Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

Summary

The United States Supreme Court considered whether temporary development moratoria imposed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency constituted per se regulatory takings under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. The Court held that a temporary moratorium is not categorically a taking and that the claim should be evaluated under the fact-specific Penn Central framework. The Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's judgment.

Holdings

1. A temporary development moratorium does not automatically constitute a compensable per se taking merely because it temporarily denies all economically viable use of property. Whether a temporary moratorium effects a taking depends on the particular circumstances of the case.
2. A landowner may not conceptually sever a temporary period of restricted use from the remainder of a fee-simple estate and treat that temporal segment as the relevant property for determining whether all economically beneficial use was eliminated.
3. Temporary land-use restrictions, including development moratoria, are generally evaluated under the Penn Central framework rather than under a new categorical rule based solely on duration or temporary denial of use.

Questions Presented

1. Whether a temporary development moratorium imposed while a regional comprehensive land-use plan is being prepared constitutes a per se taking requiring compensation under the Takings Clause.
2. Whether the challenged moratoria could be analyzed by temporally severing a 32-month segment of the owners' fee-simple interests and applying Lucas's categorical rule to that segment.
3. Whether Penn Central's fact-specific regulatory-takings framework is the appropriate method for evaluating temporary land-use restrictions.

Disposition

affirmed