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SUITUM v. TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY | FindLaw
SUITUM v. TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY, (1997)
Argued: February 26, 1997 Decided: May 27, 1997
Petitioner Suitum owns an undeveloped lot near Lake Tahoe. Respondent Tahoe Regional Planning Agency determined that the lot is ineligible for development under agency regulations, but that Suitum is entitled to receive certain allegedly valuable "Transferable Development Rights" (TDRs) that she can sell to other landowners with the agency's approval. Suitum did not seek those rights, but instead brought this action for compensation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the agency's determinations amounted to a regulatory taking of her property without just compensation in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court held that her claim is not ripe for adjudication because she has not attempted to sell her TDRs, so that their specific values are unknown and the court could not realistically assess whether the agency's regulations have frustrated her reasonable expectations. The Ninth Circuit agreed and affirmed, reasoning, inter alia, that action on a TDR transfer application would be the requisite "final decision" by the agency regarding its regulations' application to Suitum's lot.
Petitioner Bernadine Suitum owns land near the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe. Respondent Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which regulates land use in the region, determined that Suitum's property is ineligible for development but entitled to receive certain allegedly valuable "Transferable Development Rights" (TDRs). Suitum has brought an action for compensation under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the Agency's determinations amounted to a regulatory taking of her property. While the pleadings raise issues about the significance of the TDRs both to the claim that a taking has occurred and to the constitutional requirement of just compensation, we have no occasion to decide, and we do not decide, whether or not these TDRs may be considered in deciding the issue of whether there has been a taking in this case, as opposed to the issue of whether just compensation has been afforded for such a taking. The sole question here is whether the claim is ripe for adjudication, even though Suitum has not attempted to sell the development rights she has or is eligible to receive. We hold that it is.
In 1987, the agency adopted a new Regional Plan providing for an "Individual Parcel Evaluation System" (IPES) to rate the suitability of vacant residential parcels for building and other modification. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Code of Ordinances ch. 37 (TRPA Code). Whereas any property must attain a minimum IPES score to qualify for construction, id., §37.8.E; App. 145, an undeveloped parcel in certain areas carrying run off into the watershed (known as "Stream Environment Zones" (SEZs)) receives an IPES score of zero, TRPA Code §37.4.A(3). With limited exceptions not relevant here, the agency permits no "additional land coverage or other permanent land disturbance" on such a parcel. Id., §20.4.
Although the agency's 1987 plan does not provide forthe variances and exceptions of conventional land use schemes, it addresses the potential sharpness of its restrictions by granting property owners TDRs that may be sold to owners of parcels eligible for construction, id., §§20.3.C, 34.0 to 34.3. There are three kinds of residential TDRs. An owner needs both a "Residential Development Right" and a "Residential Allocation" to place a residential unit on a buildable parcel, id., §§21.6.C, 33.2.A; the latter permits construction to begin in a specific calendar year, but expires at year's end, id., §33.2.B(3)(b). An owner must also have "Land Coverage Rights" for each square foot of impermeable cover placed upon land. App. 145; see also TRPA Code ch. 20. All owners of vacant residential parcels that existed at the effective date of the 1987 plan (July 1, 1987), including SEZ parcels, automatically receive one Residential Development Right, id., §21.6.A; owners of SEZ property may obtain and transfer bonus points equivalent to three additional Residential Development Rights, id., §§35.2.C, 35.2.D. SEZ property owners also receive Land Coverage Rights authorizing coverage of an area equal to 1% of the surface area of their land. Id., §§20.3.A, 37.11. Finally, SEZ owners, like other property owners, may apply for a Residential Allocation, awarded by local jurisdictions in random drawings each year. 2
Id., §33.2.B; App. 98-99. All three kinds of TDRs may be transferred for the benefit of any eligible property in the Lake Tahoe Region, subject to approval by the agency based on the eligibility of the receiving parcel for development. TRPA Code §§20.3.C, 34.1 to 34.3.
Instead, Suitum brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that in denying her the right to construct a house on her lot, the agency's restrictions deprived her of "all reasonable and economically viable use" of her property, and so amounted to a taking of her property without just compensation in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. 3
(1981), toughened our nascent ripeness requirement. There, coal producers and landowners challenged the enactment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. § 1201 et seq., as a taking of their property. As in Agins, we concluded that an as applied challenge was unripe, reasoning that "[t]here is no indication in the record that appellees ha[d] availed themselves of the opportunities provided by the Act to obtain administrative relief by requesting . . . a variance from the [applicable provisions of the Act]," 452 U.S., at 297
The demand for finality is satisfied by Suitum's claim, however, there being no question here about how the "regulations at issue [apply] to the particular land in question." Williamson County, supra, at 191. It is undisputed that the agency "has finally determined thatpetitioner's land lies entirely within an SEZ," Brief for Respondent 21, and that it may therefore permit "[n]o additional land coverage or other permanent land disturbance" on the parcel, TRPA Code §20.4. Because the agency has no discretion to exercise over Suitum's right to use her land, no occasion exists for applying Williamson County's requirement that a landowner take steps to obtain a final decision about the use that will be permitted on a particular parcel. The parties, of course, contest the relevance of the TDRs to the issue of whether a taking has occurred, but resolution of that legal issue will require no further agency action of the sort demanded by Williamson County.
