On Tuesday, August 15, Professor Alan Weinstein was one of the three land-use law experts who discussed the Supreme Court’s latest “takings” ruling on a national webinar sponsored by the American Planning Association.  The case, Murr v. Wisconsin, saw the Court ruling 5-3 that a Wisconsin “lot merger” regulation was not an unconstitutional taking as applied to two contiguous parcels, one of which the owners wanted to sell while retaining the other. Rejecting the competing “bright-line rule” positions offered by the owners and the State of Wisconsin, Justice Kennedy announced a new multi-factor test to determine the extent of the appropriate “denominator” in takings claims involving merger provisions applied to contiguous parcels.  In his presentation, Professor Weinstein reviewed the facts and ruling in Murr, discussed the dissenting Justices’ criticisms of Kennedy’s test, and the implications of the Murr ruling both on how state and local governments regulate contiguous parcels and ways that owners of contiguous parcels may react to the ruling.

The other speakers were Nancy Stroud of the firm Lewis, Stroud & Deutsch, PL, and John Echeverria of Vermont Law School.

In addition, Professor Weinstein is currently in the top 10 % of authors on SSRN by all-time downloads.