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512 U.S. 374
No. 93-518.
Argued March 23, 1994.
Decided June 24, 1994.
Syllabus
[FN* ]
FN*
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321,
337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 287, 50 L.Ed. 499.
The
City Planning Commission of respondent city conditioned approval
of petitioner Dolan's application to expand her store and
pave her parking lot upon her compliance with dedication of
land (1) for a public greenway along Fanno Creek to minimize
flooding that would be exacerbated by the increases in impervious
surfaces associated with her development and (2) for a pedestrian/bicycle
pathway intended to relieve traffic congestion in the city's
Central Business District.
She appealed the commission's denial of her request
for variances from these standards to the Land Use Board of
Appeals (LUBA), alleging that the land dedication requirements
were not related to the proposed development and therefore
constituted an uncompensated taking of her property under
the Fifth Amendment.
LUBA found a reasonable relationship between (1) the
development and the requirement to dedicate land for a greenway,
since the larger building and paved lot would increase the
impervious surfaces and thus the runoff into the creek, and
(2) alleviating the impact of increased traffic from the development
and facilitating the provision of a pathway as an alternative
means of transportation.
Both the Oregon Court of Appeals and the Oregon Supreme
Court affirmed.
Held:
The city's dedication requirements constitute an uncompensated
taking of property.
Pp. 2316-2322.
(a)
Under the well-settled doctrine of "unconstitutional
conditions," the government may not require a person
to give up a constitutional right in exchange for a discretionary
benefit conferred by the government where the property sought
has little or no relationship to the benefit.
In evaluating Dolan's claim, it must be determined
whether an "essential nexus" exists between a legitimate
state interest and the permit condition.
Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825,
837, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 3148, 97 L.Ed.2d 677.
If one does, then it must be decided whether the degree
of the exactions demanded by the permit conditions bears the
required relationship to the projected impact of the proposed
development. Id.,
at 834, 107 S.Ct. at 3147.
Pp. 2316-2317.
(b)
Preventing flooding along Fanno Creek and reducing traffic
congestion in the district are legitimate public purposes;
and a nexus exists between the first purpose and limiting
development within the creek's
375
floodplain and between the second purpose
and providing for alternative means of transportation.
Pp. 2317-2318.
(c)
In deciding the second question -- whether the city's findings
are constitutionally sufficient to justify the conditions
imposed on Dolan's permit -- the necessary connection required
by the Fifth Amendment is "rough proportionality."
No precise mathematical calculation is required, but
the city must make some sort of individualized determination
that the required dedication is related both in nature and
extent to the proposed development's impact.
This is essentially the "reasonable relationship"
test adopted by the majority of the state courts.
Pp. 2318-2320.
(d)
The findings upon which the city relies do not show the required
reasonable relationship between the floodplain easement and
Dolan's proposed building.
The Community Development Code already required that
Dolan leave 15% of her property as open space, and the undeveloped
floodplain would have nearly satisfied that requirement.
However, the city has never said why a public, as opposed
to a private, greenway is required in the interest of flood
control. The
difference to Dolan is the loss of her ability to exclude
others from her property, yet the city has not attempted to
make any individualized determination to support this part
of its request.
The city has also not met its burden of demonstrating
that the additional number of vehicle and bicycle trips generated
by Dolan's development reasonably relates to the city's requirement
for a dedication of the pathway easement. The city must quantify its
finding beyond a conclusory statement that the dedication
could offset some of the traffic demand generated by the development.
Pp. 2319-2322.
317
Ore. 110, 854 P.2d 437 (1993), reversed and remanded.
REHNQUIST,
C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'CONNOR,
SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined.
STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BLACKMUN
and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, post, p. 2322.
SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 2330.
David
B. Smith, Tigard, OR, for petitioner.
Timothy
V. Ramis, Portland, OR, for respondent.
376
Edwin S. Kneedler, Washington, DC, for
U.S., as amicus curiae by special leave of the Court.
For
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs See:
1994 WL 82042 (Reply.Brief)
1994 WL 106731 (Resp.Supp.Brief)
1994 WL 123754 (Resp.Brief)
1994 WL 249537 (Pet.Brief)
For
Transcript of Oral Argument See:
1994 WL 664939 (U.S.Oral.Arg.)
377
Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the
opinion of the Court.
Petitioner
challenges the decision of the Oregon Supreme Court which
held that the city of Tigard could condition the approval
of her building permit on the dedication of a portion of her
property for flood control and traffic improvements.
317 Ore. 110, 854 P.2d 437 (1993).
We granted certiorari to resolve a question left open
by our decision in Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483
U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), of what is
the required degree of connection between the exactions imposed
by the city and the projected impacts of the proposed development.
I
The
State of Oregon enacted a comprehensive land use management
program in 1973. Ore.Rev.Stat.
§§ 197.005-197.860 (1991).
The program required all Oregon cities and counties
to adopt new comprehensive land use plans that were consistent
with the statewide planning goals.
§§ 197.175(1),
197.250. The plans are implemented by land use regulations
which are part of an integrated hierarchy of legally binding
goals, plans, and regulations.
§§ 197.175, 197.175(2)(b).
Pursuant to the State's requirements, the city of Tigard,
a community of some 30,000 residents on the southwest edge
of Portland, developed a comprehensive plan and codified it
in its Community Development Code (CDC).
The CDC requires property owners in the area zoned
Central Business District to comply with a 15% open space
and landscaping requirement, which limits total site coverage,
including all structures and paved parking, to 85% of the
parcel. CDC,
ch. 18.66, App. to Pet. for Cert. G-16 to G-17. After the
completion of a transportation study that identified 378 congestion
in the Central Business District as a particular problem,
the city adopted a plan for a pedestrian/bicycle pathway intended
to encourage alternatives to automobile transportation for
short trips. The
CDC requires that new development facilitate this plan by
dedicating land for pedestrian pathways where provided for
in the pedestrian/bicycle pathway plan. [FN1]
FN1.
CDC § 18.86.040.A.1.b provides:
"The development shall facilitate pedestrian/bicycle
circulation if the site is located on a street with designated
bikepaths or adjacent to a designated greenway/open space/park.
Specific items to be addressed [include]:
(i) Provision of efficient, convenient and continuous
pedestrian and bicycle transit circulation systems, linking
developments by requiring dedication and construction of pedestrian
and bikepaths identified in the comprehensive plan.
If direct connections cannot be made, require that
funds in the amount of the construction cost be deposited
into an account for the purpose of constructing paths." App. to Brief for Respondent
B-33 to B-34.
The city also
adopted a Master Drainage Plan (Drainage Plan).
The Drainage Plan noted that flooding occurred in several
areas along Fanno Creek, including areas near petitioner's
property. Record,
Doc. No. F, ch. 2, pp. 2-5 to 2-8; 4-2 to 4-6;
Figure 4-1.
The Drainage Plan also established that the increase
in impervious surfaces associated with continued urbanization
would exacerbate these flooding problems.
To combat these risks, the Drainage Plan suggested
a series of improvements to the Fanno Creek Basin, including
channel excavation in the area next to petitioner's property.
App. to Pet. for Cert. G-13, G-38.
Other recommendations included ensuring that the floodplain
remains free of structures and that it be preserved as greenways
to minimize flood damage to structures.
Record, Doc. No. F, ch. 5, pp. 5-16 to 5-21.
The Drainage Plan concluded that the cost of these
improvements should be shared based on both direct and indirect
benefits, with property owners along the waterways paying
more due to the direct benefit that they would receive.
Id., ch. 8, p. 8-11.
CDC Chapters 18.84 and 18.86 379
and CDC § 18.164.100 and the Tigard
Park Plan carry out these recommendations.
Petitioner
Florence Dolan owns a plumbing and electric supply store located
on Main Street in the Central Business District of the city.
The store covers approximately 9,700 square feet on
the eastern side of a 1.67-acre parcel, which includes a gravel
parking lot. Fanno
Creek flows through the southwestern corner of the lot and
along its western boundary.
The year-round flow of the creek renders the area within
the creek's 100-year floodplain virtually unusable for commercial
development. The
city's comprehensive plan includes the Fanno Creek floodplain
as part of the city's greenway system.
Petitioner
applied to the city for a permit to redevelop the site.
Her proposed plans called for nearly doubling the size
of the store to 17,600 square feet and paving a 39-space parking
lot. The
existing store, located on the opposite side of the parcel,
would be razed in sections as construction progressed on the
new building.
In the second phase of the project, petitioner proposed
to build an additional structure on the northeast side of the site for complementary businesses
and to provide more parking. The proposed expansion and intensified
use are consistent with the city's zoning scheme in the Central
Business District. CDC § 18.66.030, App. to
Brief for Petitioner C-1 to C-3.
The City Planning
Commission (Commission) granted petitioner's permit application
subject to conditions imposed by the city's CDC.
The CDC establishes the following standard for site
development review approval:
"Where
landfill and/or development is allowed within and adjacent
to the 100-year floodplain, the City shall require the dedication
of sufficient open land area for greenway adjoining and within
the floodplain.
