There are many different sources available to you to conduct land use planning research in the Taggart Law Library. If you have more questions or need more help after looking at this research guide, please consult a librarian to assist you with your research.
Secondary Sources
Treatises: Legal treatises, or books, are often a good way to begin researching a legal topic. These treatises can be one volume or multi-volume, and may be updated with pocket parts or as part of a looseleaf service. They provide a discussion of the law in that area and can give you citations to cases, statutes, and regulations, as well as references to other research materials.
A few of the treatises on land use planning available at the Taggart Law Library include:
American Land Planning Law, 2003 rev. ed (updated with pocket parts). Norman Williams, Jr. KF 5698.W54 2003—Law North
Anderson’s American Law of Zoning, 4th ed (updated with pocket parts). Kenneth H. Young. KF 5698.A85 1996—Law North
Current Trends and Practical Strategies for Land Use Law and Zoning, Patricia E. Salkin, ed. KF 5698.C87 2004—Law North
Land Use Law, 5th ed (updated with pocket parts). Daniel R. Mandelker. KF 5698.M265 2003—Law North
Land Use Planning and Development Regulation Law, 2nd ed. Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer and Thomas E. Roberts. KF 5692.J84 2007—Law Reserve
Zoning Law and Practice, 4th ed (updated with pocket parts). E.C. Yokley. KF 5698.Y66 1978—Law North
Browsing the Stacks: Sometimes by browsing the stacks in a particular area, you can find something better than what you were originally looking for! Here are the call numbers and locations of some land use planning subjects:
Call No.
Subject
Location
KF 5599
Eminent domain—United States
Law North
KF 5692—KF 5700.5
Land use—law and legislation— United States
Zoning law—United States
Law North
KFO 458
Land use—law and legislation— Ohio
Zoning law— Ohio
Law South
Encyclopedias: Legal encyclopedias provide general overviews of legal topics and references to other research materials. These encyclopedias will have a subject index to help you find entries by topic. For example, if you wanted to look up the topic “Land-Use Planning” in the index, it might lead you to the encyclopedia’s article “ Public Lands” or “Eminent Domain,” which you could then look up in the appropriate encyclopedia volume.
Taggart Law Library has two popular national legal encyclopedias:
American Jurisprudence, 2nd ed. (AmJur2d) 2 copies—Reference and Law North (also available on Lexis and Westlaw)
Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)—Law North (also available on Westlaw)
There are also encyclopedia sets available for many states if your research focus is state-specific. Ohio Jurisprudence (OJur), for example, is an Ohio legal encyclopedia. State encyclopedias can be found in the state materials section on the south side of the library.
A.L.R. Annotations: Experts in a particular area of the law write the annotations, or articles, found in American Law Reports. They usually focus on a very narrow area of the law and can provide case citations and references to other secondary sources. Annotations can be found topically using the index or from citations found in other secondary sources. Looking up the topic “Land Use Control” in the index, for example, would lead you to 123 ALR 5th 349, an annotation titled “Validity, Construction, and Application of Adequate Public Facilities Statutes or Ordinances.”
A.L.R. Annotations are located in Law South and are also available on Lexis and Westlaw.
Journal Articles
Articles from legal journals and law reviews can also be helpful in explaining an area of the law and providing research references. Articles can often be more current and more narrowly focused than books. For example, on the earlier topic of “Land Use,” the article “Contemporary Developments in Environmental and Land Use Law” from the Fall 2004 issue of The Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law might be helpful.
How do I find journal articles on my topic?
There is usually a two-step process to finding journal articles:
- Use a print or online index to find citations to articles by topic.
- Go to a print or online journal article to get the full text of the article.
Print Journal Indexes:
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (Beige in color): Articles indexed by subject and author from 1886-present; citations only-Law North
Current Law Index (CLI—Red & black in color): Articles indexed by subject, author, and title from 1980-present; citations only-Law North
Online Journal Indexes:
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books: 1918-Present (Same as print version above)
LegalTrac (Online version of Current Law Index; citations and some full text of articles from legal periodicals from 1980-present)
Where do I go to get the full text of articles?
Bound Periodicals and Law Reviews: Shelved in alphabetical order by journal title on the north side of the library
Law Reserve: The most current issues of our periodicals are kept on reserve. If the article is recent and you can’t find it on the shelves, ask at the Circulation Desk.
HeinOnline: Full text of law reviews and journals; coverage varies by title—available at the law library from the Library Subscription Services web page
JSTOR: Scholarly journal archive featuring full text page images of articles from journals in history, political science, sociology, and many other disciplines; coverage varies by title—available through the Library Subscription Services web page
Land Use Law Periodicals: There are several periodicals dealing with land use issues. Some of these titles are listed below, with the links to the law library’s holdings.
Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law: publication of Florida State University
Journal of the American Planning Association
Urban Law Annual: publication of Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Urban Lawyer: Quarterly publication of the ABA Section on Local Government Law
Zoning and Planning Law Report: Monthly publication from West that summarizes and analyzes major cases
Primary Sources
Case Law: Sometimes you might want to read cases to find out how the courts have dealt with your land use planning topic.
