| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | Moratorium on all construction around Lake Tahoe. |
| Posture: | Lots of litigation below. Everyone seems to agree on the facts. Ct. App. says that because there was only a temporary moratorium, no real taking had taken place. |
| Issue: | Is a temporary moratorium of this sort a taking? |
| Holding: | No. Affirmed. |
| Rule: | Duration is one of the key factors that a court needs to weigh when deciding if something is a taking. |
| Reasoning: | The purpose of the takings clause is to prevent the government from
forcing some people to bear burdens which ought really to be
borne by the public.
We're not going to say that a temporary moratorium is always a taking or that it's never a taking: it's necessary to weigh the facts of the case at bar. For example, a leasehold taken by the government counts, but a regulation that bars landlords from evicting tenants unwilling to pay a higher rent does not. Land use regulations are ubiquitous, and invariably impact property values. In Lucas we said that a regulation that prevents all beneficial use was a taking-- but anything less than 100% requires a Penn Central analysis. The property will recover its value as soon as the prohibition is lifted. Treat this as a taking would introduce an extreme categorical rule that cannot be sustained. We want to facilitate rational planning, not kill it, and announcing a rule tied to the length of deliberations would just put artificial pressure on the agency responsible. |
| Dicta: | Rhenquist (dissenting): The majority doesn't say how to distinguish between temporary and permanent. And they're justifying this on the basis of meaningless labels. |