This area shall include portions at a suitable elevation
for the construction of a pedestrian/bicycle pathway within
the 380 floodplain in
accordance with the adopted pedestrian/bicycle plan."
CDC § 18.120.180.A.8, App. to Brief for Respondent
B-45 to B-46.
Thus, the Commission required
that petitioner dedicate the portion of her property lying
within the 100-year floodplain for improvement of a storm
drainage system along Fanno Creek and that she dedicate an
additional 15-foot strip of land adjacent to the floodplain
as a pedestrian/bicycle pathway. [FN2]
The dedication required by that condition encompasses
approximately 7,000 square feet, or roughly 10% of the property.
In accordance with city practice, petitioner could
rely on the dedicated property to meet the 15% open space
and landscaping requirement mandated by the city's zoning
scheme. App.
to Pet. for Cert. G-28 to G-29.
The city would bear the cost of maintaining a landscaped
buffer between the dedicated area and the new store.
Id., at G-44 to G-45.
FN2.
The city's decision includes the following relevant conditions:
"1. The applicant shall dedicate to the City as
Greenway all portions of the site that fall within the existing
100-year floodplain [of Fanno Creek] (i.e., all portions of
the property below elevation 150.0) and all property 15 feet
above (to the east of) the 150.0 foot floodplain boundary.
The building shall be designed so as not to intrude
into the greenway area."
App. to Pet. for Cert. G-43.
Petitioner
requested variances from the CDC standards.
Variances are granted only where it can be shown that,
owing to special circumstances related to a specific piece
of the land, the literal interpretation of the applicable
zoning provisions would cause "an undue or unnecessary
hardship" unless the variance is granted.
CDC § 18.134.010, App. to Brief for Respondent B-47.
[FN3] Rather than posing alternative 381
mitigating measures to offset the expected
impacts of her proposed development, as allowed under the
CDC, petitioner simply argued that her proposed development
would not conflict with the policies of the comprehensive
plan. Id., at
E-4. The
Commission denied the request.
FN3.
CDC § 18.134.050 contains the following criteria whereby the
decisionmaking authority can approve, approve with modifications,
or deny a variance request:
"(1)
The proposed variance will not be materially detrimental to
the purposes of this title, be in conflict with the policies
of the comprehensive plan, to any other applicable policies
and standards, and to other properties in the same zoning
district or vicinity;
"(2) There
are special circumstances that exist which are peculiar to
the lot size or shape, topography or other circumstances over
which the applicant has no control, and which are not applicable
to other properties in the same zoning district;
"(3) The use
proposed will be the same as permitted under this title and
City standards will be maintained to the greatest extent possible,
while permitting some economic use of the land;
"(4) Existing
physical and natural systems, such as but not limited to traffic,
drainage, dramatic land forms, or parks will not be adversely
affected any more than would occur if the development were
located as specified in the title;
and "(5) The hardship is not self-imposed and
the variance requested is the minimum variance which would
alleviate the hardship." App. to Brief for Respondent
B-49 to B-50.
The
Commission made a series of findings concerning the relationship
between the dedicated conditions and the projected impacts
of petitioner's project. First, the Commission noted
that "[i]t is reasonable to assume that customers and
employees of the future uses of this site could utilize a
pedestrian/bicycle pathway adjacent to this development for
their transportation and recreational needs." City of Tigard Planning Commission Final
Order No. 91-09 PC, App. to Pet. for Cert. G-24.
The Commission noted that the site plan has provided
for bicycle parking in a rack in front of the proposed building
and "[i]t is reasonable to expect that some of the users
of the bicycle parking provided for by the site plan will
use the pathway adjacent to Fanno Creek if it is constructed." Ibid.
In addition, the Commission found that creation of
a convenient, safe pedestrian/bicycle pathway system as an
alternative means of transportation "could
382
offset some of the traffic demand on
[nearby] streets and lessen the increase in traffic congestion."
Ibid.
The
Commission went on to note that the required floodplain dedication
would be reasonably related to petitioner's request to intensify
the use of the site given the increase in the impervious surface.
The Commission stated that the "anticipated increased
storm water flow from the subject property to an already strained
creek and drainage basin can only add to the public need to
manage the stream channel and floodplain for drainage purposes."
Id., at G-37.
Based on this anticipated increased storm water flow,
the Commission concluded that "the requirement of dedication
of the floodplain area on the site is related to the applicant's
plan to intensify development on the site."
Ibid. The
Tigard City Council approved the Commission's final order,
subject to one minor modification;
the city council reassigned the responsibility for
surveying and marking the floodplain area from petitioner
to the city's engineering department.
Id., at G-7.
Petitioner
appealed to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) on the ground
that the city's dedication requirements were not related to
the proposed development, and, therefore, those requirements
constituted an uncompensated taking of her property under
the Fifth Amendment.
In evaluating the federal taking claim, LUBA assumed
that the city's findings about the impacts of the proposed
development were supported by substantial evidence.
Dolan v. Tigard, LUBA 91-161 (Jan. 7, 1992), reprinted
at App. to Pet. for Cert. D-15, n. 9. Given the undisputed
fact that the proposed larger building and paved parking area
would increase the amount of impervious surfaces and the runoff
into Fanno Creek, LUBA concluded that "there is a 'reasonable
relationship' between the proposed development and the requirement
to dedicate land along Fanno Creek for a greenway."
Id., at D-16.
With respect to the pedestrian/bicycle pathway, LUBA
noted the Commission's finding that a significantlylarger
383
retail sales building and parking lot
would attract larger numbers of customers and employees and
their vehicles.
It again found a "reasonable relationship"
between alleviating the impacts of increased traffic from
the development and facilitating the provision of a pedestrian/bicycle
pathway as an alternative means of transportation.
Ibid.
The
Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioner's contention
that in Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825,
107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), we had abandoned the
"reasonable relationship" test in favor of a stricter
"essential nexus" test.
113 Ore.App. 162, 832 P.2d 853 (1992).
The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed.
317 Ore. 110, 854 P.2d 437 (1993).
The court also disagreed with petitioner's contention
that the Nollan Court abandoned the "reasonably related"
test. 317 Ore.,
at 118, 854 P.2d, at 442.
Instead, the court read Nollan to mean that an "exaction
is reasonably related to an impact if the exaction serves
the same purpose that a denial of the permit would serve."
317 Ore., at 120, 854 P.2d, at 443. The court decided
that both the pedestrian/bicycle pathway condition and the
storm drainage dedication had an essential nexus to the development
of the proposed site.
Id., at 121, 854 P.2d, at 443.
Therefore, the court found the conditions to be reasonably
related to the impact of the expansion of petitioner's business.
Ibid. [FN4]
We granted certiorari, 510 U.S. 989, 114 S.Ct. 544, 126
L.Ed.2d 446 (1993), because of an alleged conflict between
the Oregon Supreme Court's decision and our decision in Nollan,
supra.
FN4. The Supreme
Court of Oregon did not address the consequences of petitioner's
failure to provide alternative mitigation measures in her
variance application and we take the case as it comes to us.
Accordingly, we do not pass on the constitutionality
of the city's variance provisions.
II
The Takings Clause of the Fifth
Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable
to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, Chicago, B.
& Q.R. Co. v. Chicago, [384]
166 U.S. 226, 239, 17 S.Ct. 581, 585,
41 L.Ed. 979 (1897), provides: "[N]or
shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation."
[FN5] One
of the principal purposes of the Takings Clause is "to
bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public
burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne
by the public as a whole."
Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct.
1563, 1569, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960).
Without question, had the city simply required petitioner
to dedicate a strip of land along Fanno Creek for public use,
rather than conditioning the grant of her permit to redevelop
her property on such a dedication, a taking would have occurred.
Nollan, supra, 483 U.S., at 831, 107 S.Ct., at 3145.
Such public access would deprive petitioner of the
right to exclude others, "one of the most essential sticks
in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as
property." Kaiser
Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 176, 100 S.Ct. 383,
391, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979).
FN5. Justice STEVENS'
dissent suggests that this case is actually grounded in "substantive"
due process, rather than in the view that the Takings Clause
of the Fifth Amendment was made applicable to the States by
the Fourteenth Amendment.
But there is no doubt that later cases have held that
the Fourteenth Amendment does make the Takings Clause of the
Fifth Amendment applicable to the States, see Penn Central
Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 122, 98 S.Ct.
2646, 2658, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978);
Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825,
827, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 3143, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987).
Nor is there any doubt that these cases have relied
upon Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226,
17 S.Ct. 581, 41 L.Ed. 979 (1897), to reach that result.
See, e.g., Penn Central, supra, 438 U.S., at 122, 98
S.Ct., at 2658 ("The issu[e] presented ... [is] whether
the restrictions imposed by New York City's law upon appellants'
exploitation of the Terminal site effect a 'taking' of appellants'
property for a public use within the meaning of the Fifth
Amendment, which of course is made applicable to the States
through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Chicago, B. & Q.R.
Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 239, 17 S.Ct. 581, 585, 41 L.Ed.
