Rebuked Appraisers Reborn as Real Estate Agents

In 2007, a mortgage lender flagged the work of veteran Florida home appraiser Jerome Woolf for review, a process that often leads to an appraiser losing a lender’s business — a potentially disastrous financial hit for a small businessman like Woolf. Read more

The Appraisal Bubble

In 2004, years before plummeting real estate values turned Fort Myers, Florida, into a top five foreclosure capital, appraiser Mike Tipton faced a dilemma. Read more

Outsiders Target Indian Land for Risky Business

Deep in the foothills, miles above California’s Sacramento Valley, the 640-acre home of the Cortina Band of Wintun Indians lies empty except for six houses, a graveyard, and the spot where the band’s ceremonial roundhouse once stood. Read more

Town Bypasses Normal Channels to Aid Major Development

Talbot County officials weren’t enamored of the town of Trappe’s desire to build a major housing development, so they twice turned down the Eastern Shore hamlet’s efforts to upgrade local sewer and water capacity, in 2004 and 2005. And theoretically, that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. Read more

Government Layoffs Spark Debate Over Zoning, Development

On the surface, the consolidation of planning departments in Worcester County, Maryland, seems a reasonable response to a recession-fueled drop in home sales and new construction. But the timing of the cuts, coming amid a major rewrite of development policies for one of the East Coast’s premier beach-front communities, is drawing suspicion from environmentalists and… Read more

‘Smart Growth’ Goals Frustrated By Local Authorities

In a pasture, along a tree-lined road, a small herd of hefty black-and-white striped “Oreo cows” — more formally known as Belted Galloways — graze near the entrance to a housing development widely regarded as one of the few examples of “smart growth” on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Read more

With Development Pressure Off, Townships and Open Spacers Flex Their Dollars

When DeLuca Homes bought 215 acres of farmland in central Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in the late 1990s, it drew up plans for Estates at Sugarmill… Read more

Residents and Developers Battle to a Draw in Bucks County

When the bullet smashed through the living room window of Rick Patt’s Bucks County farmhouse, he was asleep. He didn’t hear the gunshot. He didn’t… Read more

The Curative Challenge

If land planners in Buckingham Township in central Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had their way, the Village of Buckingham Springs, a 151-acre age-restricted modular home community,… Read more

Major Developer Faces Foreclosure or Bankruptcy

The largest private landowner in Loudoun County, Virginia, Greenvest LC — the focus of a series of bruising development battles — has defaulted on a… Read more

Builders Fight Proposed Home Sprinkler Requirement

Firefighters and sprinkler manufacturers are locked in a fierce national battle against home builders over a proposed requirement for sprinklers in all new homes and… Read more

The Battle for Wheatland

The Wheatland Manor House was built 35 years before the Revolutionary War. The farmland surrounding it served as a focal point of a small community… Read more

These satellite images represent many of the locations of developments and other points of interest addressed in the Land Use Accountability Project. Read more