June 22, 2023

1:00 pm to 2:00 pm Eastern

Free live for IMLA Members

Preemption:  Post-COVID Equitable Housing Preemption

This session examines state preemption of local authority to protect tenants and expand access to affordable housing, particularly following the implementation and expiration of emergency measures passed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many state legislatures, in both “red” and “blue” states, preempt local governments from increasing housing supply, crafting inclusionary zoning, or implementing rent regulations to alleviate housing unaffordability. This dynamic often came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic as local governments sought to impose eviction moratoriums and extend other support to burdened renters. The sunset of these provisions during a time of high inflation and projected recession has demonstrated the need for continued local government leadership on equitable housing policies, and even where state preemption exists. Local governments may still be able advance housing equity despite preemption and there are ways that municipal attorneys can help local leaders navigate this complex landscape.

Speakers: Nestor Davidson, Berbeth Foster & Marissa Roy

Nestor M. Davidson joined the Fordham Law School faculty in 2011 and was named the Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use and Property Law in 2017. He has published widely in the fields of state and local government law, property law, and affordable housing law and policy. He founded and is the faculty director of the Urban Law Center. Nestor earned his AB from Harvard College, his JD from Columbia Law School. He practiced with the firm of Latham and Watkins and served as Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Berbeth Foster is the Senior Staff Attorney at Community Justice Project. She was formally the Lead Consumer Rights Attorney in the Senior Citizen Law Project of Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida. Berbeth has a decade of experience litigating and defending low income populations in consumer rights matters including mortgage foreclosure, debt collection, fraud and Chapter 13 bankruptcy. In her time at Legal Aid, Berbeth assisted her clients in obtaining over half a million dollars in debt relief. She now focuses her time at Community Justice Project on representing a vast array of grassroots organizations fighting for racial and economic justice. She works with various statewide and national coalitions advocating for housing as a human right, reimagining public safety and climate justice; to name a few. Recently, Berbeth has partnered with community organizations in South and Central Florida in their fight for rent control, the right to counsel for tenants facing eviction and in successfully advocating for Tenant Bill of Rights legislation at various municipal levels.

Marissa Roy has spent her career working with local governments to engage in high-impact litigation. As a Deputy City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles, Marissa helped bring one of the Office's first large-scale workers' rights lawsuits to hold accountable port trucking companies that were classifying truck drivers as independent contractors rather than employees and deducting thousands of dollars from their wages. In addition to protecting workers' rights, Marissa worked with the City of Los Angeles and later the County of Los Angeles to challenge the Trump Administration's hostile immigration agenda, from the federal district court all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.