979 (1897)").
On the other side of the ledger,
the authority of state and local governments to engage in
land use planning has been sustained against constitutional
challenge as long ago as our decision in Village of Euclid
v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed.
303 (1926). "Government hardly could go on if to some
extent values incident to property could not be diminished 385 without paying
for every such change in the general law."
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 413,
43 S.Ct. 158, 159, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922).
A land use regulation does not effect a taking if it
"substantially advance[s] legitimate state interests"
and does not "den [y] an owner economically viable use
of his land." Agins
v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 2141,
65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980). [FN6]
FN6. There can
be no argument that the permit conditions would deprive petitioner
of "economically beneficial us[e]" of her property
as she currently operates a retail store on the lot. Petitioner assuredly is able
to derive some economic use from her property.
See, e.g., Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council,
505 U.S. 1003, 1019, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 2895, 120 L.Ed.2d 798
(1992); Kaiser
Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 175, 100 S.Ct. 383,
390, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979);
Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, supra, 438
U.S., at 124, 98 S.Ct., at 2659.
The sort of land use regulations
discussed in the cases just cited, however, differ in two
relevant particulars from the present case. First, they involved
essentially legislative determinations classifying entire
areas of the city, whereas here the city made an adjudicative
decision to condition petitioner's application for a building
permit on an individual parcel.
Second, the conditions imposed were not simply a limitation
on the use petitioner might make of her own parcel, but a
requirement that she deed portions of the property to the
city. In
Nollan, supra, we held
that governmental authority to exact such a condition was
circumscribed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
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 benefit sought has little or no relationship
to the property.
See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694,
33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972);
Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist.
205, Will Cty., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1734, 20
L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).
Petitioner
contends that the city has forced her to choose between the
building permit and her right under the Fifth
386 Amendment to just compensation
for the public easements.
Petitioner does not quarrel with the city's authority
to exact some forms of dedication as a condition for the grant
of a building permit, but challenges the showing made by the
city to justify these exactions.
She argues that the city has identified "no special
benefits" conferred on her, and has not identified any
"special quantifiable burdens" created by her new
store that would justify the particular dedications required
from her which are not required from the public at large.
III
In evaluating petitioner's claim,
we must first determine whether the
"essential nexus" exists between the "legitimate
state interest" and the permit condition exacted by the
city. Nollan,
483 U.S., at 837, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
If we find that a nexus exists, we must then decide
the required degree of connection between the exactions and
the projected impact of the proposed development.
We were not required to reach this question in Nollan,
because we concluded that the connection did not meet even
the loosest standard.
Id., at 838, 107 S.Ct., at 3149.
Here, however, we must decide this question.
A
We addressed the essential nexus
question in Nollan.
The California Coastal Commission demanded a lateral
public easement across the Nollans' beachfront lot in exchange
for a permit to demolish an existing bungalow and replace
it with a three-bedroom house.
Id., at 828, 107 S.Ct., at 3144.
The public easement was designed to connect two public
beaches that were separated by the Nollan's property.
The Coastal Commission had asserted that the public
easement condition was imposed to promote the legitimate state
interest of diminishing the "blockage of the view of
the ocean" caused by construction of the larger house.
We
agreed that the Coastal Commission's concern with protecting
visual access to the ocean constituted a legitimate 387
public interest. Id.,
at 835, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
We also agreed that the permit condition would have
been constitutional "even if it consisted of the requirement
that the Nollans provide a viewing spot on their property
for passersby with whose sighting of the ocean their new house
would interfere."
Id., at 836, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
We resolved, however, that the Coastal Commission's
regulatory authority was set completely adrift from its constitutional
moorings when it claimed that a nexus existed between visual
access to the ocean and a permit condition requiring lateral
public access along the Nollans' beachfront lot.
Id., at 837, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
How enhancing the public's ability to "traverse
to and along the shorefront" served the same governmental
purpose of "visual access to the ocean" from the
roadway was beyond our ability to countenance.
The absence of a nexus left the Coastal Commission
in the position of simply trying to obtain an easement through
gimmickry, which converted a valid regulation of land use
into " 'an out-and-out plan of extortion.' "
Ibid., quoting J.E.D. Associates, Inc. v. Atkinson,
121 N.H. 581, 584, 432 A.2d 12, 14-15 (1981).
No
such gimmicks are associated with the permit conditions imposed
by the city in this case.
Undoubtedly, the prevention of flooding
along Fanno Creek and the reduction of traffic congestion
in the Central Business District qualify as the type of legitimate
public purposes we have upheld.
Agins, 447 U.S., at 260-262, 100 S.Ct., at 2141-2142.
It seems equally obvious that a nexus exists between
preventing flooding along Fanno Creek and limiting development
within the creek's 100-year floodplain.
Petitioner proposes to double the size of her retail
store and to pave her now-gravel parking lot, thereby expanding
the impervious surface on the property and increasing the
amount of storm water runoff into Fanno Creek.
The
same may be said for the city's attempt to reduce traffic
congestion by providing for alternative means of transportation.
In theory, a pedestrian/bicycle pathway provides a
useful alternative means of transportation for workers and
shoppers: "Pedestrians
and bicyclists occupying dedicated 388 spaces for walking
and/or bicycling ... remove potential vehicles from streets,
resulting in an overall improvement in total transportation
system flow."
A. Nelson, Public Provision of Pedestrian and Bicycle
Access Ways: Public
Policy Rationale and the Nature of Private Benefits 11, Center
for Planning Development, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Working Paper Series (Jan. 1994).
See also Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency
Act of 1991, Pub.L. 102-240, 105 Stat.1914 (recognizing pedestrian
and bicycle facilities as necessary components of any strategy
to reduce traffic congestion).
B
The
second part of our analysis requires us to determine whether
the degree of the exactions demanded by the city's permit
conditions bears the required relationship to the projected
impact of petitioner's proposed development. Nollan, supra,
483 U.S., at 834, 107 S.Ct., at 3147, quoting Penn Central
Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 127, 98 S.Ct.
2646, 2660, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978) (" '[A] use restriction
may constitute a "taking" if not reasonably necessary
to the effectuation of a substantial government purpose' ").
Here the Oregon Supreme Court deferred to what it termed
the "city's unchallenged factual findings" supporting
the dedication conditions and found them to be reasonably
related to the impact of the expansion of petitioner's business.
317 Ore., at 120-121, 854 P.2d, at 443.
The
city required that petitioner dedicate "to the City as
Greenway all portions of the site that fall within the existing
100-year floodplain [of Fanno Creek] ... and all property
15 feet above [the floodplain] boundary." Id., at 113,
n. 3, 854 P.2d, at 439, n. 3.
In addition, the city demanded that the retail store
be designed so as not to intrude into the greenway area. The
city relies on the Commission's rather tentative findings
that increased storm water flow from petitioner's property
"can only add to the public need to manage the [floodplain]
for drainage purposes" to support its conclusion that
the "requirement of dedication of the floodplain area
on
389 the site is related to
the applicant's plan to intensify development on the site."
City of Tigard Planning Commission Final Order No.
91-09 PC, App. to Pet. for Cert. G-37.
The
city made the following specific findings relevant to the
pedestrian/bicycle pathway:
"In
addition, the proposed expanded use of this site is anticipated
to generate additional vehicular traffic thereby increasing
congestion on nearby collector and arterial streets.
Creation of a convenient, safe pedestrian/bicycle pathway
system as an alternative means of transportation could offset
some of the traffic demand on these nearby streets and lessen
the increase in traffic congestion." Id., at G-24.
The question
for us is whether these findings are constitutionally sufficient
to justify the conditions imposed by the city on petitioner's
building permit. Since state courts have been dealing with
this question a good deal longer than we have, we turn to
representative decisions made by them.
In some States,
very generalized statements as to the necessary connection
between the required dedication and the proposed development
seem to suffice. See, e.g., Billings Properties, Inc. v. Yellowstone
County, 144 Mont. 25, 394 P.2d 182 (1964);
Jenad, Inc. v. Scarsdale, 18 N.Y.2d 78, 271 N.Y.S.2d 955,
218 N.E.2d 673 (1966).
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.
Other state
courts require a very exacting correspondence, described as
the "specifi[c]
and uniquely attributable" test.
The Supreme Court of Illinois first developed this
test in Pioneer Trust & Savings Bank v. Mount Prospect,
22 Ill.2d 375, 380, 176 N.E.2d 799, 802 (1961). [FN7]
Under this standard, 390 if the local
government cannot demonstrate that its exaction is directly
proportional to the specifically created need, the exaction
becomes "a veiled exercise of the power of eminent domain
and a confiscation of private property behind the defense
of police regulations."
Id., at 381, 176 N.E.2d, at 802.
We do not think the Federal Constitution requires such
exacting scrutiny, given the nature of the interests involved.
FN7.
The "specifically and uniquely attributable" test
has now been adopted by a minority of other courts.
