Court Ruling on Land Use

Contrary to press accounts, the effects of the Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling in Lucas vs. South Carolina on California land use and environmental regulation will be limited. Actually, the decision offers some good news to all affected groups--property owners, environmentalists, and state and local governments.

Property owners now know they must be compensated when unexpected regulations wipe out all economic use of their land. Environmentalists should be assured by the court’s observation that such instances are “relatively rare.” And for government planners and elected officials, the good news is that the murky rules on when regulations go too far have been clarified, at least to some degree.

The Lucas case represents a classic confrontation between private property rights and the public interest. David Lucas paid $975,000 for two single-family lots on a South Carolina barrier island in 1986. Two years later, the state enacted a Beachfront Management Act, which barred construction of any structures on the parcels and rendered them valueless.

Some observers speculate that language in the Lucas case could be used in future cases to extend damage awards to cases where regulations cause only a diminution but not a full loss of property value. California land use and environmental regulatory programs would certainly suffer severe disruptions should such speculations become reality. As the court noted, government would cease to function if it had to compensate landowners every time a regulation diminishes property values.

But the Lucas decision has two more immediate and clear messages for government planners and elected officials. First, new regulations should be drafted to avoid complete elimination of a property owner’s economically viable land uses. Second, regulations severely limiting land uses of property such as hillsides or wetlands should include hardship variances and local appeals as relief valves to preclude costly litigation.

More than anything else, the Lucas decision demonstrates the need for quality land use and environmental planning in California--planning that balances the public interest with the economic interest of individual property owners.

ALBERT I. HERSON

President, California Chapter American Planning Assn., Sacramento