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Land Use Accountability ProjectLand Use Accountability Project

Land Use Accountability Project : Regions

  1. November 16, 2009

    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

  2. August 20, 2009

    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 $130 million loan, putting the majority of its real estate holdings into a foreclosure auction scheduled for Tuesday at the county courthouse. Read more

  3. August 05, 2009

    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 scrutiny from both the state planning department and the editorial page of the Baltimore Sun. Read more

  4. July 24, 2009

    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 townhouses, with a crucial vote scheduled in Virginia early next week. Read more

  5. July 20, 2009

    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

  6. June 26, 2009

    ‘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

  7. June 16, 2009

    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 during the Civil War and is today a symbol in a new land war, one that has spawned accusations of corruption, fraud, and deception, as developers, preservationists, and politicians wrestle over the future of historic Loudoun County, Virginia. Read more

  8. June 16, 2009

    Dealing ‘New Jersey Style’

    Salvatore J. Cangiano enjoys a reputation as a shrewd land speculator and developer, one who isn’t shy about pressing his ownership rights through litigation — “I’m very competitive” — or, perhaps, just by sheer force of will. And pretty much all those descriptors were on display in the rough-and-tumble struggle that ended with him in possession of Wheatland Farms in Loudoun County, Virginia. Read more

  9. April 14, 2009

    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

  10. February 26, 2009

    The “Soft Underbelly” of Development?

    Diana Johns had just moved into her four-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot Leesburg, Virginia, home in 2002 and was thrilled with its elegant pillars, golf-course views, and expansive, sunny rooms. But the bleating alarm tied to the home’s “nonconventional” septic system signaled that beneath the surface, something was terribly wrong. Read more

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