Opinion ID: 835006
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: did plaintiff allege facts giving rise to a claim for just compensation?

Text: The Ninth Circuit's second question, as we have restated it, is: Whether a property owner that alleges that a city has required it to construct off-site improvements at a cost that is not roughly proportional to the impacts of the plaintiff's development, as opposed to dedicating an interest in real property such as granting an easement, alleges a taking that gives rise to a claim for just compensation. In its second question, the Ninth Circuit asks that we decide the question assumed in responding to its first questionwere plaintiff's claims for just compensation as alleged in its first or second claims for relief viable in state court? We begin with plaintiff's second claim for relief alleging that the city effected a taking under the Fifth Amendment. We realize that beginning with the federal constitution is contrary to our normal practice. See, e.g., Sterling v. Cupp, 290 Or. 611, 614, 625 P.2d 123 (1981) (proper sequence is to analyze state law, including constitutional law, before reaching federal constitutional claim). Nevertheless, we do so here because we must determine the viability of both of plaintiff's claims for just compensation to answer the Ninth Circuit's questions, and because plaintiff uses United States Supreme Court cases Nollan and Dolan as the theoretical basis for each of those claims. An initial discussion of Fifth Amendment jurisprudence therefore provides a helpful backdrop for our analysis.
After Nollan and Dolan, the Supreme Court decided a case that clarified the constitutional basis of those decisions Lingle v. Chevron USA Inc., 544 U.S. 528, 548, 125 S.Ct. 2074, 161 L.Ed.2d 876 (2005). In Lingle, the Supreme Court began by observing that governmental action that falls into one of the following categories constitutes a taking: 1. A physical invasion of property, Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982); 2. A regulation that completely deprives a plaintiff of all economically beneficial use of property, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992); or 3. A regulation that, on balance, imposes economic impacts that constitute a taking under the several factors identified in Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978). [15] The Court explained that those categories are intended to describe governmental actions that are functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which government directly appropriates private property or ousts the owner from his or her domain. Accordingly, each category describes governmental acts that impose burdens on private property rights. The Court stated: A permanent physical invasion, however minimal the economic cost it entails, eviscerates the owner's right to exclude others from entering and using her propertyperhaps the most fundamental of all property interests. See Dolan [, 512 U.S. at 384, 114 S.Ct. 2309]; Nollan [, 483 U.S. at 831-32, 107 S.Ct. 3141]; Loretto [, 458 U.S. at 433, 102 S.Ct. 3164]; Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 176, 100 S.Ct. 383, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979).    [T]he complete elimination of a property's value is the determinative factor. See Lucas [, 505 U.S. at 1017, 112 S.Ct. 2886] (positing that `total deprivation of beneficial use is, from the landowner's point of view, the equivalent of a physical appropriation').    [T]he Penn Central inquiry turns in large part, albeit not exclusively, upon the magnitude of a regulation's economic impact and the degree to which it interferes with legitimate property interests. Lingle, 544 U.S. at 539-40, 125 S.Ct. 2074 (paragraph structure added for clarity). In Lingle, the Court then declared that other governmental acts that do not impose similarly severe burdens are not subject to challenge under the Takings Clause, but are, instead, subject to challenge under the Due Process Clause. Thus, the Court explained, a property owner's claim under Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980), that a governmental regulation is invalid because it does not substantially advance legitimate state interests is properly viewed as a claim that due process precludes the regulation entirely, and not as a claim that the takings clause requires payment of just compensation. The Court stated: Instead of addressing a challenged regulation's effect on private property, the `substantially advances' inquiry probes the regulation's underlying validity. But such an inquiry is logically prior to and distinct from the question whether a regulation effects a taking, for the Takings Clause presupposes that the government has acted in pursuit of a valid public purpose. The Clause expressly requires compensation where government takes private property `for public use.' It does not bar government from interfering with property rights, but rather requires compensation in the event of otherwise proper interference amounting to a taking.    