Lake Tahoe (IJ Amicus)

Tahoe Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency 

This case concerned the plight of owners of undeveloped land located in the Lake Tahoe Basin. For nearly 20 years, they fought an incessant battle with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which through a series of strategically timed development moratoria has refused to allow the construction of any new single-family homes on ordinary building plots located in the basin. Unfortunately, the Court determined that so-called temporary bans on land development did not constitute a taking of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause of the Constitution. The Institute co-authored an amicus curiae brief in Tahoe with the nation’s leading constitutional scholar on such takings—University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein.