The court vacates a district court decision granting summary judgment in favor of an oil company claiming that a Hawaii statute proscribing the maximum rent that oil companies can collect from dealers who lease company-owned service stations is an unconstitutional regulatory taking. The court first ...
The court reverses a district court dismissal of a property owner's takings claim against a county as unripe. The owner alleged that the county impermissibly listed her driveway as a county road and would not delist it because a neighbor used it to access a road and get mail. The district court held...
The court holds that a state environmental conservation officer who was sued for allegedly violating the Fourth Amendment after he stopped a hunter at a motor vehicle checkpoint during hunting season to make deer tag and weapon safety checks is entitled to qualified immunity. The court first affirms...
The court holds that a real estate developer, whose proposed subdivision plat for land in Santa Fe, New Mexico, met all enumerated requirements for plat approval, was not entitled to approval of its proposed plat as a matter of federal constitutional law. The case arose after the city council revers...
The court grants Rhode Island's motion to preliminarily enjoin proceedings before the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in which several state employees sought damages and other relief against the state for allegedly violating the Solid Waste Disposal Act's whistleblower protection provision. The court...
The court affirms the dismissal of a hog farmer's complaint that alleged a taking of property by an Iowa city in violation of the Public Use Clauses of the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions. The farmer intended to use land bordering an airport for a hog manure lagoon. The city opposed the lagoon and recei...
The regulatory takings jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court has become an ungainly body, awkward for citizens and judges to apply and challenging as well, one might guess, for the Court itself, as it continues to reshape the law to better serve its aims. One cause of this predicament: leading decisions have arisen from peculiar facts and messy procedural contexts, yielding rulings that are hard to apply elsewhere. Another cause: the divergent views of Court members on the deference properly due the work of land use regulators.
To the extent the city argues that, as a matter of law, its landuse decisions are immune from judicial scrutiny under all circumstances, its position is contrary to settled regulatory takings principles. We reject this claim of error.
Improperly planned urban development has resulted in catastrophic sprawl. The present land use zeitgeist hails urban and suburban mixed-use zoning as the solution. Mixed-use zoning combines—rather than segregates—residential, commercial, and sometimes industrial land uses, and thereby decreases housing costs, decreases commuting periods, decreases vehicle miles traveled and air emissions, increases the efficient use of land and time, and increases consumer convenience.
Smart Growth admits of no clear definition. It provides a popular label for a growth strategy that addresses current concerns about traffic congestion, disappearing open space, nonpoint source pollution, the high cost of housing, increasing local property taxes, longer commutes, and the diminishing quality of community life. To accomplish smart growth, government must take two related actions. The first is the designation of discrete geographical areas into which private market growth pressures are directed.