Conversely, if a government action is found to be impermissible  for instance because it fails to meet the `public use' requirement or is so arbitrary as to violate due process  that is the end of the inquiry. No amount of compensation can authorize such action. Lingle, 544 U.S. at 543, 125 S.Ct. 2074 (emphases in original; internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Although not necessary to its holding, the Court also addressed how its prior decisions in Nollan and Dolan fit into that paradigm. The claims of the property owners in those cases could have been seen as implicating the Due Process Clause, because they challenged the sufficiency of the nexus between the state interest and the condition imposed and sought judicial invalidation of the condition. However, the claims in those cases also could have been seen as implicating the Takings Clause, because the conditions that the governments imposed required the property owners to dedicate real property for governmental use  the classic taking in which the government directly appropriates private property. The Court chose neither and placed Nollan/Dolan challenges into their own category  a special application of the `doctrine of unconstitutional conditions': Although Nollan and Dolan quoted Agins' language, see Dolan, [512 U.S. at 385, 114 S.Ct. 2309]; Nollan, [483 U.S. at 834, 107 S.Ct. 3141], the rule those decisions established is entirely distinct from the `substantially advances' test we address today. Whereas the `substantially advances' inquiry before us now is unconcerned with the degree or type of burden a regulation places upon property, Nollan and Dolan both involved dedications of property so onerous that, outside the exactions context, they would be deemed per se physical takings. In neither case did the Court question whether the exaction would substantially advance some legitimate state interest. See Dolan, [512 U.S. at 387-88, 114 S.Ct. 2309]; Nollan, [483 U.S. at 841, 107 S.Ct. 3141]. Rather, the issue was whether the exactions substantially advanced the same interests that land-use authorities asserted would allow them to deny the permit altogether. As the Court explained in Dolan, these cases involve a special application of the `doctrine of unconstitutional conditions,' which provides that `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 benefit has little or no relationship to the property.' [512 U.S. at 385, 114 S.Ct. 2309]. That is worlds apart from a rule that says a regulation affecting property constitutes a taking on its face solely because it does not substantially advance a legitimate government interest. In short, Nollan and Dolan cannot be characterized as applying the `substantially advances' test we address today, and our decision should not be read to disturb these precedents. Id. at 547-48, 125 S.Ct. 2074 (emphases added; original emphases deleted). Thus, under Lingle, in circumstances in which the government exacts dedications of property so onerous that, outside the exactions context, they would be deemed per se physical takings, the Supreme Court subjects the government's exaction to a Nollan/Dolan analysis. Id. at 547, 125 S.Ct. 2074. Under that analysis, the government is precluded from making the exaction and must pay just compensation for the real property that it acquires unless the exaction is roughly proportional to the effect of the proposed development. The Ninth Circuit's second question requires that we consider the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Nollan, Dolan, and Lingle and decide whether the Nollan/Dolan analysis extends to a requirement that a property owner construct off-site improvements at a cost that is not roughly proportional to the impacts of the owner's development. In Lingle terms, we must decide whether such a requirement is so onerous that, outside the exactions context, [it] would be deemed [a] per se physical taking. Lingle, 544 U.S. at 547, 125 S.Ct. 2074. Plaintiff first posits that the Oregon Court of Appeals already has recognized such a requirement as a Fifth Amendment taking and that this court should not disturb that ruling in answering a certified question. The case that plaintiff deems determinative is Clark v. City of Albany, 137 Or.App. 293, 299, 904 P.2d 185 (1995), rev. den., 322 Or. 644, 912 P.2d 375 (1996). In Clark, the Court of Appeals considered a ruling by LUBA that, as relevant here, applied Dolan's rough proportionality standard to development conditions that required the petitioner to make road improvements on and extending beyond the affected property. The Court of Appeals affirmed the application of that standard, seeing little difference between a requirement that a developer convey