This semester, we're teaching two courses at the William and Mary Law School: the usual Eminent Domain & Property Rights (our regularly-scheduled fall semester course), and Land Use. If we were to try and create a hypothetical for the final exam in either class, we couldn't do better than the actual fact pattern and arguments presented to the Texas Court of Appeals in City of Dickinson v. Stefan, No. 14-18-00778-CV (Oct. 27, 2020). That case involved a use of property alleged to have been started before the city adopted a zoning code, and claims of vested rights, "grandfathering," and related.
We won't recount the entire fact pattern here (we suggest reviewing the entire opinion yourself; it is a decent read), and only note that it covers a range of land use and takings topics, including the aforementioned nonconforming use arguments, exhaustion of admin remedies, and the like. In all honesty, the court's main holding -- that the property owner didn't exhaust administrative remedies -- isn't as interesting as the facts and allegations, but we still think it is worth a look.
The court's takings analysis starts on page 23 of the slip opinion, if you are interested. It's brief, but also concludes that the owner didn't exhaust his administrative remedies that might have yielded compensation. Apparently in Texas, an owner "must take advantage of statutory remedies that may moot the party’s takings claim, rather than institute a separate proceeding asserting such a claim." Slip op. at 23. Who knew?
City of Dickinson v. Stefan, No. 14-18-00778-CV (Tex. App. Oct. 27, 2020)
