{"id":491,"date":"2016-07-01T21:41:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T21:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=491"},"modified":"2023-12-15T22:00:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T22:00:52","slug":"high-rise-apartment-building-held-to-be-a-private-nuisance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2016\/07\/01\/high-rise-apartment-building-held-to-be-a-private-nuisance\/","title":{"rendered":"High-rise apartment building held to be a private nuisance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the power of municipalities to enact zoning laws that limit land to residential use and even to single-family homes.\u00a0Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.,\u00a0<\/em>272 U.S. 365 (1926). The\u00a0Euclid<\/em>\u00a0decision suggested that apartment buildings might constitute nuisances and destroy the \u201cresidential character\u201d of a neighborhood.\u00a0Id.<\/em>\u00a0at 394\u2013395. Is that a legitimate way to characterize apartment buildings and\/or the people who live in them? In the 2014 case of\u00a0Loughhead v. 1717 Bissonnet, LLC<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a02014 WL 8774060 (Tex. Dist. Ct. 2014),\u00a0final judgment at\u00a0<\/em>2014 WL 8774079 (Tex. Dist. Ct. 2014), a Texas court actually found a proposed high rise building in the City of Houston, Texas, to be a nuisance. Houston is unusual in the United States because it lacks a comprehensive zoning law. The proposed structure would have been 21 stories tall and contain 228 residential units along with commercial development. The judge upheld a jury verdict that the project would constitute a nuisance and granted the plaintiff neighbors damages for the decreased market value of their property that would result from the construction. The judge did not order the project halted. Plaintiffs argued that the project would constitute a private nuisance not only because of lost property value but because of the confluence of various factors, including increased traffic, loss of privacy, foundation damages to neighboring property due to settlement, increased light to adjacent landowners, construction annoyances, and the shadow cast by the highrise. While agreeing that none of these factors alone would constitute a nuisance, the judge ruled that the jury acted reasonably and within the law to find that all together they constituted a nuisance. Damages were awarded to twenty neighbors in amounts ranging from $20,000 to $89,000. My owners in the U.S. would find a highrise of this sort out of place in a neighborhood of much lower buildings. On the other hand, most municipalities deal with issues like this by passing zoning laws that limit the height of buildings in different neighborhoods. Ruling that an apartment building is an unreasonable use of land is a somewhat startling interpretation of nuisance law.<\/p>\n\n\n

Nuisance<\/a>, <\/span>Real Estate Transactions<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the power of municipalities to enact zoning laws that limit land to residential use and even to single-family homes.\u00a0Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.,\u00a0272 U.S. 365 (1926). The\u00a0Euclid\u00a0decision suggested that apartment buildings might constitute nuisances and destroy the \u201cresidential character\u201d of a neighborhood.\u00a0Id.\u00a0at 394\u2013395. Is that a legitimate way to characterize apartment buildings and\/or the people who live in them? In the 2014 case of\u00a0Loughhead v. 1717 Bissonnet, LLC,\u00a02014 WL 8774060 (Tex. Dist. Ct. 2014),\u00a0final judgment at\u00a02014 WL 8774079 (Tex. Dist. Ct. 2014), a Texas court actually found a proposed high rise building in the City of Houston, Texas, to be a nuisance. Houston is unusual in the United States because it lacks a comprehensive zoning law. The proposed structure would have been 21 stories tall and contain 228 residential units along with commercial development. The judge upheld a jury verdict that …<\/p>\n

High-rise apartment building held to be a private nuisance<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuisance","category-real-estate-transactions"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}