Fowler Associate Dean Donald Kochan Publishes in Texas A&M Journal of Property Law Symposium
July 8, 2016
Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law Associate Dean Donald Kochan’s article “Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives on Marijuana-Related Land Use Control” was recently published in Volume 3, Number 1 of the Texas A&M Journal of Property Law.
From the abstract:
The story behind the move toward marijuana’s legality is a story of disruptive forces to the incumbent legal and physical landscape. It affects incumbent markets, incumbent places, the incumbent regulatory structure, and the legal system in general which must mediate the battles involving the push for relaxation of illegality and adaptation to accepting new marijuana-related land uses, against efforts toward entrenchment, resilience, and resistance to that disruption.
This Article is entirely agnostic on the issue of whether we should or should not decriminalize, legalize, or otherwise increase legal tolerance for marijuana or any other drugs. Nonetheless, we must grapple with the fact that many jurisdictions are embracing a type of “legality innovation” regarding marijuana. I define “legality innovation” as that effect which begins with the change in law that leads to the development of the lawful relevance of, lawful business regarding, and legal use for a newly-legal product, the successful deployment of which depends on the relative acceptance of the general public which must provide a venue for its operations along with the relative change in the consuming public’s attitudes as a result of the introduction of legality.
Marijuana-related land uses are and will be controversial. Regulatory responses, neighborhood disputes, permit battles, and opposition coalitions are all predictable both as a matter of logical analysis in light of legal standards but also, very importantly, due to the lessons of history with similarly-situated, precursor land uses like liquor stores, adult entertainment, bars, nightclubs, massage parlors, and the like leading the way. The Article also discusses the role of incumbent interests groups in shaping the new marijuana-related regulatory structure, including revealing Baptist and bootlegger coalitions that exist to oppose relaxation of marijuana laws and thwart land use successes of the marijuana industry in order to maintain their incumbent value or profit position. Finally, the Article engages with the growing literature in the social sciences on place and space, examining how the spaces and places we inhabit and in which we conduct our business and social affairs are necessarily impacted whenever legality innovations like we are seeing with marijuana work to disrupt the incumbent landscape.
Donald J. Kochan currently serves as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Fowler School of Law. His scholarship focuses on areas of property, administrative law, natural resources, law & economics, and jurisprudence, among others. He has published more than 35 scholarly articles and essays in well-respected law journals. His work has been cited in more than 300 published law review articles.
In January 2016, Dean Kochan was elected as a new Member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He was also elected as a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2014. Dean Kochan received the 2014 Valerie Scudder Award from Chapman University, a merit-based award selected by peers in recognition of outstanding achievement in scholarship, teaching, and service, and one of the highest honors given to a faculty member at the University. Among his numerous activities, Dean Kochan currently is a Contributing Editor of the “Keeping Current-Property” section in Probate & Property, the bi-monthly magazine of the Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association; serves as the Chair-Elect for the Section on Property Law for the Association of American Law Schools; serves as the Vice-Chair of the Committee on Environment & Natural Resources Regulation for the ABA Section on Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice; and serves as an inaugural Co-Editor of the Property Section of JOTWELL.
Other recent articles include “Dealing with Dirty Deeds: Matching Nemo Dat Preferences with Property Law Pragmatism,” 64 Kansas Law Review 1 (2015) and “A Framework for Understanding Property Regulation and Land Use Control from a Dynamic Perspective,” 4 Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law 303 (2015).