title to the part of the property that is to serve a public purpose, and a requirement that the developer himself make improvements on the affected and nearby property and make it available for the same purpose. Id. at 300, 904 P.2d 185. Although we agree with plaintiff's assertion that [c]ertification is not an appropriate vehicle to obtain clarification of existing law or to test the continued viability of long-standing legal precedent against current conditions, see Western Helicopter Services v. Rogerson Aircraft, 311 Or. 361, 374, 811 P.2d 627 (1991), we do not think that those principles describe the posture of this case. Clark was decided in 1995, and, although Nollan and Dolan both had been decided, the Supreme Court had not had occasion to opine on their reach. In 1999, the Supreme Court decided Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 702, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999), and stated that it had not extended the application of Nollan and Dolan beyond the special context of [such] exactions. As a result of that statement, the Court of Appeals considered its decision in Clark open to question. Dudek v. Umatilla County, 187 Or.App. 504, 516 n. 10, 69 P.3d 751 (2003). Then, in 2005, the Supreme Court decided Lingle and discussed, in the context of its disaggregation of due process and takings challenges, the jurisprudential underpinnings of Nollan and Dolan. We choose not to rest on a Court of Appeals case that predated Lingle. On the merits, plaintiff contends that the city's requirement that it use asphalt, concrete, bedding material, pipe and other personal property to construct public improvements cannot be distinguished from the requirements imposed by the governments and considered by the courts in Nollan and Dolan. Plaintiff argues that any coerced transfer of property, whether real or personal, must meet the Nollan/Dolan standard. The city disagrees and urges that Nollan and Dolan are limited to required dedications of real property and do not extend to the imposition of an obligation to construct off-site improvements. Such an obligation, the city contends, is, functionally, a monetary obligation that the city has authority to impose to offset the impacts of plaintiff's development. Plaintiff responds that, even if that condition appropriately is characterized as a monetary exaction, the Nollan/Dolan analysis applies when government uses its regulatory power in an adjudicative proceeding to coerce such payment. The Ninth Circuit considered a similar question in McClung v. City of Sumner, 548 F.3d 1219 (9th Cir.2008), cert. den., ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 2765, 174 L.Ed.2d 270 (2009). The issue in that case was whether a city ordinance that required property owners, as a condition of development, to install storm pipes effected a taking. The Ninth Circuit viewed the ordinance as imposing a monetary obligation and decided that the validity of the condition that it imposed should be subjected to a Penn Central, and not a Nollan/Dolan, analysis. The Ninth Circuit based its decision on the fact that the condition was legislatively imposed and applied to all development; it was not, as were the conditions in Nollan and Dolan, a condition imposed in an adjudicatory proceeding on the plaintiff alone. The Ninth Circuit also stated, as an alternative basis for its ruling, that the property owners had not been required to relinquish an interest in real property: [T]he City already had an easement for the storm pipe such that the McClungs gave up no rights to their real property. To extend the Nollan/Dolan analysis here would subject any regulation governing development to higher scrutiny and raise the concern of judicial interference with the exercise of local government police powers. As noted by San Remo Hotel [ L.P. v. City And County of San Francisco, 27 Cal.4th 643, 117 Cal.Rptr.2d 269, 291, 41 P.3d 87, 105 (2002)], any concerns of improper legislative development fees are better kept in check by `ordinary restraints of the democratic political process.' McClung, 548 F.3d at 1227-28 (emphasis in original). The Ninth Circuit rejected the plaintiffs' argument that the city had effected a per se taking of its money and the plaintiff's citation to Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, 538 U.S. 216, 123 S.Ct. 1406, 155 L.Ed.2d 376 (2003). In Brown, the Supreme Court held that interest that accrued on lawyers' trust accounts (IOLTA accounts) was private property that the state could not acquire without payment of just compensation, but that the plaintiff in that case had suffered no loss for which compensation was due. In McClung, the Ninth Circuit distinguished the imposition of a new monetary obligation from the acquisition of accrued interest on an existing account and noted that Brown did not treat the acquisition of accrued interest as an exaction