See, e.g., J.E.D. Associates, Inc. v. Atkinson, 121
N.H. 581, 585, 432 A.2d 12, 15 (1981);
Divan Builders, Inc. v. Planning Bd. of Twp. of Wayne,
66 N.J. 582, 600-601, 334 A.2d 30, 40 (1975);
McKain v. Toledo City Plan Comm'n, 26 Ohio App.2d 171,
176, 270 N.E.2d 370, 374 (1971);
Frank Ansuini, Inc. v. Cranston, 107 R.I. 63, 69, 264
A.2d 910, 913 (1970).
A
number of state courts have taken an intermediate position,
requiring the municipality to show a "reasonable relationship"
between the required dedication and the impact of the proposed
development. Typical
is the Supreme Court of Nebraska's opinion in Simpson v. North
Platte, 206 Neb. 240, 245, 292 N.W.2d 297, 301 (1980), where
that court stated:
"The
distinction, therefore, which must be made between an appropriate
exercise of the police power and an improper exercise of eminent
domain is whether the requirement has some reasonable relationship
or nexus to the use to which the property is being made or
is merely being used as an excuse for taking property simply
because at that particular moment the landowner is asking
the city for some license or permit."
Thus, the court held that
a city may not require a property owner to dedicate private
property for some future public use as a condition of obtaining
a building permit when such future use is not "occasioned
by the construction sought to be permitted."
Id., at 248, 292 N.W.2d, at 302.
Some form
of the reasonable relationship test has been adopted in many
other jurisdictions.
See, e.g., Jordan v. Menomonee Falls, 28 Wis.2d 608,
137 N.W.2d 442 (1965);
Collis v. Bloomington, 310 Minn. 5, 246 N.W.2d 19 (1976)
(requiring a showing of a reasonable relationship between 391
the planned subdivision and the municipality's need for land);
College Station v. Turtle Rock Corp., 680 S.W.2d 802,
807 (Tex.1984); Call
v. West Jordan, 606 P.2d 217, 220 (Utah 1979) (affirming use
of the reasonable relation test). Despite any semantical differences,
general agreement exists among the courts "that the dedication
should have some reasonable relationship to the needs created
by the [development]."
Ibid. See
generally Note " 'Take' My Beach Please!":
Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and a Rational-Nexus
Constitutional Analysis of Development Exactions, 69 B.U.L.Rev.
823 (1989); see also Parks v. Watson, 716 F.2d 646, 651-653
(CA9 1983).
We think the "reasonable
relationship" test adopted by a majority of the state
courts is closer to the federal constitutional norm than either
of those previously discussed.
But we do not adopt it as such, partly because the
term "reasonable relationship" seems confusingly
similar to the term "rational basis" which describes
the minimal level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. We think a term such as "rough
proportionality" best encapsulates what we hold to be
the requirement of the Fifth Amendment.
No precise mathematical calculation is required, but
the city must make some sort of individualized determination
that the required dedication
is related both in nature and extent to the impact of
the proposed development. [FN8]
FN8.
Justice STEVENS' dissent takes us to task for placing the
burden on the city to justify the required dedication.
He is correct in arguing that in evaluating most generally
applicable zoning regulations, the burden properly rests on
the party challenging the regulation to prove that it constitutes
an arbitrary regulation of property rights.
See, e.g., Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.,
272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926). Here, by contrast, the city
made an adjudicative decision to condition petitioner's application
for a building permit on an individual parcel.
In this situation, the burden properly rests on the
city. See
Nollan, 483 U.S., at 836, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
This conclusion is not, as he suggests, undermined
by our decision in Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494,
97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977), in which we struck down
a housing ordinance that limited occupancy of a dwelling unit
to members of a single family as violating the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The ordinance at issue in Moore intruded on choices
concerning family living arrangements, an area in which the
usual deference to the legislature was found to be inappropriate.
Id., at 499, 97 S.Ct., at 1935.
392
Justice STEVENS' dissent relies upon a law review article
for the proposition that the city's conditional demands for
part of petitioner's property are "a species of business
regulation that heretofore warranted a strong presumption
of constitutional validity."
Post, at 2325.
But simply denominating a governmental measure as a
"business regulation" does not immunize it from
constitutional challenge on the ground that it violates a
provision of the Bill of Rights.
In Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 98 S.Ct.
1816, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978), we held that a statute authorizing
a warrantless search of business premises in order to detect
OSHA violations violated the Fourth Amendment.
See also Air Pollution Variance Bd., of Colo. v. Western
Alfalfa Corp., 416 U.S. 861, 94 S.Ct. 2114, 40 L.Ed.2d 607
(1974); New York
v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987).
And in Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public
Serv. Comm'n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d
341 (1980), we held that an order of the New York Public Service
Commission, designed to cut down the use of electricity because
of a fuel shortage, violated the First Amendment insofar as
it prohibited advertising by a utility company to promote
the use of electricity.
We see no reason why the Takings Clause of the Fifth
Amendment, as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First
Amendment or Fourth Amendment, should be relegated to the
status of a poor relation in these comparable circumstances. We turn now to analysis of
whether the findings relied upon by the city here, first with
respect to the floodplain easement, and second with respect
to the pedestrian/bicycle path, satisfied these requirements.
It is axiomatic that increasing
the amount of impervious surface will increase the quantity
and rate of storm water flow from petitioner's property.
Record, Doc. No. F, ch. 4, 393
p. 4-29.
Therefore, keeping the floodplain open and free from
development would likely confine the pressures on Fanno Creek
created by petitioner's development.
In fact, because petitioner's property lies within
the Central Business District, the CDC already required that
petitioner leave 15% of it as open space and the undeveloped
floodplain would have nearly satisfied that requirement.
App. to Pet. for Cert. G-16 to G-17.
But the city demanded more -- it not only wanted petitioner
not to build in the floodplain, but it also wanted petitioner's
property along Fanno Creek for its greenway system.
The city has never said why a public greenway, as opposed
to a private one, was required in the interest of flood control.
The
difference to petitioner, of course, is the loss of her ability
to exclude others.
As we have noted, this right to exclude others is "one
of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that
are commonly characterized as property."
Kaiser Aetna, 444 U.S., at 176, 100 S.Ct., at 391.
It is difficult to see why recreational visitors trampling
along petitioner's floodplain easement are sufficiently related
to the city's legitimate interest in reducing flooding problems
along Fanno Creek, and the city has not attempted to
make any individualized determination to support this
part of its request.
The
city contends that the recreational easement along the greenway
is only ancillary to the city's chief purpose in controlling
flood hazards.
It further asserts that unlike the residential property
at issue in Nollan, petitioner's property is commercial in
character, and therefore, her right to exclude others is compromised.
Brief for Respondent 41, quoting United States v. Orito,
413 U.S. 139, 142, 93 S.Ct. 2674, 2677, 37 L.Ed.2d 513 (1973)
(" 'The Constitution extends special safeguards to the
privacy of the home' ").
The city maintains that "[t]here is nothing to
suggest that preventing [petitioner] from prohibiting [the
easements] will unreasonably impair the value of [her] property
as a [retail store]."
PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 83,
100 S.Ct. 2035, 2042, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980).
394
Admittedly, petitioner wants to build
a bigger store to attract members of the public to her property.
She also wants, however, to be able to control the
time and manner in which they enter.
The recreational easement on the greenway is different
in character from the exercise of state-protected rights of
free expression and petition that we permitted in PruneYard.
In PruneYard, we held that a major private shopping
center that attracted more than 25,000 daily patrons had to
provide access to persons exercising their state constitutional
rights to distribute pamphlets and ask passers-by to sign
their petitions. Id., at 85, 100 S.Ct., at 2042.
We based our decision, in part, on the fact that the
shopping center "may restrict expressive activity by
adopting time, place, and manner regulations that will minimize
any interference with its commercial functions."
Id., at 83, 100 S.Ct., at 2042.
By contrast, the city wants to impose a permanent recreational
easement upon petitioner's property that borders Fanno Creek.
Petitioner would lose all rights to regulate the time
in which the public entered onto the greenway, regardless
of any interference it might pose with her retail store.
Her right to exclude would not be regulated, it would
be eviscerated.
If
petitioner's proposed development had somehow encroached on
existing greenway space in the city, it would have been reasonable
to require petitioner to provide some alternative greenway
space for the public either on her property or elsewhere.
See Nollan, 483 U.S., at 836, 107 S.Ct., at 3148 ("Although
such a requirement, constituting a permanent grant of continuous
access to the property, would have to be considered a taking
if it were not attached to a development permit, the Commission's
assumed power to forbid construction of the house in order
to protect the public's view of the beach must surely include
the power to condition construction upon some concession by
the owner, even a concession of property rights, that serves
the same end"). But that is not the case here.
We conclude that the findings upon which the city relies
395 do not show the required
reasonable relationship between the floodplain easement and
the petitioner's proposed new building.
With respect to the pedestrian/bicycle
pathway, we have no doubt that the city was correct in finding
that the larger retail sales facility proposed by petitioner
will increase traffic on the streets of the Central Business
District. The
city estimates that the proposed development would generate
roughly 435 additional trips per day. [FN9]
Dedications for streets, sidewalks, and other public
ways are generally reasonable exactions to avoid excessive
congestion from a proposed property use.
