Agins v. City of Tiburon

AGINS ET UX. v. CITY OF TIBURON

Appeal from the Supreme Court of California.

No. 79-602. Argued April 15, 1980 — Decided June 10, 1980.

24 Cal. 3d 266, 598 P. 2d 25, affirmed.

POWELL, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Gideon Kanner argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were John P. Pollock and Reginald G. Hearn. E. Clement Shute, Jr., argued the cause pro hac vice for appellee. With him on the brief were Robert I. Conn and Gary T. Ragghianti.

The report occupies pages 255 through 263 of volume 447 of the United States Reports. The syllabus occupies page 255; the counsel note and the extensive listing of amici curiae occupy page 256; the opinion of the Court runs from page 257 to page 263, where the judgment of the Supreme Court of California is affirmed. No separate opinion was filed.

[447 U.S. 255] “After appellants had acquired five acres of unimproved land in appellee city for residential development, the city was required by California law to prepare a general plan governing land use and the development of open-space land. In response, the city adopted zoning ordinances that placed appellants' property in a zone in which property may be devoted to one-family dwellings, accessory buildings, and open-space uses, with density restrictions permitting appellants to build between one and five single-family residences on their tract. Without having sought approval for development of their tract under the ordinances, appellants brought suit against the city in state court, alleging that the city had taken their property without just compensation in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and seeking, inter alia, a declaration that the zoning ordinances were facially unconstitutional. The city's demurrer claiming that the complaint failed to state a cause of action was sustained by the trial court, and the California Supreme Court affirmed. Held: The zoning ordinances on their face do not take appellants' property without just compensation. Pp. 260-263.”

[447 U.S. 255] “(a) The ordinances substantially advance the legitimate governmental goal of discouraging premature and unnecessary conversion of open-space land to urban uses and are proper exercises of the city's police power to protect its residents from the ill effects of urbanization. Pp. 261-262.”

[447 U.S. 255] “(b) Appellants will share with other owners the benefits and burdens of the city's exercise of such police power, and in assessing the fairness of the ordinances these benefits must be considered along with any diminution in market value that appellants might suffer. P. 262.”

[447 U.S. 255] “(c) Although the ordinances limit development, they neither prevent the best use of appellants' land nor extinguish a fundamental attribute of ownership. Since at this juncture appellants are free to pursue their reasonable investment expectations by submitting a development plan to the city, it cannot be said that the impact of the ordinances has denied them the ‘justice and fairness’ guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Pp. 262-263.”

[447 U.S. 257] “The question in this case is whether municipal zoning ordinances took appellants' property without just compensation in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”

[447 U.S. 257] “After the appellants acquired five acres of unimproved land in the city of Tiburon, Cal., for residential development, the city was required by state law to prepare a general plan governing both land use and the development of open-space land. . . . The zoning ordinances placed the appellants' property in ‘RPD-1,’ a Residential Planned Development and Open Space Zone. RPD-1 property may be devoted to one-family dwellings, accessory buildings, and open-space uses. Density restrictions permit the appellants to build between one and five single-family residences on their 5-acre tract. The appellants never have sought approval for development of their land under the zoning ordinances.”

[447 U.S. 259] “We noted probable jurisdiction. . . . We now affirm the holding that the zoning ordinances on their face do not take the appellants' property without just compensation.”

[447 U.S. 260] “The Fifth Amendment guarantees that private property shall not ‘be taken for public use, without just compensation.’ The appellants' complaint framed the question as whether a zoning ordinance that prohibits all development of their land effects a taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The California Supreme Court rejected the appellants' characterization of the issue by holding, as a matter of state law, that the terms of the challenged ordinances allow the appellants to construct between one and five residences on their property. The court did not consider whether the zoning ordinances would be unconstitutional if applied to prevent appellants from building five homes. Because the appellants have not submitted a plan for development of their property as the ordinances permit, there is as yet no concrete controversy regarding the application of the specific zoning provisions. . . . Thus, the only question properly before us is whether the mere enactment of the zoning ordinances constitutes a taking.”

[447 U.S. 260] “The application of a general zoning law to particular property effects a taking if the ordinance does not substantially advance legitimate state interests, see Nectow v. Cambridge, 277 U. S. 183, 188 (1928), or denies an owner economically viable use of his land, see Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 138, n. 36 (1978). The determination that governmental action constitutes a taking is, in essence, a determination that the public at large, rather than a single owner, must bear the burden of an exercise of state power in the public interest. Although no precise rule determines when property has been taken, see Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164 (1979), the question necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests.”

[447 U.S. 261] “The seminal decision in Euclid v. Ambler Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926), is illustrative. In that case, the landowner challenged the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance that restricted commercial development of his property. Despite alleged diminution in value of the owner's land, the Court held that the zoning laws were facially constitutional. They bore a substantial relationship to the public welfare, and their enactment inflicted no irreparable injury upon the landowner.”

[447 U.S. 261] “In this case, the zoning ordinances substantially advance legitimate governmental goals. The State of California has determined that the development of local open-space plans will discourage the ‘premature and unnecessary conversion of open-space land to urban uses.’ . . . The specific zoning regulations at issue are exercises of the city's police power to protect the residents of Tiburon from the ill effects of urbanization. Such governmental purposes long have been recognized as legitimate.”