or apply the Nollan/Dolan analysis to the facts presented. [16] McClung, 548 F.3d at 1228. In reaching its conclusion in McClung, the Ninth Circuit observed, however, that [o]ther courts addressing this general issue have come to different conclusions. [17] Plaintiff asks that we adopt the reasoning of one of those courts  that of the Texas Supreme Court in Town of Flower Mound v. Stafford Estates, 135 S.W.3d 620 (Tex.2004). In that case, the town had conditioned its approval of the plaintiff's development on its rebuilding of an abutting road. The Texas court saw no important distinction between a dedication of property to the public and a requirement that property already owned by the public be improved and held that the Dolan standard should apply to both. Id. at 640. The court dismissed the town's contention that the doctrine of unconstitutional takings was not applicable when the thing given up in exchange for a discretionary benefit is simply money, for which the owner has no constitutional right of recompense. The court stated: Assuming that the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions is limited as the Town argues, a position on which we express no opinion, the Town's argument does not limit the application of Dolan because the doctrine was not the only foundation on which it rested and was not even mentioned in Nollan. Nollan was grounded entirely in the Supreme Court's takings jurisprudence. Id. at 636. Of course, as we now know from the Supreme Court's opinion in Lingle, the Court's decision in Nollan was, indeed, premised on the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. Understanding that premise, we see a clear distinction between a requirement that a property owner dedicate property to the public and a requirement that a property owner spend money to mitigate the effects of development. In the former circumstance, the government seeks to acquire a landowner's existing real property. To do so, it is required to proceed by the exercise of its power of eminent domain and to pay just compensation. In the latter circumstance, the government does not seek to acquire a landowner's existing real property. It seeks to compel the landowner to pay money to mitigate the effects of development and cannot proceed to do so by instituting eminent domain proceedings. When the landowner makes payment, it does not relinquish existing property; it fulfills a newly imposed monetary obligation. See Daniel L. Siegel, Exactions after Lingle: How Basing Nollan and Dolan on the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine Limits Their Scope, 28 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 577, 592-601 (2009) (discussing reasons that subjecting permits conditioned on payment of fees to Nollan/Dolan analysis cannot be justified doctrinally after Lingle ). That does not mean, of course, that monetary obligations could not, at least theoretically, be so onerous that, outside the exactions context, they would be deemed per se physical takings. Lingle, 544 U.S. at 547, 125 S.Ct. 2074. In Lingle, the Court recognized two circumstances in which governmental regulations that impose economic burdens are considered equivalent to physical takings: (1) where the regulation deprives the owner of all viable economic use of the property; and (2) where the regulation is so burdensome that the Penn Central standard is met. Id. at 539-40, 125 S.Ct. 2074. It is conceivable that a local government could require, as a condition of development, monetary obligations so burdensome as to deprive the property owner of all economically viable use of the property, or to meet the Penn Central standard, as the Ninth Circuit recognized in McClung. If a local government did so, such conditions perhaps could be considered sufficiently onerous to be tantamount to physical takings. But in that circumstance, there would be no need for a Nollan/Dolan analysis. Conditions imposing burdens of that significance would require payment of just compensation without further inquiry, in contrast to conditions that impose exactions subject to the Nollan/Dolan analysis. Under Nollan/Dolan, just compensation is required only when the conditions imposed are not roughly proportional to the impacts of development. See Charles T. Switzer, Escaping the Takings Maze: Impact Fees and the Limits of the Takings Clause, 62 Vand. L.Rev. 1315, 1343-44 (2009) (asserting that only conceivable way for impact fee to amount to per se physical taking is if the fee imposed is so high that it deprives owner of all economically beneficial use of real property). In Lingle, the Court did not express an intent to treat regulations that impose economic burdens that do not deprive a property owner of all economically viable use of property or meet the Penn Central standard as takings under the Fifth Amendment. The Court emphasized, as it had in Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, 526 U.S. 687, 702, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999), the special context in which Nollan and Dolan arose and pointedly did not categorize the exactions at issue in Nollan and Dolan as takings, instead analyzing them under the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. In the absence of a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary, we conclude that a government's requirement that a property owner undertake a monetary obligation that is not roughly proportional to the impacts of its development does not constitute an unconstitutional condition under Nollan/Dolan or a taking under the Fifth Amendment, nor does it require payment of just compensation. We also conclude that a requirement that a property owner construct off-site improvements is the functional equivalent of the imposition of a monetary obligation. When a governmental entity requires a property owner to construct improvements, it simply requires the property owner to put money to a particular use. The government could accomplish the same result by requiring the property owner to pay a specified sum, which the government could then use to construct the improvements. The government, through its exercise of the power of eminent domain, can compel neither off-site construction nor the expenditure of money. That conclusion does not mean, of course, that a property owner required to construct off-site improvements at a cost not roughly proportional to the impacts of its development may not have some other legally sound basis for a claim against the government. The Takings Clause may not be the only constraint on such governmental action. For instance, prior to Nollan and Dolan, state courts had invalidated governmental conditions that were not reasonably related to the impacts of development without relying on the Takings Clause as the basis of their decisions. See Dolan, 512 U.S. at 390-91, 114 S.Ct. 2309 (noting that a majority of states have adopted common-law rule that there must be some reasonable relationship or nexus between required dedication and impact of proposed development). [18] See also Switzer, 62 Vand. L.Rev. at 1332-36 (explaining common-law dual rational nexus test used by various courts). Further, as the Court in Lingle acknowledged, the Due Process Clause may serve as a check on arbitrary land use regulation. 544 U.S. at 540, 125 S.Ct. 2074; see also Miller Bros. Co. v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 342, 74 S.Ct. 535, 98 L.Ed. 744 (1954) (It is a venerable if trite observation that seizure of property by the State under pretext of taxation when there is no jurisdiction or power to tax is simple confiscation and a denial of due process of law.).
We turn to whether, under the circumstances alleged in plaintiff's first claim for relief, Oregon law recognizes an inverse condemnation action premised on a taking under the Oregon Constitution. In interpreting original provisions of the Oregon Constitution, we apply a now-familiar methodology first articulated in Priest v. Pearce, 314 Or. 411, 415-16, 840 P.2d 65 (1992). This court recently summarized that methodology in the context of interpreting Article I, section 18: [W]e consider the text of Article I, section 18, its history, and the cases interpreting it. Our goal in undertaking that inquiry is to identify the historical principles embodied in the constitutional text and to apply those principles faithfully to modern circumstances. Coast Range Conifers v. Board of Forestry, 339 Or. 136, 142, 117 P.3d 990 (2005) (citations omitted). In Coast Range Conifers, this court analyzed Article I, section 18, to address a different issue  whether that clause addressed only physical takings of property, or whether it also extended to regulatory takings. Although the issue was different from that presented in this case, much of the analysis is useful to our analysis here. As originally adopted, Article I, section 18, provided: Private property shall not be taken for public use, nor the particular services of any man be demanded, without just compensation; nor except in case of the state, without such compensation first assessed and tendered. [19] Coast Range Conifers elucidated that text as follows: Because Article I, section 18, was part of the original Oregon Constitution, we look to the meaning of the words that the framers used. See Bobo v. Kulongoski, 338 Or. 111, 120, 107 P.3d 18 (2005) (looking to dictionary relevant to time constitutional provision adopted). In 1857, the word `take' meant `[i]n a general sense, to get hold or gain possession of a thing in almost any manner.' Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (emphasis in original). That definition implies that governmental acts that result in the appropriation of private property for public use will constitute a taking  a conclusion that is consistent with the corollary prohibition in Article I, section 18, against demanding or appropriating the uncompensated services of any person. Webster defined `property' in 1828 both concretely (as `[a]n estate, whether in lands, goods or money') and more abstractly (as `[t]he exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing'). Id. Put differently, the dictionary definition of property in 1828 was broad enough to include both the tangible or physical thing and the legal interests pertaining to it. 339 Or. at 142-43, 117 P.3d 990 (footnote omitted). After exploring the historical circumstances of the enactment and interpretation of Article I, section 18, the court in Coast Range Conifers recognized that a classic taking occurs when the government physically occupies or appropriates property, but that physically invasive intentional government action also may rise to the level of a taking. Id. at 145, 117 P.3d 990; see also Morrison v. Clackamas County, 141 Or. 564, 569, 18 P.2d 814 (1933) (government takes property when it intentionally floods private property for public use). The court also acknowledged that Article I, section 18, is not limited to those circumstances, citing the following cases as examples of other governmental acts that effect takings under Article I, section 18: Boise Cascade Corp. v. Board of Forestry, 325 Or. 185, 198, 935 P.2d 411 (1997) (regulations constitute taking if they deny owner any economically viable use of real property); Dodd v. Hood River County, 317 Or. 172, 182, 855 P.2d 608 (1993) (regulatory taking occurs if real property does not retain some substantial beneficial use); Thornburg v. Port of Portland, 233 Or. 178, 192, 376 P.2d 100 (1962) (government-authorized overflights constitute taking when they deny owner use and enjoyment of property); McQuaid v. Portland & V. R'y Co., 18 Or. 237, 22 P. 899 (1889) (government act of placing railway in a public street and thereby denying owner access to street constitutes taking); accord Willamette Iron Works v. O.R. & N. Co., 26 Or. 224, 228-29, 37 P. 1016 (1894) (explaining and applying McQuaid ). Coast Range Conifers, 339 Or. at 145, 117 P.3d 990. The court explained that, although the framers may not have anticipated the precise circumstances detailed in those cases, the framers would have been aware that governmental actions that did not fit precisely within the classic paradigm of a taking still could be `equivalent to a taking' and thus entitle the owner to compensation. Id. at 145-46, 117 P.3d 990. Thus, the issue in Coast Range Conifers was whether the governmental action at issue a state wildlife regulation that prevented plaintiff from logging approximately nine acres of a 40-acre parcel that plaintiff alleged substantially interfered with its use of its property  was equivalent to the governmental acts that the court had recognized as takings. The court held that, although [r]egulation in pursuit of public policy could be tantamount to a public appropriation of private property, the regulation at issue did not present that circumstance. The court applied the whole parcel rule and held that the challenged rule did not deprive the plaintiff of all economically viable use of the land and therefore did not effect a taking. Id. at 147, 117 P.3d 990. The question that this case presents is similar  whether this court will recognize a condition of development that requires construction of off-site improvements as the modern equivalent of a physical taking. [20] Plaintiff does not argue that that condition deprives it of all economically viable use of its land or is of comparable severity and thereby is tantamount to a physical taking. Plaintiff contends instead that the city's action constitutes a taking because (1) Article I, section 18, applies to the taking of personal property such as livestock or crops, see Hawkins v. City of La Grande, 315 Or. 57, 67, 843 P.2d 400 (1992); Coos Bay Oyster Coop. v. Highway Com., 219 Or. 588, 596, 348 P.2d 39 (1959); Bowden v. Davis et al, 205 Or. 421, 434-35, 289 P.2d 1100 (1955) (each so applying Article I, section 18); (2) the materials necessary for plaintiff to construct off-site improvements are personal property; and (3) plaintiff was required to transfer those materials to the city. Although we agree that Article I, section 18, extends to the taking of personal, as well as real, property, we disagree that the city effected a taking of plaintiff's personal property in this case. As we explained in our analysis of the federal constitution, the city did not acquire personal property that plaintiff owned; it required that plaintiff construct public improvements that previously did not exist. That was the functional equivalent of requiring that plaintiff make a monetary payment to the city for a specific purpose  the construction of public improvements. At the time that the Oregon Constitution was