Howard Epstein ~ Law Interests

Howard Epstein in Tiananmen Square in Beijing

In December 2003 Howard was invited to the People’s Republic of China to speak at a conference on the use of Public Hearings in Land Use Planning. He stands here in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Howard’s Law Interests

Howard teaches Land Use & Land Use Planning Law at Dalhousie University, where he is Adjunct Professor. This course is one of the Law School’s specialization offerings in Marine and Environmental Law and thus is an option for second or third year Law students. It is also a mandatory course for students enrolled in the Master’s degree programme in Urban and Rural Planning. Following is the course description:

Land Use & Land Use Planning Law
A mandatory course for Planning students, this is also available as an option for Law students; both groups thus have the opportunity to learn from each other, and the course emphasizes the community or public policy aspects of the relevant law as well as the reverse. The course is not confined to municipal regulation of land use, but recognizes the roles of the Federal and Provincial governments as well as private law remedies. At the same time, the municipal devices of an Official Plan combined with a Zoning By-law form the core of the course. Starting with the Constitutional Law aspects of land use, it moves through private law remedies, analysis of typical ‘Planning Act’ or equivalent statutes, takes a detailed look at the courts’ approach to Plans and by-laws, and if time allows, considers sustainability issues in planning law.

Specific topics covered in the current version of the course are:

Introduction to Planning
Planning Law & Local Government
the Constitutional Framework & Federal Land Use Powers
Economics of Planning
Planning Process in the Context of Other Law
Provincial Planning Statutes
Official Plans
Zoning and Land Use By-laws (Basic Approaches)
Zoning Variations
How To Get Around Zoning
Rights of Land Owners
Public Participation
Judicial Review & Appeals
Reform of Municipal Government
Sustainability & Future-Oriented Planning

Howard publishes in this topic area. Most recently he published an analysis of Federal powers over land use regulation; see: “The Livingrooms of the Nation - The Criminal Code and Other Federal Land Use Regulatory Powers: Comments on R. v. Clark”, (2005) 8 MPLR (4th) 234.

Among his other publications is a case comment on the 2001 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Spraytech v. Town of Hudson, a case involving Local Government’s power to deal with regulation of pesticides; see: Spraytech v. Town of Hudson, (2001) 19 MPLR (3d) 56.

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