Second, as to Suitum's right to transfer her TDRs, the only contingency apart from private market demand turns on the right of the agency to deny approval for a specific transfer on grounds that the buyer's use of the TDRs would violate the terms of the scheme or other local land use regulation, and the right of a local regulatory body to deny transfer approval for the latter reason. See TRPA Code §§20.3.C, 34.2, 34.3. But even if these potential bars based on a buyer's intended use of TDRs should turn out to involve the same degree of discretion assumed in the Williamson County ripeness requirement, that discretion still would not render the value of the TDRs nearly as unknowable as the chances of particular development being permitted on a particular parcel in the absence of a zoning board decision that could quite lawfully be either yes or no. While a particular sale is subject to approval, saleability is not, and the agency's own position assumes that there are many potential, lawful buyers for Suitum's TDRs, whose receipt of those rights would unquestionably be approved.
Of course, as the agency appears to be saying, see, e.g., Brief for Respondent 22-23, the very best evidence of the value of Suitum's TDRs might be their actual selling price (assuming, of course, that the sale were made in good faith and at arm's length). But similar determinations of market value are routinely made in judicial proceedings without the benefit of a market transaction in the subjectproperty. See, e.g., United States v. 819.98 Acres of Land, More or Less, Located in Wasatch and Summit Counties, 78 F. 3d 1468, 1469-1470 (CA10 1996) (upholding valuation of condemned land based on expert testimony relating to comparable sales and discounted cash flow); United States v. L. E. Cooke Co., 991 F. 2d 336, 338-339 (CA6 1993) (same with respect to valuation of mineral rights leases); see also 5J. Sackman, Nichols' Law of Eminent Domain §23-01, p. 23-6 (rev. 3d ed. 1997) ("[I]t is well established that the value of . . . land taken or injured by the exercise of the power of eminent domain may be shown by opinion evidence."); see generally 4 id., §12.02 (discussing establishment of market value of condemned land). While it is true that market value may be hard to calculate without a regular trade in TDRs, if Suitum is ready to proceed in spite of this difficulty, ripeness doctrine does not block her. In fact, the reason for the agency's objection is probably a concern that without much market experience in sales of TDRs, their market values will get low estimates. But this is simply one of the risks of regulatory pioneering, and the pioneer here is the agency, not Suitum.
(1967). Abbott Laboratories arose on a petition under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 701-704 (1964 ed., Supp. II) by a group of drug manufacturers seeking review of a labelling regulation promulgated by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs (FDA) but not yet the subject of any enforcement action against the manufacturers. The petitioners claimed that the FDA lacked statutory authority to impose the new labelling requirement; FDA countered that the claim was not ripe for judicial reviewfor want of any proceedings to enforce the regulation.
Under the "fitness for review" prong, we first noted that FDA's adoption of the labelling regulation was "final agency action" within the meaning of §10 of the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 704 and then rejected the Government's argument that review must await enforcement. 387 U.S., at 149
Abbott Laboratories is not on point. The drug companies in that case were challenging the validity of a regulation as beyond the scope of the FDA's authority. Whatever the arguable merit of the FDA's position on ripeness may have been, it rested on the fact that the manufacturers could have precipitated their challenge (if they had wanted) by violating the regulation and defending any subsequent prosecution by placing the regulation's validity in question. Suitum is in a different position from the manufacturers. She does not challenge the validity of the agency's regulations; her litigating position assumes that the agency may validly bar her land development just as all agree it has actually done, and her only challenge to the TDRs raises a question about their value, not about the lawfulness of issuing them. Suitum seeks not to be free of the regulations but to be paid for their consequences, and even if for some odd reason she had decided to bring things to a head by building without a permit, a §1983 action for money would not be a defense to an equity proceeding to enjoin development. Indeed, to the extent that Abbott Laboratories is in any sense instructive in the disposition of the case before us, it cuts directly against the agency: Suitum is just as definitively barred from taking any affirmative step to develop her land as the drug companies were bound to take affirmative steps to change their labels. The only discretionary step left to an agency in either situation is enforcement, not determining applicability.
In sum, I would resolve the question of whether there has been a "final decision" in this case by looking only to the fixing of petitioner's rights to use and develop her land. There has never been any dispute over whether that has occurred. Before bringing the present suit, petitioner applied for permission to build a house on her lot, and was denied permission to do so on the basis of TRPA's determination that her property is located within a "Stream Environment Zone"--a designation that carries the consequence that "[n]o additional land coverage or other permanent land disturbance shall be permitted," TRPA Code §20.4. Respondent in fact concedes that "[w]e know the full extent of the regulation's impact in restricting petitioner's development of her own land," Brief for Respondent 21. That is all we need to know to conclude that the final decision requirement has been met. Footnotes
-196. Suitum's counsel stated at oral argument that "the position of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is that they do not . . . have provisions for paying just compensation," Tr. of Oral Arg. 4, thus suggesting that the agency is not subject to inverse condemnation proceedings, and the agency's counsel did not disagree. Suitum's position therefore appears to be that the sole remedy against the agency for a taking without just compensation is a §1983 suit for damages, such as she has brought here. Cf. Tahoe Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 911 F. 2d 1331, 1341-1342 (CA9 1990). We leave this matter to the Court of Appeals on remand.
] Moreover, the Court may, of course, request additional briefing on this subject if necessary, and a trial could be held if the issue cannot be decided on summary judgment. FindLaw Career Center
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