How do I find cases dealing with my topic?
Secondary Sources : As mentioned earlier, many secondary sources provide case citations. Examples include treatises, legal encyclopedias, ALR annotations, and journal articles.
West Digests : A tool to help you find cases by subject. They are arranged by predefined topics and subtopics and there are index volumes with each digest set to help you access these topics.
For example, if you looked up “Land Use” in a West digest index, it could lead you to the topic of “Eminent Domain.” You could then go to the appropriate volume of the digest (topics are arranged alphabetically) to find that topic. “Eminent Domain” is further divided into subtopics that are called key numbers. West key numbers will have a key symbol next to the number of the subtopics that looks something like this:
2
Key number 2 under “Eminent Domain,” for example, deals with what constitutes a taking as well as distinguishing between police and other powers. You could go directly to that key number in the digest and find short summaries of cases, as well as case citations.
Because there are different types of courts and jurisdictions, there are different digest sets, including:
- State digests : West digests for individual states located with state materials (Law South)
- Supreme Court Digest : Supreme Court cases (Law South)
- Federal digests : Only federal cases (Law South)
- Decennial Digests : West-reported state and federal cases in all 50 states (Law South)
West digest sets can also help you find a case by name, such as Kelo v. New London. They normally have a Table of Cases volume (or volumes) where you can search by case name in alphabetical order.
Online Sources :
- Court Web Sites: More and more courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, are now providing their opinions on their official web sites. This can be a good source for finding recent cases, but coverage of past cases is probably limited.
- LEXIS and Westlaw: Cases can be found in these online databases by citation, by party name, or by using various search strategies.
- Casemaker: Online database of opinions from federal and selected state courts (including Ohio). Can be accessed for free by students who are Ohio State Bar Association members by using your last name and member number. Linked on the Library Subscription Services page and also available at http://www.ohiobar.org/Members/Pages/CaseMaker.aspx
Statutes
United States Code (USC): Arranged topically with 50 titles, there are two annotated versions of the United States Code, United States Code Annotated (USCA—burgundy in color) and United States Code Service (USCS—black). They are produced by different publishers and can differ in the annotations they provide, so it’s a good idea to check both sets.
Some statutes dealing with land use issues can be found in Titles 30 and 43. Other statutes may be found elsewhere—use the index volumes at the end of the set to find what you need, or there are volumes listing acts by popular name (National Historic Preservation Act, etc.) We keep two copies of both sets in the Law South stacks.
State codes : Annotated state codes work very much like the federal codes, but may have a different topical organization. For example, in Ohio, statutes dealing with township zoning are contained in Chapter 519 of the Ohio Revised Code. The Taggart Law Library has state codes for all 50 states in the state materials section on the south side.
Online sources : The U.S. Code and state codes can be found online in various places. LEXIS and Westlaw offer annotated codes, while unannotated versions can be found elsewhere. An excellent online source for recent legislation and Congressional information is the Thomas web site, http://thomas.loc.gov, which is maintained by the Library of Congress.
Regulations: Administrative regulations are very similar to statutes, except they are produced by administrative agencies (e.g. the Environmental Protection Agency—EPA) instead of legislatures. There are two main sources for federal administrative regulations:
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Includes only final regulations and arranges them by agency and subject order, much like the United States Code. Regulations concerning public lands, for example, are contained in Title 43 of the CFR. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.108 and available online at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ecfr
Federal Register (FR): Includes proposed and final regulations as well as public notices in chronological order. The Federal Register is also the place to find agency contact information and an agency’s description of why it did what it did when issuing a new regulation. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.107 and available online from 1994-present at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html. Exact page images of the Federal Register from 1936-2000 are also available on HeinOnline.
Selected Links to Land Use Planning Websites
When using the Internet for research, be sure to carefully evaluate the websites you are using to determine how authoritative they are and any potential bias they may have on the topic you are researching.
ABA Section of State and Local Government Law —Contains abstracts of articles in recent issues of The Urban Lawyer, as well as other information related to land use. http://www.abanet.org/statelocal/home.html
American Planning Association (APA)—“ A nonprofit public interest and research organization committed to urban, suburban, regional, and rural planning.” http://www.planning.org/
Environmental Law Reporter (available through Library Subscription Services page)—Current awareness tool of the Environmental Law Institute that features federal, state, and international materials. http://www.elr.info/welcome.cfm
Federal Agency Websites—
- Department of the Interior: http://www.doi.gov/
- Bureau of Land Management:http://www.blm.gov/
- Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/
- Department of Housing and Urban Development: http://www.hud.gov/
Land Use Law —Website maintained by Prof. Daniel Mandelker of the Washington Univ. School of Law that contains articles, cases, ordinances, statutes, plans, and other supplementary materials related to land use law, as well as many helpful links. http://law.wustl.edu/landuselaw/
Law about…Land Use— Overview of land use law produced by Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute (LII). Links to federal and state statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions, and other resources. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Land_use
Urban Land Institute (ULI)— A nonprofit research and education organization whose mission is to “provide responsible leadership in the use of land to enhance the total environment.” http://www.uli.org/
