The Supreme court has declined review of Colony Cove Properties, LLC v. City of Carson, 640 F.3d 948 (9th Cir. 2011), the case in which the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a property owner's claim that the city's mobilehome rent control ordinance is a taking. The district court dismissed the facial takings claim because it was filed outside the statute of limitations, and the as-applied takings challenge as unripe.
The cert petition asked the Court to overrule Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), the source of the Court's oft-maligned ripeness doctrine in regulatory takings. This was another in a recent in a series of petitions (see here and here for two others) asking the Court to revisit Williamson County, and we've criticized the case and its ripeness rules as illogical, unfair, and not the result of a textual analysis of the Fifth Amendment, as the Court in Williamson County held.
Next case up for consideration is Downing/Salt Pond Partners v. Rhode Island, a petition the Court will consider later this month.
Four Justices expressly called for a do-over in San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 350-52 (2005). So it seems this issue is ripe for another look.Just not yet, apparently. When will the Court finally agree to review a case directly challenging Williamson County?
