The voters of South Lake Tahoe, California, adopted an ordinance that forbade the city from issuing short-term rental permits for properties in residential zones unless the owner was a permanent resident of the city, and declared that all short-term rental permits would expire three years later. The trial court granted the city summary judgment on
Zoning & Planning
SC: No Penn Central Taking For City Ordinance Merging Contiguous-But-Separate Parcels
As you can tell from the date of the opinion, we’ve been meaning to post the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in Braden’s Folly, LLC v. City of Folly Beach, No. 2022-000020 (Apr. 5, 2023) for a while. Something else always intervened, but it remains a decision worth reviewing.
The city adopted an ordinance…
Chump Alert! Developer’s Claim That City Can Be Held To Its Contract Limiting Exactions Goes About As Well As You’d Expect
We’re not going to dwell all that much on the California Court of Appeal’s recent opinion in Discovery Builders, Inc. v. City of Oakland, No. A164315 (June 22, 2023), mostly because it seems entirely predictable.
The developer thought it had an agreement with the city to pay certain fees (dare we say “exactions”) the…
Nectow Is Meaningless Because It “relies on pre-Lochner administrative review jurisprudence”
One from the Louisiana Court of Appeal, 3000-3022 St. Claude Avenue, LLC v. City of New Orleans, No. 2022-CA-0813 (June 22, 2023) demonstrating that the standard of judicial review for zoning matters (rational basis) is pretty powerful.
The owner wanted to develop its New Orleans property, but first needed a zoning amendment from residential…
CA5 Makes Short Work Argument That Asserting A Rational Basis For A Short-Term Rental Ban Is Enough To Secure Pleadings Dismissal Of Arbitrary And Capricious Challenge
In this very short (but apparently published) opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals held that it was not right to dismiss a claim on the pleadings and that factual development is warranted, even where the complaint alleges that a municipal land use ordinance is arbitrary and capricious, and the city claims it has a…
Texas Supreme Court: We Want To Resolve Whether Short-Term Renting Property A Natural Right, Just Not In This Case
In this order, the Texas Supreme Court declined to review a case we’ve been following, in which the court of appeals held that Grapevine’s total ban on short-term renting of property — banning even owners who had been doing so for a while — might be a taking. The court held that even…
New Takings Ripeness Cert Petition (Ours): Knowing The Permissible Uses “to a reasonable degree of certainty” Is All You Need For A Claim To Be Ripe
Here’s the cert petition, filed last week, in a case we’ve posted about. See here (Ninth Circuit arguments) and here (en banc petition).
The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a takings claim because (it held) the claim isn’t ripe. The government hasn’t made up its mind, and just might allow the owners to…
Tuesday Round-Up: Sackett, Tyler, Defending Zoning, Canada Property Rights … And More
Here’s what we’re reading this Tuesday:
- Tiffany Lashmet’s Ag Law in the Field podcast: “Episode #155: Jesse Richardson and Anthony Schutz (Sackett v. EPA)“
- Lawprof Ilya Somin, Brennan Center for Justice: “Supreme Court Strengthens Federal Protection for Property Rights“
- Also from Prof Somin, Volokh Conspiracy: “A Flawed Attempt
…
CA1: Despite Two Variance Denials, Takings Case Not Ripe Because It Isn’t Futile To Try Again
Here’s the latest from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on takings ripeness, Haney v. Town of Mashpee, No. 22-1446 (June 6, 2023).
The case centers on Gooseberry Island, Massachusetts, which is zoned by the Town of Mashpee as R-3. But under the Town’s zoning code, any residence must have at…
Another Cert Petition Challenging NY’s Draconian Rent Control As A Taking
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following, one of the multiple challenges to New York’s latest ratcheting up of rent control.
We think the Questions Presented spell out the issues pretty well:
New York has implemented the most sweeping and onerous rent control provisions the United States has ever seen in its…


