Opinion ID: 746291
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Change in the standard of review

Text: 25 The landowners argue that, in light of Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 114 S.Ct. 2309, 129 L.Ed.2d 304 (1994), Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992) and Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), the deference given in Midkiff to the legislative body's public use findings is inappropriate. The landowners assert that those cases require heightened scrutiny. We conclude that those cases are not applicable because they involved uncompensated regulatory takings, in which the issues are quite different. 26 In a regulatory taking case, the court must determine whether a putative regulatory action masks a taking. For example, in Dolan, the most recent case, a shop owner in Oregon brought suit against the City of Tigard. She had applied for a permit needed to expand her store and pave a parking area. Dolan, 512 U.S. at 379, 114 S.Ct. at 2313-14. The city's planning commission granted the permit application, but only on the condition that the shop owner dedicate to the city part of her property that was within a floodplain plus a 15 foot strip of land for use as a pedestrian pathway. Id. at 379-80, 114 S.Ct. at 2313-14. The shop owner filed suit alleging that the condition was an unconstitutional regulatory taking. 27 Dolan, as well as Lucas and Nollan, are quite different from the cases before us. At bottom, those cases involve balancing the authority of state and local governments to engage in land use planning against the property rights of individuals. See Dolan, 512 U.S. at 383-86, 114 S.Ct. at 2315-17. The primary issue is whether the landowner is to receive just compensation. See e.g., id. at 385, 114 S.Ct. at 2317 (Under the well-settled doctrine of 'unconstitutional conditions,' the government may not require a person to give up a constitutional right--here the right to receive just compensation when property is taken for a public use--in exchange for a discretionary benefit conferred by the government where the property sought has little or no relationship to the benefit.). That is, if the Court would have upheld the putative regulatory actions in those cases, the landowners' property would have been subject to the challenged land restriction and the owner would not have been entitled to compensation for the diminution in land value. The heightened scrutiny applied in Dolan was employed to prevent the government from using its regulatory power to force individuals to bear burdens that properly should be born by the public. See id., at 389, 114 S.Ct. at 2319 (We think this standard is too lax to adequately protect petitioner's right to just compensation if her property is taken for a public purpose.). 28 Conversely, in the cases before us, the government has expressly exercised its condemnation power and will compensate the landowners. Here, as in Midkiff, the requirement of just compensation ensures that individuals will not be forced to bear public burdens, which in all fairness should be borne by the public as a whole. Heightened scrutiny thus is inappropriate. The language used throughout Midkiff indicates that deference to the legislative body's public use determination is required when the taking is fully compensated. See e.g., Midkiff, 467 U.S. at 241, 104 S.Ct. at 2329-30 ([W]here the exercise of the eminent domain power is rationally related to a conceivable public purpose, the Court has never held a compensated taking to be proscribed by the Public Use Clause.). For these reasons, we believe that Nollan-Lucas-Dolan trio does not signal a change from this longstanding rule of deference because we see nothing inconsistent in applying heightened scrutiny when the taking is uncompensated, and a more deferential standard when the taking is fully compensated. 29 We hold, therefore, that the standard of review to be used in examining Ordinance 91-95 is the minimum scrutiny test espoused in Midkiff. We will defer to the City's determination regarding public use unless the use involves an impossibility or is palpably without reasonable foundation. Midkiff, 467 U.S. at 240-41, 104 S.Ct. at 2329.