But on the record before us, the city has not met its
burden of demonstrating that the additional number of vehicle
and bicycle trips generated by petitioner's development reasonably
relate to the city's requirement for a dedication of the pedestrian/bicycle
pathway easement.
The city simply found that the creation of the pathway
"could offset some of the traffic demand ... and lessen the increase in
traffic congestion."
[FN10]
FN9.
The city uses a weekday average trip rate of 53.21 trips per
1,000 square feet.
Additional Trips Generated = 53.21 X (17,600-9,720).
App. to Pet. for Cert. G-15.
FN10.
In rejecting petitioner's request for a variance from the
pathway dedication condition, the city stated that omitting
the planned section of the pathway across petitioner's property
would conflict with its adopted policy of providing a continuous
pathway system.
But the Takings Clause requires the city to implement
its policy by condemnation unless the required relationship
between petitioner's development and added traffic is shown.
As Justice
Peterson of the Supreme Court of Oregon explained in his dissenting
opinion, however, "[t]he findings of fact that the bicycle
pathway system 'could offset some of the traffic demand' is
a far cry from a finding that the bicycle pathway system will,
or is likely to, offset some of the traffic demand."
317 Ore., at 127, 854 P.2d, at 447 (emphasis in original).
No precise mathematical calculation is required, but
the city must make some effort to quantify its findings in 396
support of the dedication for the pedestrian/bicycle
pathway beyond the conclusory statement that it could offset
some of the traffic demand generated.
IV
Cities have
long engaged in the commendable task of land use planning,
made necessary by increasing urbanization, particularly in
metropolitan areas such as Portland.
The city's goals of reducing flooding hazards and traffic
congestion, and providing for public greenways, are laudable,
but there are outer limits to how this may be done.
"A strong public desire to improve the public
condition [will not] warrant achieving the desire by a shorter
cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change."
Pennsylvania Coal, 260 U.S., at 416, 43 S.Ct., at 160.
The
judgment of the Supreme Court of Oregon is reversed, and the
case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice STEVENS,
with whom Justice BLACKMUN and Justice GINSBURG join, dissenting.
The record
does not tell us the dollar value of petitioner Florence Dolan's
interest in excluding the public from the greenway adjacent
to her hardware business.
The mountain of briefs that the case has generated
nevertheless makes it obvious that the pecuniary value of
her victory is far less important than the rule of law that
this case has been used to establish. It is unquestionably
an important case.
Certain propositions
are not in dispute. The enlargement of the Tigard
unit in Dolan's chain of hardware stores will have an adverse
impact on the city's legitimate and substantial interests
in controlling drainage in Fanno Creek and minimizing traffic
congestion in Tigard's business district.
That impact is sufficient to justify an outright denial
of her application for approval of the expansion.
The city has nevertheless 397
agreed to grant Dolan's application
if she will comply with two conditions, each of which admittedly
will mitigate the adverse effects of her proposed development. The disputed question is
whether the city has violated the Fourteenth Amendment to
the Federal Constitution by refusing to allow Dolan's planned
construction to proceed unless those conditions are met.
The
Court is correct in concluding that the city may not attach
arbitrary conditions to a building permit or to a variance
even when it can rightfully deny the application outright.
I also agree that state court decisions dealing with
ordinances that govern municipal development plans provide
useful guidance in a case of this kind.
Yet the Court's description of the doctrinal underpinnings
of its decision, the phrasing of its fledgling test of "rough
proportionality," and the application of that test to
this case run contrary to the traditional treatment of these
cases and break considerable and unpropitious new ground.
I
Candidly
acknowledging the lack of federal precedent for its exercise
in rulemaking, the Court purports to find guidance in 12 "representative"
state court decisions. To
do so is certainly appropriate. [FN1]
The state cases the Court consults, however, either
fail to support or decidedly undermine the Court's conclusions
in key respects.
FN1. Cf. Moore
v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 513‑521, 97 S.Ct. 1932,
52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment).
First,
although discussion of the state cases permeates the Court's
analysis of the appropriate test to apply in this case, the
test on which the Court settles is not naturally derived from
those courts' decisions.
The Court recognizes as an initial matter that the
city's conditions satisfy the "essential nexus"
requirement announced in Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n,
483 U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), because
they serve the legitimate interests in minimizing floods and
traffic congestions. 398 Ante,
at 2317-2318. [FN2] The Court goes on, however, to
erect a new constitutional hurdle in the path of these conditions.
In addition to showing a rational nexus to a public
purpose that would justify an outright denial of the permit,
the city must also demonstrate "rough proportionality"
between the harm caused by the new land use and the benefit
obtained by the condition.
Ante, at 2319.
The Court also decides for the first time that the
city has the burden of establishing the constitutionality
of its conditions by making an "individualized determination"
that the condition in question satisfies the proportionality
requirement. See
Ibid.
FN2. In Nollan
the Court recognized that a state agency may condition the
grant of a land use permit on the dedication of a property
interest if the dedication serves a legitimate police-power
purpose that would justify a refusal to issue the permit.
For the first time, however, it held that such a condition
is unconstitutional if the condition "utterly fails"
to further a goal that would justify the refusal.
483 U.S., at
837, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
In the Nollan Court's view, a condition would be constitutional
even if it required the Nollans to provide a viewing spot
for passers-by whose view of the ocean was obstructed by their
new house. Id., at 836, 107 S.Ct., at 3148.
"Although such a requirement, constituting a permanent
grant of continuous access to the property, would have to
be considered a taking if it were not attached to a development
permit, the Commission's assumed power to forbid construction
of the house in order to protect the public's view of the
beach must surely include the power to condition construction
upon some concession by the owner, even a concession of property
rights, that serves the same end."
Ibid.
Not
one of the state cases cited by the Court announces anything
akin to a "rough proportionality" requirement.
For the most part, moreover, those cases that invalidated
municipal ordinances did so on state law or unspecified grounds
roughly equivalent to Nollan 's "essential nexus"
requirement. See,
e.g., Simpson v. North Platte, 206 Neb. 240, 245-248, 292
N.W.2d 297, 301-302 (1980) (ordinance lacking "reasonable
relationship" or "rational nexus" to property's
use violated Nebraska Constitution);
J.E.D. Associates, Inc. v. Atkinson, 121 N.H. 581,
583-585, 432 A.2d 12, 14-15 (1981) (state constitutional grounds).
One case purporting 399
to apply the strict "specifically
and uniquely attributable" test established by Pioneer
Trust & Savings Bank v. Mount Prospect, 22 Ill.2d 375,
176 N.E.2d 799 (1961), nevertheless found that test was satisfied
because the legislature had decided that the subdivision at
issue created the need for a park or parks. Billings Properties,
Inc. v. Yellowstone County, 144 Mont. 25, 33‑36, 394
P.2d 182, 187-188 (1964).
In only one of the seven cases upholding a land use
regulation did the losing property owner petition this Court
for certiorari. See Jordan v. Menomonee Falls, 28 Wis.2d 608,
137 N.W.2d 442 (1965), appeal dism'd, 385 U.S. 4, 87 S.Ct.
36, 17 L.Ed.2d 3 (1966) (want of substantial federal question).
Although 4 of the 12 opinions mention the Federal Constitution
-- 2 of those only in passing -- it is quite obvious that
neither the courts nor the litigants imagined they might be
participating in the development of a new rule of federal
law. Thus,
although these state cases do lend support to the Court's
reaffirmance of Nollan 's reasonable nexus requirement, the
role the Court accords them in the announcement of its newly
minted second phase of the constitutional inquiry is remarkably
inventive.
In addition, the Court ignores the state
courts' willingness to consider what the property owner gains
from the exchange in question.
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin, for example, found
it significant that the village's approval of a proposed subdivision
plat "enables the subdivider to profit financially by
selling the subdivision lots as home-building sites and thus
realizing a greater price than could have been obtained if
he had sold his property as unplatted lands."
Jordan v. Menomonee Falls, 28 Wis.2d, at 619-620, 137
N.W.2d, at 448.
The required dedication as a condition of that approval
was permissible "[i]n return for this benefit."
Ibid. See
also Collis v. Bloomington, 310 Minn. 5, 11-13, 246 N.W.2d
19, 23-24 (1976) (citing Jordan );
College Station v. Turtle Rock Corp., 680 S.W.2d 802,
806 (Tex.1984) (dedication requirement only triggered when
developer chooses 400
to develop land).
In this case, moreover, Dolan's acceptance of the permit,
with its attached conditions, would provide her with benefits
that may well go beyond any advantage she gets from expanding
her business.
As the United States pointed out at oral argument,
the improvement that the city's drainage plan contemplates
would widen the channel and reinforce the slopes to increase
the carrying capacity during serious floods, "confer[ring]
considerable benefits on the property owners immediately adjacent
to the creek." Tr. of Oral Arg. 41-42.