[447 U.S. 262] “Although the ordinances limit development, they neither prevent the best use of appellants' land, see United States v. Causby, 328 U. S. 256, 262, and n. 7 (1946), nor extinguish a fundamental attribute of ownership, see Kaiser Aetna v. United States, supra, at 179-180. The appellants have alleged that they wish to develop the land for residential purposes, that the land is the most expensive suburban property in the State, and that the best possible use of the land is residential. . . . The California Supreme Court has decided, as a matter of state law, that appellants may be permitted to build as many as five houses on their five acres of prime residential property. At this juncture, the appellants are free to pursue their reasonable investment expectations by submitting a development plan to local officials. Thus, it cannot be said [447 U.S. 263] that the impact of general land-use regulations has denied appellants the ‘justice and fairness’ guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”

[447 U.S. 263] “The State Supreme Court determined that the appellants could not recover damages for inverse condemnation even if the zoning ordinances constituted a taking. The court stated that only mandamus and declaratory judgment are remedies available to such a landowner. Because no taking has occurred, we need not consider whether a State may limit the remedies available to a person whose land has been taken without just compensation.”

[447 U.S. 263] “The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is Affirmed.”

Editorial note. This record is a research edition, not a substitute for the official reporter. It reproduces the Reporter of Decisions apparatus and reproduces the Court's own text in extended verbatim passages arranged in the Court's own sequence of analysis, each bracketed with the official United States Reports page on which the passage appears. Passages set without quotation marks are Society prose; every quotation mark in this record encloses the Court's or the Reporter's words.

Editorial note. The Court-authored sections are SELECTED EXCERPTS, not the complete opinion. Three limitations are declared. First, the nine numbered footnotes of the opinion — including the footnote distinguishing inverse condemnation from eminent domain and the footnote on precondemnation activity — are not reproduced. Second, the Reporter's page-long listing of amici curiae at page 256 is noted rather than reproduced. Third, the Court's account of the state-court proceedings at pages 258 and 259 is summarised rather than quoted at length.

Editorial note. The decision was unanimous; there is no separate opinion in this report. Obvious optical-recognition defects in the digitised bound volume have been silently corrected against the surrounding text; no substantive word has been altered inside a quotation. For the complete official text consult the bound volume through the canonical source recorded with this authority.

Editorial note. The appellants purchased five acres of unimproved ridgeland in Tiburon, California, for residential development. State law then required the city to prepare a general plan for land use and for open-space land, and the city responded with two 1973 ordinances placing the tract in a Residential Planned Development and Open Space Zone, where one-family dwellings, accessory buildings, and open-space uses are permitted and density limits allow one to five residences on the tract. Shortly after enactment the city began eminent domain proceedings against the land, then abandoned them the following year, reimbursing the owners' costs. The owners never submitted a development plan under the ordinances.

Editorial note. The owners sued in the Superior Court of California, seeking two million dollars for inverse condemnation and a declaration that the ordinances were facially unconstitutional. The city demurred; the demurrer was sustained; and the Supreme Court of California affirmed, 24 Cal. 3d 266, 598 P. 2d 25 (1979), holding both that inverse condemnation is unavailable to a landowner challenging a zoning ordinance, mandamus and declaratory judgment being the sole remedies, and that the ordinances effected no taking. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction, 444 U.S. 1011 (1980), and affirmed the holding that the ordinances are facially valid, expressly declining to reach the remedial question.

Editorial note. The question was whether the mere enactment of open-space zoning ordinances took the owners' property. The Court held that it did not. Because the state court had construed the ordinances to permit one to five residences and no development plan had been submitted, only the facial challenge was justiciable, and on its face the scheme advanced the legitimate objective of preventing premature conversion of open-space land while leaving the owners free to pursue reasonable investment expectations through the permit process.

Editorial note. Justice Powell first narrowed the controversy. The owners had pleaded that the ordinances prohibited all development, but the state court had held as a matter of state law that they permitted up to five residences, and that construction was binding. With no development plan submitted, there was no concrete controversy about application, so only the enactment itself was before the Court.

Editorial note. He then stated the disjunctive formulation drawn from Nectow and from a footnote in Penn Central: a general zoning law takes property if it does not substantially advance legitimate state interests or denies an owner economically viable use of his land. Applying it, the open-space objectives declared by California and the city's interest in protecting residents from the effects of urbanisation were legitimate and substantially advanced; the owners would share the benefits as well as the burdens of the scheme, so those benefits count against any diminution in market value; and the ordinances neither prevented the best use of the land nor extinguished a fundamental attribute of ownership.

Editorial note. Agins matters to the treatise for two reasons, one durable and one cautionary. Durably, it supplies the ripeness principle that a facial challenge to a zoning scheme is a narrow inquiry and that an as-applied takings claim requires a final decision on a submitted development plan — the seed of Williamson County. Cautionarily, its “substantially advances” language circulated for twenty-five years as a takings test before Lingle explained that it had been imported from due process and did not belong in takings analysis. Agins must therefore be read together with Lingle; it may not be cited for the substantially-advances prong.

Editorial note. Limited in part. Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005), held that the substantially-advances formulation “is not a valid method of discerning whether private property has been ‘taken’ for purposes of the Fifth Amendment” and traced it to substantive due process. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987), and Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994), had earlier relied on Agins in the exactions context; Lingle explained that those cases rest instead on the unconstitutional-conditions doctrine. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304 (1987), answered the remedial question Agins reserved, holding that compensation is required for a regulatory taking.

Editorial note. Read with U.S. Const. amend. V (Takings Clause), with Nectow v. City of Cambridge, 277 U.S. 183 (1928), and Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926), on the police-power standard from which the formulation was drawn, and with Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005), which governs the continuing authority of that formulation.