Developers and Property Owners Benefit From Permit Extensions
Many real estate developers and property owners got a significant break from the General Assembly late last year, when legislation passed to extend the expiration date of a broad…
Regulating Waterfront Property in Rhode Island: Ownership Does Not Mean Control
If you own waterfront property in Rhode Island and think you can do with it what you will, so long as you observe zoning ordinances like everyone else, think…
Balancing Waterfront Property Rights: A Tale of Two States
A recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision on waterfront property rights dramatically illustrates the different approaches taken by the high courts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts in weighing the…
Moving the Ocean Away From Waterfront Property Owners
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court spoke in an important waterfront property rights case, and whenever that happens, Rhode Island, being the Ocean State, had better listen. See Stop the…
Riparian Rights in Little Rhody and Beyond
Rhode Island is the Ocean State, and if anyone doubts the interest of Rhode Islanders in waterfront property rights, perhaps getting caught in this Holiday weekend’s beach traffic will…
Is “Right to Dry” Wrong to Try?
With near double digit national unemployment, the collapse of the housing market throughout the country, and soaring state deficits, you might think that State government would be too busy…
EPA’s All Appropriate Inquiries Rule: Why It May Be Inappropriate For Your Transaction
In preparing to give a seminar on environmental issues in real estate and business transactions at the upcoming Rhode Island Bar Association Annual Meeting, I decided I had to…
The Land Only Condominium: Little Known and Less Understood
Some time ago I was walking a development project with the chief surveyor for a large engineering company, showing him the unit boundaries I wanted established for a client’s…
Cesspools: Phasing In the Phase Out
In the best of times, it’s hard to find anyone saying anything good about cesspools. And this is hardly the best of times for cesspools. Not Much Good To Say…
Cape Wind and the Indians: When Everyone Has Rights, No One Has Rights
The Cape Wind project to construct 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound was recently approved by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Salazar over the objections of two Native American…