The
state court decisions also are enlightening in the extent
to which they required that the entire parcel be given controlling
importance. All
but one of the cases involve challenges to provisions in municipal
ordinances requiring developers to dedicate either a percentage
of the entire parcel (usually 7 or 10 percent of the platted
subdivision) or an equivalent value in cash (usually a certain
dollar amount per lot) to help finance the construction of
roads, utilities, schools, parks, and playgrounds.
In assessing the legality of the conditions, the courts
gave no indication that the transfer of an interest in realty
was any more objectionable than a cash payment.
See, e.g., Jenad, Inc. v. Scarsdale, 18 N.Y.2d 78,
271 N.Y.S.2d 955, 218 N.E.2d 673 (1966); Jordan v. Menomonee Falls, 28 Wis.2d
608, 137 N.W.2d 442 (1965);
Collis v. Bloomington, 310 Minn. 5, 246 N.W.2d 19 (1976).
None of the decisions identified the surrender of the
fee owner's "power to exclude" as having any special
significance. Instead, the courts uniformly
examined the character of the entire economic transaction.
II
It
is not merely state cases, but our own cases as well, that
require the analysis to focus on the impact of the city's
action on the entire parcel of private property.
In Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S.
104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978), we stated that
takings jurisprudence "does not divide a single parcel 401 into discrete
segments and attempt to determine whether rights in a particular
segment have been entirely abrogated."
Id., at 130-131, 98 S.Ct., at 2662.
Instead, this Court focuses "both on the character
of the action and on the nature and extent of the interference
with rights in the parcel as a whole."
Ibid. Andrus
v. Allard, 444 U.S. 51, 100 S.Ct. 318, 62 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979),
reaffirmed the nondivisibility principle outlined in Penn
Central, stating that "[a]t least where an owner possesses
a full 'bundle' of property rights, the destruction of one
'strand' of the bundle is not a taking, because the aggregate
must be viewed in its entirety." 444 U.S., at 65-66, 100 S.Ct.,
at 327. [FN3] As recently as last Term, we approved the principle
again. See
Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction
Laborers Pension Trust for Southern Cal., 508 U.S. 602, 644,
113 S.Ct. 2264, 2290, 124 L.Ed.2d 539 (1993) (explaining that
"a claimant's parcel of property [cannot] first be divided
into what was taken and what was left" to demonstrate
a compensable taking).
Although limitation of the right to exclude others
undoubtedly constitutes a significant
infringement upon property ownership, Kaiser Aetna v.
United States, 444 U.S. 164, 179-180, 100 S.Ct. 383, 393,
62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979), restrictions on that right do not alone
constitute a taking, and do not do so in any event unless
they "unreasonably impair the value or use" of the
property. PruneYard
Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 82-84, 100 S.Ct. 2035,
2041-2042, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980).
FN3. Similarly,
in Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis,
480 U.S. 470, 498‑499, 107 S.Ct. 1232, 1249,
94 L.Ed.2d 472 (1987), we concluded that "[t]he 27 million
tons of coal do not constitute a separate segment of property
for takings law purposes" and that "[t]here is no
basis for treating the less than 2% of petitioners' coal as
a separate parcel of property."
The
Court's narrow focus on one strand in the property owner's
bundle of rights is particularly misguided in a case involving
the development of commercial property.
As Professor Johnston has noted:
"The
subdivider is a manufacturer, processer, and marketer of a
product; land is but one of his raw materials.
In subdivision control disputes, the developer is
402 not defending hearth
and home against the king's intrusion, but simply attempting
to maximize his profits from the sale of a finished product.
As applied to him, subdivision control exactions are
actually business regulations."
Johnston, Constitutionality of Subdivision Control
Exactions: The Quest for A Rationale, 52 Cornell
L.Q. 871, 923 (1967). [FN4]
FN4.
Johnston's article also sets forth a fair summary of the state
cases from which the Court purports to derive its "rough
proportionality"
test. See
52 Cornell L.Q., at 917.
Like the Court, Johnston observed that cases requiring
a "rational nexus" between exactions and public
needs created by the new subdivision -- especially Jordan
v. Menomonee Falls, 28 Wis.2d 608, 137 N.W.2d 442 (1965) --"stee[r]
a moderate course" between the "judicial obstructionism"
of Pioneer Trust & Savings Bank v. Mount Prospect, 22
Ill.2d 375, 176 N.E.2d 799 (1961), and the "excessive
deference" of Billings Properties, Inc. v. Yellowstone
County, 144 Mont. 25, 394 P.2d 182 (1964).
52 Cornell L.Q., at 917.
The exactions associated with
the development of a retail business are likewise a species
of business regulation that heretofore warranted a strong
presumption of constitutional validity.
In
Johnston's view, "if the municipality can demonstrate
that its assessment of financial burdens against subdividers
is rational, impartial, and conducive to fulfillment of authorized
planning objectives, its action need be invalidated only in
those extreme and presumably rare cases where the burden of
compliance is sufficiently great to deter the owner from proceeding
with his planned development."
Id., at 917.
The city of Tigard has demonstrated that its plan is
rational and impartial and that the conditions at issue are
"conducive to fulfillment of authorized planning objectives."
Dolan, on the other hand, has offered no evidence that
her burden of compliance has any impact at all on the value
or profitability of her planned development. Following the
teaching of the cases on which it purports to rely, the Court
should not isolate the burden associated with the loss of
the power to exclude 403 from an evaluation
of the benefit to be derived from the permit to enlarge the
store and the parking lot.
The
Court's assurances that its "rough proportionality"
test leaves ample room for cities to pursue the "commendable
task of land use planning," ante, at 2322 -- even twice
avowing that "[n]o precise mathematical calculation is
required," ante, at 2319, 2322 -- are wanting given the
result that test compels here.
Under the Court's approach, a city must not only "quantify
its findings," ante, at 2322, and make "individualized
determination[s]" with respect to the nature and the
extent of the relationship between the conditions and the
impact, ante, at 2319, 2320, but also demonstrate "proportionality."
The correct inquiry should instead concentrate on whether
the required nexus is present and venture beyond considerations
of a condition's nature or germaneness only if the developer
establishes that a concededly germane condition is so grossly
disproportionate to the proposed development's adverse effects
that it manifests motives other than land use regulation on
the part of the city. [FN5]
The heightened requirement the Court imposes on cities
is even more unjustified when all the tools needed to resolve
the questions presented by this case can be garnered from
our existing case law.
FN5.
Dolan's attorney overstated the danger when he suggested at
oral argument that without some requirement for proportionality,
"[t]he City could have found that Mrs. Dolan's new store
would have increased traffic by one additional vehicle trip
per day [and] could have required her to dedicate 75, 95 percent
of her land for a widening of Main Street."
Tr. of Oral Arg. 52-53.
III
Applying its
new standard, the Court finds two defects in the city's case.
First, while the record would adequately support a
requirement that Dolan maintain the portion of the floodplain
on her property as undeveloped open space, it does not support
the additional requirement that the floodplain be dedicated
to the city. Ante,
at 2320-2322.
Second,
404 while the city adequately
established the traffic increase that the proposed development
would generate, it failed to quantify the offsetting decrease
in automobile traffic that the bike path will produce.
Ante, at 2321-2322.
Even under the Court's new rule, both defects are,
at most, nothing more than harmless error.
In her objections
to the floodplain condition, Dolan made no effort to demonstrate
that the dedication of that portion of her property would
be any more onerous than a simple prohibition against any
development on that portion of her property.
Given the commercial character of both the existing
and the proposed use of the property as a retail store, it
seems likely that potential customers "trampling along
petitioner's floodplain," ante, at 2320, are more valuable
than a useless parcel of vacant land.
Moreover, the duty to pay taxes and the responsibility
for potential tort liability may well make ownership of the
fee interest in useless land a liability rather than an asset.
That may explain why Dolan never conceded that she
could be prevented from building on the floodplain.
The city attorney also pointed out that absent a dedication,
property owners would be required to "build on their
own land" and "with their own money" a storage
facility for the water runoff.
Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-31.
Dolan apparently "did have that option,"
but chose not to seek it.
Id., at 31. If Dolan might have been
entitled to a variance confining the city's condition in a
manner this Court would accept, her failure to seek that narrower
form of relief at any stage of the state administrative and
judicial proceedings clearly should preclude that relief in
this Court now.
The Court's
rejection of the bike path condition amounts to nothing more
than a play on words.
Everyone agrees that the bike path "could"
offset some of the increased traffic flow that the larger
store will generate, but the findings do not unequivocally
state that it will do so, or tell us just how many cyclists
will replace motorists.
Predictions on such matters are inherently nothing
more than estimates.
Certainly 405
the assumption that there will be an
offsetting benefit here is entirely reasonable and should
suffice whether it amounts to 100 percent, 35 percent, or
only 5 percent of the increase in automobile traffic that
would otherwise occur.
If the Court proposes to have the federal judiciary
micro-manage state decisions of this kind, it is indeed extending
its welcome mat to a significant new class of litigants. Although there is no reason
to believe that state courts have failed to rise to the task,
property owners have surely found a new friend today.