adopted, there was at least a question about whether the government's imposition of such monetary obligations implicated the power of eminent domain, and arguably a consensus that it did not. In 1851, the New York Court of Appeals considered the constitutionality of special assessments imposed to pay the cost of grading and pavement of roads. People ex rel. Griffin v. City of Brooklyn, 4 N.Y. 419 (1851). The court began by noting that taxation and eminent domain rest substantially on the same foundation: In both circumstances, the government takes property for public use, and in both cases, it provides compensation  in the case of taxation, by the protection and increased value presumed to result from the government services paid for by the tax. Id. at 422-23. Nevertheless, the court explained, the power of taxation was distinct from the power of eminent domain. One of the distinctions that the court made was that [m]oney can always be had by taxation; lands can not [ sic ]', and therefore lands may be taken by right of eminent domain, but money may not. Id. at 424. [21] The California Supreme Court also noted that distinction in Emery v. San Francisco Gas Co., 28 Cal. 345, 350-54 (1865), quoting extensively from People ex rel. Griffin, and concluding that assessments for improvements, upon whatever principle distributed, are not taking private property for public use because special assessments take only money; [t]he property referred to in the Constitution for which special compensation must be made, is something other than money, as where land is taken to be used as a street. In 1867, a legal treatise by the Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court agreed: The principal point of difference [in recent cases] has been to determine where taxation ends, and the tenure of the right of eminent domain begins. Since the decision of the case of [ People ex rel. Griffin ], the courts seem very composedly to have sunk down into the quiet conviction that it is nothing but taxation, and that where the municipal authorities assess the land to its full value for the purpose of assumed improvements, more or less remote from the land, and without regard to the extent of the ratio of equalization, it is still nothing but taxation. Isaac F. Redfield, 2 The Law of Railways 389 (1867) (footnotes omitted). And in 1868, Thomas Cooley also asserted that the right to eminent domain can be exercised over every species of property except money and rights of action. Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations 526-27 (1868). In our view, there is not any logical way to apply a takings analysis to the imposition of new monetary obligations. [22] As the Supreme Court helpfully explained in Lingle, a takings analysis assumes that the government has the power to acquire the property taken; it requires only that the government pay just compensation for that property. It does not make sense to say that, although government has the power to impose a monetary obligation, it must repay the value received as just compensation. The real objection that a property owner has to the imposition of a monetary obligation in excess of what is necessary to mitigate the impacts of development is that the government does not have authority to impose such an obligation, or that the obligation offends some statutory or constitutional provision other than Article I, section 18. When government regulates the use of a property, it effects a taking if it deprives the owner of all economically viable use of the land. In that instance, the regulation of the property is tantamount to the acquisition of the property. When, instead, the regulation requires that the owner pay a sum of money or use a sum of money for a particular purpose, the regulation is not tantamount to acquisition of the property, even when the obligation exceeds the impact of the development, unless, of course, the obligation is so high that it imposes a burden tantamount to acquisition. Absent additional allegations, a property owner that alleges that a local government has conditioned development on construction of off-site improvements at a cost that is not roughly proportional to the impacts of the development, does not allege a taking under Article I, section 18, of the Oregon Constitution. Plaintiff in this case did not allege such additional facts, [23] and, consequently, plaintiff's claim for inverse condemnation under the state constitution was not cognizable in state court. We answer the Ninth Circuit's second question, as we have rephrased it, as follows: No, a property owner that alleges that a city has required it to construct off-site improvements at a cost that is not roughly proportional to the impact of the development, as opposed to dedicating an interest in real property such as granting an easement, does not allege a taking that gives rise to a claim for just compensation.