case citations, bibliographic references, and footnotes. Reports may be based on a library research involving policy materials, legal research based on the "legal research" materials handed out in class, interviews, review of unpublished legal or other documents, or a combination of these and other techniques from URBS/PLSI research methods, data analysis, and policy analysis courses. Papers which are prepared jointly for this class and one of these methodology courses are encouraged….so long as you inform both me and the other instructor and plan on doing work equivalent of two full papers.
The written report should begin by placing the policy issue in a general framework based on your background research. Then it should clearly describe the specific situation and nature of the issue. The heart of the report should focus on the controversy and alternative policy solutions. Who are the stakeholders in the controversy? Who wants what and why? What could planners or lawyers do to help resolve this controversy? What is the planning process involving the issue like? What were key stages through which the controversy passed. Finally give your own opinion of the situation. Do you agree with one side or the other? What should be done?
Following is a list of suggested topics for the politics, law, and urban environment policy report. If you are interested in reporting on another issue related to this course check with me to make sure it meets course requirements.
Clinton administration policy regarding toxic clean up, brownfields, Empowerment zones/enterprise communities.
Demolition and rebuilding of earthquake-damaged S.F. Freeways (The Embarcadero and/or the Central Freeway.
The Presidio Plan
The proposed Mission Bay Development
Conversion and development of new live/work space
5. The Petaluma Plan.
6. Bart extensions (to the S.F. airport and elsewhere).
7. County congestion management plans.
A general plan (any Bay Area city).
S.F. bicycle planning and policy
9. Development fees and exactions.
10. BRIDGE Housing's low and moderate income housing developments.
Redevelopment in S.F.
Plans to develop the 3rd Street corridor in San Francisco
12. Empowerment zones/enterprise communities/enterprise zones.
14. "Edge cities" (e.g. Pleasanton).
15. Proposals for "sustainable " development in S.F., the Bay Area, and elsewhere.
16. State and regional level planning in Oregon, New Jersey, Florida and elsewhere
17. An environmental impact report process.
Ballot box planning.
Affordable housing for the Bay Area
19. The S.F. Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC).
20. The California Coastal Commission.
21. Jobs/housing balance in the Bay area.
22. Military base closures and reuse.
A neighborhood development issue.
A topic of your choosing (with my permission).
Politics, Law, and Urban Environment policy reports are due December 2. Students should be prepared to give a 10 minute oral report on their papers.