WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court ruled [last] Tuesday that a temporary moratorium on development, even one that lasts for years, is not automatically a "taking" of property that must be paid for by government.
The 6-3 decision is a major victory for those trying to preserve Lake Tahoe's pristine waters, but will also have an impact on a variety of land-use disputes around the country.
In the case before the court, about 700 families owned residential, single-family lots on Lake Tahoe, parts of which are in California and Nevada.
Controlling land use in the area is a California-Nevada body called the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, or TRPA.
Though the lots owned by the 700 families were in areas that are already partially developed -- with paving, utilities and some single homes -- TRPA imposed a ban on further development.
Lake Tahoe was considerably affected by water runoff from development in the early 1980s. Since that time, TRPA has issued a series of three-year moratoriums on further development that the families claim have kept them from using their property for more than 17 years.
The families have been to court a number of times. Most recently, a federal judge ordered partial compensation for the 1981-84 moratorium -- reasoning that the other moratorium years were partly the fault of court injunctions.
A federal appeals court disagreed, saying that the judge misapplied precedent, and threw out the compensation.
The families then asked the Supreme Court for review.
The justices heard arguments in January, with the Bush administration's top courtroom lawyer, Solicitor General Theodore Olson, taking the unusual position of supporting regulators over landowners.
[Last] Tuesday, a majority sided with Olson and the regulators, affirming 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.
But increased land development has threatened the lake, he added, with nutrients draining down into the waters, encouraging the growth of algae.
Quoting the trial judge in the case, Stevens said "unless the process is stopped, the lake will lose its clarity and its trademark blue color, becoming green and opaque for eternity."
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,' " Stevens said. Besides, he added, 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 (TRPA's) 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. All rights reserved.