IV
The Court
has made a serious error by abandoning the traditional presumption
of constitutionality and imposing a novel burden of proof
on a city implementing an admittedly valid comprehensive land
use plan. Even
more consequential than its incorrect disposition of this
case, however, is the Court's resurrection of a species of
substantive due process analysis that it firmly rejected decades
ago. [FN6]
FN6.
See, e.g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726, 83 S.Ct. 1028,
10 L.Ed.2d 93 (1963).
The Court
begins its constitutional analysis by citing Chicago, B. &
Q.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 239, 17 S.Ct. 581, 585,
41 L.Ed. 979 (1897), for the proposition that the Takings
Clause of the Fifth Amendment is "applicable to the States
through the Fourteenth Amendment."
Ante, at 2316. That opinion, however, contains no mention
of either the Takings Clause or the Fifth Amendment;
[FN7] it
held that the protection afforded by the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment extends to matters of substance
as well as procedure, [FN8] and that the substance 406
of "the due process of law enjoined
by the Fourteenth Amendment requires compensation to be made
or adequately secured to the owner of private property taken
for public use under the authority of a State."
166 U.S., at 235, 236-241, 17 S.Ct., at 584, 584-586.
It applied the same kind of substantive due process
analysis more frequently identified with a better known case
that accorded similar substantive protection to a baker's
liberty interest in working 60 hours a week and 10 hours a
day. See
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937
(1905). [FN9]
FN7. An earlier
case deemed it "well settled" that the Takings Clause
"is a limitation on the power of the Federal government,
and not on the States."
Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, 177, 20 L.Ed.
557 (1872).
FN8. The Court
held that a State "may not, by any of its agencies, disregard
the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Its judicial authorities may keep within the letter
of the statute prescribing forms of procedure in the courts
and give the parties interested the fullest opportunity to
be heard, and yet it might be that its final action would
be inconsistent with that amendment.
In determining what is due process of law regard must
be had to substance, not to form." Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Chicago,
166 U.S. 226, 234-235, 17 S.Ct. 581, 584, 41 L.Ed. 979 (1897).
FN9. The Lochner
Court refused to presume that there was a reasonable connection
between the regulation and the state interest in protecting
the public health. 198
U.S., at 60-61, 25 S.Ct., at 544.
A similar refusal to identify a sufficient nexus between
an enlarged building
with a newly paved parking lot and the state interests
in minimizing the risks of flooding and traffic congestion
proves fatal to the city's permit conditions in this case
under the Court's novel approach.
Later
cases have interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive
protection against uncompensated deprivations of private property
by the States as though it incorporated the text of the Fifth
Amendment's Takings Clause.
See, e.g., Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis,
480 U.S. 470, 481, n. 10, 107 S.Ct. 1232, 1240, n. 10, 94
L.Ed.2d 472 (1987).
There was nothing problematic about that interpretation
in cases enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment against state
action that involved the actual physical invasion of private
property. See
Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419,
427-433, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 3172-3175, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982);
Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S., at 178-180,
100 S.Ct., at 392-393.
Justice Holmes charted a significant new course, however,
when he opined that a state law making it "commercially
impracticable to mine certain coal" had "very nearly
the same effect for constitutional purposes as appropriating
or destroying it."
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 414,
43 S.Ct. 158, 159, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922). The so-called "regulatory 407
takings" doctrine that the Holmes
dictum [FN10]
kindled has an obvious kinship with the line of substantive
due process cases that Lochner exemplified.
Besides having similar ancestry, both doctrines are
potentially open-ended sources of judicial power to invalidate
state economic regulations that Members of this Court view
as unwise or unfair.
FN10. See Keystone
Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S., at 484, 107
S.Ct., at 1241 (explaining why this portion of the opinion
was merely "advisory").
This
case inaugurates an even more recent judicial innovation than
the regulatory takings doctrine:
the application of the "unconstitutional conditions"
label to a mutually beneficial transaction between a property
owner and a city. The Court tells us that the
city's refusal to grant Dolan a discretionary benefit infringes
her right to receive just compensation for the property interests
that she has refused to dedicate to the city "where the
property sought has little or no relationship to the benefit."
[FN11] Although it is well settled that a government
cannot deny a benefit on a basis that infringes constitutionally
protected interests -- "especially [one's] interest in
freedom of speech," Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593,
597, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2697, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972) -- the "unconstitutional
conditions" doctrine provides an inadequate framework
in which to analyze this case. [FN12]
FN11. Ante, at
2317. The
Court's entire explanation reads: "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 benefit sought
has little or no relationship to the property."
FN12. Although
it has a long history, see Home Ins. Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall.
445, 451, 22 L.Ed. 365 (1874), the "unconstitutional
conditions" doctrine has for just as long suffered from
notoriously inconsistent application;
it has never been an overarching principle of constitutional
law that operates with equal force regardless of the nature
of the rights and powers in question.
See, e.g., Sunstein, Why the Unconstitutional Conditions
Doctrine is an Anachronism, 70 B.U.L.Rev. 593, 620 (1990)
(doctrine is "too crude and too general to provide help
in contested cases");
Sullivan, Unconstitutional Conditions, 102 Harv.L.Rev.
1415, 1416 (1989) (doctrine is "riven with inconsistencies");
Hale,
Unconstitutional Conditions and Constitutional Rights,
35 Colum.L.Rev. 321, 322 (1935) ("The Supreme Court has
sustained many such exertions of power even after announcing
the broad doctrine that would invalidate them").
As the majority's case citations suggest, ante, at
2316, modern decisions invoking the doctrine have most frequently
involved First Amendment liberties, see also, e.g., Connick
v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 143-144, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1688, 75
L.Ed.2d 708 (1983);
Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 361-363, 96 S.Ct. 2673,
2684, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976) (plurality opinion);
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 404, 83 S.Ct. 1790,
1794, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963);
Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 518-519, 78 S.Ct.
1332, 1338, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958).
But see Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism
Co. of P.R., 478 U.S. 328, 345-346, 106 S.Ct. 2968, 2979,
92 L.Ed.2d 266 (1986) ("[T]he greater power to completely
ban casino gambling necessarily includes the lesser power
to ban advertising of casino gambling").
The necessary and traditional breadth of municipalities'
power to regulate property development, together with the
absence here of fragile and easily "chilled" constitutional
rights such as that of free speech, make it quite clear that
the Court is really writing on a clean slate rather than merely
applying "well-settled" doctrine.
Ante, at 2316.
408
Dolan has no right to be compensated
for a taking unless the city acquires the property interests
that she has refused to surrender.
Since no taking has yet occurred, there has not been
any infringement of her constitutional right to compensation.
See Preseault v. ICC, 494 U.S. 1, 11-17, 110 S.Ct.
914, 921-924, 108 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990) (finding takings claim
premature because property owner had not yet sought compensation
under Tucker Act); Hodel
v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc.,
452 U.S. 264, 294-295, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2370, 69 L.Ed.2d 1
(1981) (no taking where no one "identified any property
... that has allegedly been taken").
Even
if Dolan should accept the city's conditions in exchange for
the benefit that she seeks, it would not necessarily follow
that she had been denied "just compensation" since
it would be appropriate to consider the receipt of that benefit
in any calculation of "just compensation."
See Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S., at 415,
43 S.Ct., at 160 (noting that an "average reciprocity
of advantage" was deemed to justify many laws); Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704,
715, 107 S.Ct. 2076, 2082, 95 L.Ed.2d 668 (1987) (such "
'reciprocity of advantage' " weighed in favor of a statute's
constitutionality). 409
Particularly in the absence of any evidence
on the point, we should not presume that the discretionary
benefit the city has offered is less valuable than the property
interests that Dolan can retain or surrender at her option.
But even if that discretionary benefit were so trifling
that it could not be considered just compensation when it
has "little or no relationship" to the property,
the Court fails to explain why the same value would suffice
when the required nexus is present.
In this respect, the Court's reliance on the "unconstitutional
conditions" doctrine is assuredly novel, and arguably
incoherent. The city's conditions are
by no means immune from constitutional scrutiny.
The level of scrutiny, however, does not approximate
the kind of review that would apply if the city had insisted
on a surrender of Dolan's First Amendment rights in exchange
for a building permit.
One can only hope that the Court's reliance today on
First Amendment cases, see ante, at 2317 (citing Perry v.
Sindermann, supra, and Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township
High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct.
1731, 1734, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968)), and its candid disavowal
of the term "rational basis" to describe its new
standard of review, see ante, at 2319, do not signify a reassertion
of the kind of superlegislative power the Court exercised
during the Lochner era.
The
Court has decided to apply its heightened scrutiny to a single
strand -- the power to exclude -- in the bundle of rights
that enables a commercial enterprise to flourish in an urban
environment. That
intangible interest is undoubtedly worthy of constitutional
protection -- much like the grandmother's interest in deciding
which of her relatives may share her home in Moore v. East
Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977).
