Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
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| Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued January 7, 2002 Decided April 23, 2002 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The moratorium did not constitute a taking. There was an inherent difference between the acquisition of property for public use and the regulation of property from private use. The moratorium at issue in this case should be classified as a regulation of property from private use and therefore no compensation is required. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Stevens Joined by: O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer Dissent by: Rehnquist Joined by: Scalia, Thomas Dissent by: Thomas Joined by: Scalia |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amends. V, XIV | ||||||||||||
Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (2002), is one of the United States Supreme Court's more recent interpretations of economic due process within the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case dealt with the question of whether the moratorium on land-use imposed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency fell under the Takings Clause of the United States Constitution and whether the landowners therefore should receive just compensation as required by that clause. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was represented by future Chief Justice John Roberts. The majority decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens found that the moratorium did not constitute a taking. It reasoned that there was an inherent difference between the acquisition of property for public use and the regulation of property from private use. The majority concluded that the moratorium at issue in this case should be classified as a regulation of property from private use and therefore no compensation was required. This case is commonly thought to be a stepping stone on the path to the government's expansion of the eminent domain power in Kelo v. City of New London(2005).
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[edit] Facts of the case
Lake Tahoe Basin falls within both California and Nevada. Those two states created the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) to plan the development of the basin. Between 1981-1984 the TRPA issued two moratoriums on virtually all residential development within the basin. The first moratorium lasted roughly 24 months and the second lasted about 8 months until the TRPA had adopted its comprehensive land-use plan. The plaintiffs in the case are a group of persons who own real estate within the jurisdiction of the TRPA and were therefore subject to the moratoria. The plaintiffs are challenging the law on the grounds that the moratoria issued by the TRPA were in fact takings as described by the Takings Clause of the US Constitution in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and that therefore they should receive just compensation.
[edit] Procedural history
The District Court found that:
(1) Even though the land retained some value during the period of the moratoria the landowners were, for a time, completely deprived of any economic use of their land.
(2) Therefore the two moratoria did in fact constitute a taking as described by the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The case was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Circuit Court found that since the moratoria had only temporary impact on the landowners property no taking occurred and no compensation was required.
[edit] Decision of the Court
[edit] Majority opinion
The majority opinion written by Justice Stevens dealt with several issues that were raised by the petitioners seeking compensation.
First Justice Stevens discards the petitioners’ assertion that the enactment of the moratorium deprived the plaintiffs of all economic use of the property and therefore requires compensation.
Justice Stevens argues that the case law does not support and in fact rejects the idea that a temporary moratorium invokes the Just Compensation clause. The text of the Fifth Amendment itself, he argues, creates a distinction between physical takings and regulatory takings specifying that only physical takings of private property for public purposes require just compensation. Justice Stevens closes this section of his argument predicting that if all takings, physical and regulatory, were to require just compensation than the whole notion of government takings would be, “a luxury few governments could afford”. Majority Opinion at FindLaw.com
Next Justice Stevens deals with petitioners urging to examine the Court’s case law dealing with regulatory takings especially Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council(1992). Stevens however dismisses the precedent of Lucas saying that logically the property at issue in the present case cannot be considered to have lost all economic value since as soon as the moratorium is lifted it will recover all economic value. Fluctuations in property value he said cannot be considered constitutional takings.
Lastly Justice Stevens moves on to more functional concerns. If governments are required to compensate landowners every time a moratorium is put into place in order to plan the development of an area than officials will either rush through the planning process or skip it altogether fostering growth in the community that is either ill-conceived or inefficient.
[edit] References
Kommers, D. P. , Finn, J. E., Jacobsohn, G. J. (2004) American Constitutional Law Volume 2 Second Edition United States of America: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
