In Neighbors in Support of Appropriate Land Use v. County of Tuolumne, No. F051690 (Dec. 7, 2007), a California District Court of Appeals held that a development agreement cannot be used to avoid zoning restrictions. The court framed the issue:
[C]an a county approve an application to devote a parcel of real property to…
Two updates on Yamagiwa v. City of Half Moon Bay, No. 05-4149 VRW (Nov. 28, 2007), the $37 million inverse condemnation judgment about which I posted here. In that case, the US District Court for the Northern District of California held the city liable for ataking after it caused the plaintiff’s property to…
In Sierra Club v. Bosworth, No. 05-16989 (Dec. 5, 2007), the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the US Forest Service and Department of Agriculture did not properly determine that all fuel reduction projects up to 1,000 acres and prescribed burn projects up to 4,500 acres on all national forests…
Thanks to Timothy Sandefur at PLF on Eminent Domain for calling attention to the Colorado Supreme Court’s opinion in Wheat Ridge Urban Renewal Auth. v. Cornerstone Group XXII, LLC, No. 06SC591 (Dec. 3, 2007).
In that case, the court refused to order a redevelopment agency to condemn private property and turn it over to a developer to build a Walgreen’s store. The court held that judges have no authority to compel an agency to take property even if the agency had entered into a contract with the developer in which it agreed to do so. While not expressly relying on separation of powers, the court’s opinion clearly was based on its concern with preserving the agency’s discretion to condemn (or not condemn) private property. See slip op. at 21-22. The bottom line is that in Colorado, courts have no jurisdiction to fashion a specific performance remedy requiring the government to exercise a sovereign power.
Professor Ilya Somin calls the victory “Pyrrhic” in his analysis of the decision, suggesting the court’s “reasoning is likely to undermine property rights in the long run.” While the opinion is often opaque and many of its premises difficult to fathom, I’m not so sure the case should be considered so poorly. After all, the court reached a good result, although its analysis ventures into areas it need not have gone. Continue Reading Court Has No Power to Order Government to Take Property
Just received notice of a new book published by University of Hawaii School of Law Professor Jon Van Dyke, Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawaii. According to the summary from UH Press:
In this engrossing work, Jon Van Dyke describes and analyzes in detailthe complex cultural and legal history of Hawai‘i’s Crown Lands.
The Los Angeles Times reports “This land is their land — now,” a story out of Colorado about the ancient legal doctrine of adverse possession. According to the story, a retired judge and his lawyer spouse trespassed on a neighboring vacant parcel of land for over twenty years and then sued for…
Check out this NYT story on a $12.4m verdict in a Connecticut eminent domain abuse case.
A vast majority of cases challenging such takings are resolved through injunctions; takings temporarily halted by court injunction are often abandoned. But because Judge DeMayo had granted New England Estates and the landowners the right to seek a claim…
In Action Apartment Ass’n v. City of Santa Monica, No. 05-56533 (Dec. 3, 2007), the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sustained Santa Monica, California’s 2002 amendments to its rent control ordinance against a takings and due process challenge:
In this appeal, we are presented with a claim that Santa Monica’s rent…
Visit the New Jersey Eminent Domain Law blog and read “RLUIPA, Redevelopment, and Eminent Domain,” a report about Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. v. City of Long Branch, No. 06-1319 (Nov. 27, 2007), a recent decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware…
Update: More on the case here and here. Professor Gideon Kanner’s take on the case here.
Update 3/2008: The parties have settled.
Check out the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law issued by the US District Court for the Northern District of California in Yamagiwa v. City of Half Moon…