Both interests are protected from arbitrary state action
by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is, however, a curious irony that Members of the
majority in this case would impose an almost insurmountable
burden of proof on the property owner in the Moore case 410
while saddling the city with a heightened
burden in this case. [FN13]
FN13. The author
of today's opinion joined Justice Stewart's dissent in Moore
v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d
531 (1977). There
the dissenters found it sufficient, in response to my argument
that the zoning ordinance was an arbitrary regulation of property
rights, that "if the ordinance is a rational attempt
to promote 'the city's interest in preserving the character
of its neighborhoods,' Young v. American Mini Theatres [Inc.,]
427 U.S. 50, 71 [96 S.Ct. 2440, 2452, 49 L.Ed.2d 310 (1976)
] (opinion of STEVENS, J.), it is ... a permissible restriction
on the use of private property under Euclid v. Ambler Realty
Co., 272 U.S. 365 [47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926) ], and
Nectow v. Cambridge, 277 U.S. 183 [48 S.Ct. 447, 72 L.Ed.
842 (1928) ]."
Id., 431
U.S., at 540, n. 10, 97 S.Ct., at 1956, n. 10. The dissent went on to state
that my calling the city to task for failing to explain the
need for enacting the ordinance "place[d] the burden
on the wrong party."
Ibid. (emphasis added).
Recently, two other Members of today's majority severely
criticized the holding in Moore.
See United States v. Carlton, 512 U.S. 26, 40-42, 114
S.Ct. 2018, 2027, 129 L.Ed.2d 22 (1994) (SCALIA, J., concurring
in judgment); see
also id., at 39, 114 S.Ct. at 2020 (SCALIA, J., concurring
in judgment) (calling the doctrine of substantive due process
"an oxymoron").
In
its application of what is essentially the doctrine of substantive
due process, the Court confuses the past with the present.
On November 13, 1922, the village of Euclid, Ohio,
adopted a zoning ordinance that effectively confiscated 75
percent of the value of property owned by the Ambler Realty
Company. Despite
its recognition that such an ordinance "would have been
rejected as arbitrary and oppressive" at an earlier date,
the Court (over the dissent of Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds,
and Butler) upheld the ordinance.
Today's majority should heed the words of Justice Sutherland:
"Such
regulations are sustained, under the complex conditions of
our day, for reasons analogous to those which justify traffic
regulations, which, before the advent of automobiles and rapid
transit street railways, would have been condemned as fatally
arbitrary and unreasonable.
And in this there is no inconsistency, for while the
meaning of constitutional guaranties never varies, the scope
of their application must expand or contract
411
to meet the new and different conditions
which are constantly coming within the field of their operation.
In a changing world, it is impossible that it should
be otherwise."
Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365,
387, 47 S.Ct. 114, 118, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926).
In our changing
world one thing is certain:
uncertainty will characterize predictions about the
impact of new urban developments on the risks of floods, earthquakes,
traffic congestion, or environmental harms.
When there is doubt concerning the magnitude of those
impacts, the public interest in averting them must outweigh
the private interest of the commercial entrepreneur.
If the government can demonstrate that the conditions
it has imposed in a land use permit are rational, impartial
and conducive to fulfilling the aims of a valid land use plan,
a strong presumption
of validity should attach to those conditions.
The burden of demonstrating that those conditions have
unreasonably impaired the economic value of the proposed improvement
belongs squarely on the shoulders of the party challenging
the state action's constitutionality.
That allocation of burdens has served us well in the
past. The
Court has stumbled badly today by reversing it.
I
respectfully dissent.
Justice
SOUTER, dissenting.
This case,
like Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 107
S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), invites the Court to examine
the relationship between conditions imposed by development
permits, requiring landowners to dedicate portions of their
land for use by the public, and governmental interests in
mitigating the adverse effects of such development. Nollan
declared the need for a nexus between the nature of an exaction
of an interest in land (a beach easement) and the nature of
governmental interests. The Court treats this case as raising
a further question, not about the nature, but about the degree,
of connection required between such an exaction and the 412
adverse effects of development. The Court's opinion announces
a test to address this question, but as I read the opinion,
the Court does not apply that test to these facts, which do
not raise the question the Court addresses.
First, as
to the floodplain and greenway, the Court acknowledges that
an easement of this land for open space (and presumably including
the five feet required for needed creek channel improvements)
is reasonably related to flood control, see ante, at 2317-2318,
2320, but argues that the "permanent recreational easement"
for the public on the greenway is not so related, see
ante, at 2320-2321.
If that is so, it is not because of any lack of proportionality
between permit condition and adverse effect, but because of
a lack of any rational connection at all between exaction
of a public recreational area and the governmental interest
in providing for the effect of increased water runoff.
That is merely an application of Nollan 's nexus analysis. As the Court notes, "[i]f
petitioner's proposed development had somehow encroached on
existing greenway space in the city, it would have been reasonable
to require petitioner to provide some alternative greenway
space for the public."
Ante, at 2321.
But that, of course, was not the fact, and the city
of Tigard never sought to justify the public access portion
of the dedication as related to flood control. It merely argued that whatever
recreational uses were made of the bicycle path and the 1-foot
edge on either side were incidental to the permit condition
requiring dedication of the 15-foot easement for an 8-foot-wide
bicycle path and for flood control, including open space requirements
and relocation of the bank of the river by some 5 feet. It seems to me such incidental
recreational use can stand or fall with the bicycle path,
which the city justified by reference to traffic congestion.
As to the relationship the Court examines, between the recreational
easement and a purpose never put forth as a justification
by the city, the Court unsurprisingly finds a recreation area
to be unrelated to flood control.
413 Second, as to the
bicycle path, the Court again acknowledges the
"theor[etically]" reasonable relationship
between "the city's attempt to reduce traffic congestion
by providing [a bicycle path] for alternative means of transportation,"
ante, at 2318, and the "correct" finding of the
city that "the larger retail sales facility proposed
by petitioner will increase traffic on the streets of the
Central Business District," ante, at 2321.
The Court only faults the city for saying that the
bicycle path "could" rather than "would"
offset the increased traffic from the store, ante, at 2322.
That again, as far as I can tell, is an application
of Nollan, for the Court holds that the stated connection
("could offset") between traffic congestion and
bicycle paths is too tenuous;
only if the bicycle path "would" offset the
increased traffic by some amount could the bicycle path be
said to be related to the city's legitimate interest in reducing
traffic congestion.
I cannot agree that the application
of Nollan is a sound one here, since it appears that the Court
has placed the burden of producing evidence of relationship
on the city, despite the usual rule in cases involving the
police power that the government is presumed to have acted
constitutionally. [FN ]
Having thus assigned the burden, the Court concludes
that the city loses based on one word ("could" instead
of "would"), and despite the fact that this record
shows the connection the Court looks for.
Dolan has put forward no evidence that 414
the burden of granting a dedication
for the bicycle path is unrelated in kind to the anticipated
increase in traffic congestion, nor, if there exists a requirement
that the relationship be related in degree, has Dolan shown
that the exaction fails any such test.
The city, by contrast, calculated the increased traffic
flow that would result from Dolan's proposed development to
be 435 trips per day, and its Comprehensive Plan, applied
here, relied on studies showing the link between alternative
modes of transportation, including bicycle paths, and reduced
street traffic congestion. See, e.g., App. to Brief
for Respondent A-5, quoting City of Tigard's Comprehensive
Plan (" 'Bicycle and pedestrian pathway systems will
result in some reduction of automobile trips within the community'
"). Nollan,
therefore, is satisfied, and on that assumption the city's
conditions should not be held to fail a further rough proportionality
test or any other that might be devised to give meaning to
the constitutional limits.
As Members of this Court have said before, "the
common zoning regulations requiring subdividers to ... dedicate
certain areas to public streets, are in accord with our constitutional
traditions because the proposed property use would otherwise
be the cause of excessive congestion."
Pennell v. San Jose, 485 U.S. 1, 20, 108 S.Ct. 849,
862, 99 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988) (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part).
The bicycle path permit condition is fundamentally
no different from these.
FN
See, e.g., Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590, 594-596,
82 S.Ct. 987, 990, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962);
United States v. Sperry Corp., 493 U.S. 52, 60, 110
S.Ct. 387, 393-394, 107 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989).
The majority characterizes this case as involving an
"adjudicative decision" to impose permit conditions,
ante, at 2390, n. 8, but the permit conditions were imposed
pursuant to Tigard's Community Development Code. See, e.g., § 18.84.040, App.
to Brief for Respondent B-26.
The adjudication here was of Dolan's requested variance
from the permit conditions otherwise required to be imposed
by the Code. This
case raises no question about discriminatory, or "reverse
spot," zoning, which "singles out a particular parcel
for different, less favorable treatment than the neighboring
ones." Penn
Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 132, 98
S.Ct. 2646, 2663, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978).
In any
event, on my reading, the Court's conclusions about the city's
vulnerability carry the Court no further than Nollan has gone already, and
I do not view this case as a suitable vehicle for taking the law beyond
that point. The right
case for the enunciation of takings doctrine seems hard to spot.
See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1076,
112 S.Ct. 2886, 2925, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992) (statement of SOUTER, J.).
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