Home > News
News & Events
Gammage & Burnham Partner Manjula Vaz Serves as ULI Arizona’s Trends Day Chair
Gammage & Burnham Partner Manjula Vaz is serving as the Chair for ULI Arizona’s Trends Day Conference! See a message from Manjula regarding the conference below, as shared in the ULI Arizona Monthly Newsletter.
You can learn more about Trends Day and register for the conference here!
The 16th Annual ULI Arizona Trends Day is fast approaching! This year Trends Day will be Trends Week with three mornings of future-focused real estate content, served up virtually. By going virtual, we’re able to showcase even more amazing national and local speakers, sharing timely discussions about development from both the private and public sectors and compelling issues that overarch all industry segments.
Phoenix City Council Runoff Update
It’s Election Time! We know what you’re thinking – wait, didn’t we just have an election in November (…and December, and January)? We did, but we didn’t quite finish the job, at least not in Phoenix City Council Districts 3 and 7. In Districts 3 and 7 there are runoffs, and today the Phoenix City Clerk is mailing out early ballots to voters in those two Districts. The official Election Day is March 9. Please remember that Phoenix City Council races are non-partisan, just like our law firm. The outcome of these two races will heavily influence the dynamics of the Phoenix City Council going forward.
New Arizona Supreme Court Decision: Schires v. Carlat & The Gift Clause
On February 8 the Arizona Supreme Court issued a major new gift clause decision, linked here.
To encourage a private university to open a campus in Peoria, the City of Peoria provided various incentives totaling $2.6 million. These were challenged as a violation of the gift clause. The trial court and the Court of Appeals upheld the validity of the City’s expenditures.
In its February 8 Opinion in Schires v. Carlat, the Supreme Court held that the City’s payments violated the gift clause.
Arizona’s 55th Legislature : Here’s What to Watch
Arizona’s legislative session started barely 15 days ago, and is already moving at a brisk speed. The pandemic brought the 2020 legislative session to a grinding halt last March (even though adjournment did not occur until May 26, 2020). Out of 1,607 bills posted last year, only 90 made it. That is significantly less than the 350 plus bills that usually make it through the process.
Many of the 1,000 bills already posted are replicates of bills that almost made it to the finish line last year. Some of these have identical bills in the House and Senate, and will move, hopefully, seamlessly and quickly through the process.
You May Own Half of a Road! Here’s How the Rule of “Strips and Gores” Might Impact You.
By: Jefferson Hayden & Lane Conrad
Maricopa County v. Rovey, No. 1 CA-CV 19-0659
Filed by the Arizona Court of Appeal 12-29-2020
If you own property adjacent to a public roadway, “strips and gores” and its associated concepts may be affecting your land ownership rights. The longstanding rule of “strips and gores” provides that when real property abutting a public way is conveyed by a description that only covers the lot itself, the grantee owns the property up to the center line of the public way (unless there is clear intent to the contrary).

