Court Opinion

ID: 9624317
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:58:11.081428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:44:45.291837
License: Public Domain

Justice BRADY
concurring.
While I concur in the Court’s opinion, I write separately to emphasize the importance of property rights and the duty the government has to compensate individuals when it chooses to take land for public use. I believe that respondents’ denial of petitioners’ request for a variance not only violates the provisions of the Chapel Hill Resource Conservation District Ordinance (RCD Ordinance) because of respondents’ failure to consider the effect of the restrictive covenants on the subject property, but I also believe that the denial results in a de facto taking, which requires respondents to provide just compensation for petitioners’ land. As Justice Harlan aptly stated over a century ago: “Due protection of the rights of property has been regarded as a vital principle of republican institutions.” Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 235-36 (1897). This historic right can be traced to the very earliest of our laws, and the courts have an important responsibility to steadfastly protect against its erosion.
*654The legal protection of private property rights dates back to the Magna Carta, which declares: “No free-man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, . . . excepting by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the laws of the land.” Boyd C. Barrington, The Magna Charta and Other Great Charters of England sec. 39, at 239 (1900) • (emphasis added). In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone wrote that “[an] absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of property: which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.” William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries sec. Ill, at *138.
The Founders drew on these principles when drafting the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides in pertinent part: “No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” U.S. Const, amend. V. In North Carolina, the requirement that government provide just compensation for a taking of private property is implicit in our state constitution. This Court has recognized
the fundamental right to just compensation as so grounded in natural law and justice that it is part of the fundamental law of this State, and imposes upon a governmental agency taking private property for public use a correlative duty to make just compensation to the owner of the property taken. This principle is considered in North Carolina as an integral part of “the law of the land” within the meaning of Article I, Section 19 of our State Constitution.
Long v. City of Charlotte, 306 N.C. 187, 196, 293 S.E.2d 101, 107-08 (1982) (citations omitted).
Not all government use or regulation of private land requires a payment of just compensation; a valid exercise of the government’s police power to promote public welfare does not offend constitutional property rights and is not a taking. Determining what qualifies as a valid government regulation, as opposed to an unconstitutional taking, is a complicated task, and the Supreme Court of the United States has admitted that such a determination cannot be reduced to one formula or bright line test. Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp., 475 U.S. 211, 224 (1986). Rather, courts must rely on “ad hoc, *655factual inquiries into the circumstances of each particular case” to ascertain if Fifth Amendment principles are violated. Id. (citations omitted). However, the Supreme Court has provided guidance on critical factors to consider in any takings analysis. There are three factors that have “ ‘particular significance’ ” in these inquiries: “(1) ‘the economic impact of the regulation on the claimant’; (2) ‘the extent to which the regulation has interfered with distinct investment-backed expectations’; and (3) ‘the character of the governmental action.’ ” 475 U.S. at 225 (quoting Penn Cent. Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 124 (1978)).
In the instant case, the economic impact of the RCD Ordinance is determinative in deciding whether its application to the property amounts to a taking. If the effect of a government regulation “denies all economically beneficial or productive use of land,” then a taking has occurred and compensation must be given to the owner, regardless of the intent of the regulation or how favorably it affects public welfare. Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1015 (1992) (citations omitted).
There is no question that regulating the use and quality of the town’s water resources is within the scope of respondents’ police power. Protection of the public water supply is necessary and essential to the health and welfare of the citizens of Chapel Hill. However, the noble purpose of the RCD Ordinance does not grant respondents immunity from the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or the Constitution of North Carolina. This Court has indicated on numerous occasions that a “zoning ordinance would be deemed ‘unreasonable and confiscatory,’ as applied to a particular piece of property, if the owner of the affected property was deprived of all ‘practical’ use of the property and the property was rendered of no ‘reasonable value.’ ” Responsible Citizens v. City of Asheville, 308 N.C. 255, 264, 302 S.E.2d 204, 210 (1983) (quoting Helms v. City of Charlotte, 255 N.C. 647, 653, 657, 122 S.E.2d 817, 822, 825 (1961)); see also Finch v. City of Durham, 325 N.C. 352, 364, 384 S.E.2d 8, 15 (1989) (“[T]he test for determining whether a taking has occurred in the context of a rezoning is whether the property as rezoned has a practical use and a reasonable value.” (citations omitted)).
The RCD Ordinance depletes petitioners’ property of all reasonable use and economic value. It is undisputed that petitioners cannot develop their property in any residential capacity without violating either the restrictive covenants imposed on the land in 1959 or the RCD Ordinance adopted by the Town of Chapel Hill in the *656mid-1980s. The restrictive covenants at issue “run with the land,” and this Court has ruled that such restrictions are interests in property. See City of Raleigh v. Edwards, 235 N.C. 671, 678-79, 71 S.E.2d 396, 402 (1952).1 Petitioners have previously been enjoined from building a residence in violation of these covenants. The RCD Ordinance as enacted renders 78.5% of petitioners’ property undevelopable. Respondents argue that petitioners’ remaining property outside the scope of the RCD Ordinance is still developable, yet they fail to consider the effect of the restrictive covenants that run with the land. The restrictive covenants cannot be separated from the parcel, and thus, respondents must evaluate the land as they find it in their consideration of petitioners’ variance request. When the restrictive covenants are properly evaluated, it is clear that application of the RCD Ordinance has deprived petitioners of all “economically beneficial or productive use” of the property. See Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1015. As a result of the RCD Ordinance, petitioners are left with no developable property. Thus, the wooded residential lot, which measures slightly over a half acre, has been depleted of all practical use and reasonable value. If respondents’ denial of petitioners’ variance request stands, then the RCD Ordinance, as applied to the property, amounts to a taking and just compensation must be paid.
To comply with the laws of this State and the Constitution of the United States, respondents must either grant petitioners a variance or justly compensate petitioners for the taking of the property. Otherwise, respondents’ actions amount to an unconstitutional taking of private property in violation of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution.

. In Edwards, the City sought to erect a water tower on a lot in violation of the private restrictive covenants previously imposed on the property. 235 N.C. at 674, 71 S.E.2d at 398-99. This Court ruled that if restrictive covenants were violated by the government for public use, persons with interests in those covenants were entitled to just compensation for the taking of those property rights. Id. at 677-79, 71 S.E.2d at 400-02.