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Supreme Court Supports Land Grabs
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Supreme Court Supports Land Grabs
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a "temporary" moratorium on development, even one that lasts for years, is not automatically a "taking" of property that government must pay for.
The 6-3 decision is a major victory for those trying to squelch development around Lake Tahoe. It will affect land-use disputes around the country.
In the case before the court, about 700 families owned residential, single-family lots on Lake Tahoe. Controlling land use in the area is a California-Nevada body called Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, or TRPA.
Though the lots owned by the 700 families were in areas already partly developed - with paving, utilities and houses - TRPA banned further development.
Lake Tahoe was considerably affected by water runoff from development in the early 1980s. Since that time, TRPA has issued three-year moratoriums on further development that the families note have kept them from using their property for more than 17 years.
The families, charging their land had in effect been grabbed without compensation, have been to court a number of times. Most recently, a federal judge, reasoning that the other moratorium years were partly the fault of court injunctions, ordered partial compensation for the 1981-84 moratorium.
A federal appeals court disagreed. Saying the judge misapplied precedent, it threw out the compensation.
The families then asked the Supreme Court for review.
Bush White House Backs Land Grabs
The justices heard arguments in January. The Bush administration's top courtroom lawyer, Solicitor General Theodore Olson, took the unusual position of supporting regulators over landowners.
Tuesday, a majority sided with Olson and the regulators and affirmed the appeals court ruling.
"All agree that Lake Tahoe is 'uniquely beautiful' ... that President Clinton was right to call it a 'national treasure that must be protected and preserved' ... and that Mark Twain aptly described the clarity of its waters as 'not merely transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so,'" Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
Increased land development has threatened the lake, he said, with nutrients draining into the waters, encouraging the growth of algae.
Quoting the trial judge, Stevens said "unless the process is stopped, the lake will lose its clarity and its trademark blue color, becoming green and opaque for eternity."
Delays Might Be Unconstitutional
Stevens and the majority did not rule out that delays in the use of property might in some cases be unconstitutional, and would require government compensation.
But a legal ruling that such delays are always unconstitutional "is simply 'too blunt an instrument.'" Besides, Stevens said, the Supreme Court has always ruled in each individual takings case and has never handed down a hard and fast rule.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist was among the three dissenters.
"Lake Tahoe is a national treasure, and I do not doubt that efforts at preventing further degradation of the lake were made in good faith in furtherance of the public interest," Rehnquist said. "But, as is the case with most governmental action that furthers the public interest, the Constitution requires that the costs and burdens be borne by the public at large, not be a few targeted citizens."
(No. 00-1167, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council Inc. vs. TRPA et al.)
Copyright 2002 by United Press International http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/23/135321.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a "temporary" moratorium on development, even one that lasts for years, is not automatically a "taking" of property that government must pay for.
The 6-3 decision is a major victory for those trying to squelch development around Lake Tahoe. It will affect land-use disputes around the country.
In the case before the court, about 700 families owned residential, single-family lots on Lake Tahoe. Controlling land use in the area is a California-Nevada body called Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, or TRPA.
Though the lots owned by the 700 families were in areas already partly developed - with paving, utilities and houses - TRPA banned further development.
Lake Tahoe was considerably affected by water runoff from development in the early 1980s. Since that time, TRPA has issued three-year moratoriums on further development that the families note have kept them from using their property for more than 17 years.
The families, charging their land had in effect been grabbed without compensation, have been to court a number of times. Most recently, a federal judge, reasoning that the other moratorium years were partly the fault of court injunctions, ordered partial compensation for the 1981-84 moratorium.
A federal appeals court disagreed. Saying the judge misapplied precedent, it threw out the compensation.
The families then asked the Supreme Court for review.
Bush White House Backs Land Grabs
The justices heard arguments in January. The Bush administration's top courtroom lawyer, Solicitor General Theodore Olson, took the unusual position of supporting regulators over landowners.
Tuesday, a majority sided with Olson and the regulators and affirmed the appeals court ruling.
"All agree that Lake Tahoe is 'uniquely beautiful' ... that President Clinton was right to call it a 'national treasure that must be protected and preserved' ... and that Mark Twain aptly described the clarity of its waters as 'not merely transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so,'" Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
Increased land development has threatened the lake, he said, with nutrients draining into the waters, encouraging the growth of algae.
Quoting the trial judge, Stevens said "unless the process is stopped, the lake will lose its clarity and its trademark blue color, becoming green and opaque for eternity."
Delays Might Be Unconstitutional
Stevens and the majority did not rule out that delays in the use of property might in some cases be unconstitutional, and would require government compensation.
But a legal ruling that such delays are always unconstitutional "is simply 'too blunt an instrument.'" Besides, Stevens said, the Supreme Court has always ruled in each individual takings case and has never handed down a hard and fast rule.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist was among the three dissenters.
"Lake Tahoe is a national treasure, and I do not doubt that efforts at preventing further degradation of the lake were made in good faith in furtherance of the public interest," Rehnquist said. "But, as is the case with most governmental action that furthers the public interest, the Constitution requires that the costs and burdens be borne by the public at large, not be a few targeted citizens."
(No. 00-1167, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council Inc. vs. TRPA et al.)
Copyright 2002 by United Press International http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/23/135321.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878