Regulation Can "Take" Most Of The Value Of Your Land

4/ “REGULATORY TAKING”:  Government cannot reduce the value of your property by a great deal with new regulations which due process requires government to compensate you for a “regulatory taking.”

Leon and Judith DeCook bought 240 acres of farmland north of Rochester in 1989.  They developed much of the land into the Oak Summit Golf Course.  This was permitted under current zoning laws even though some of the land was under the regulatory power of the local airport zoning board because it was ruled to be in Airport Approach Zone A.

In 2002, the airport zoning board expanded Approach Zone A to cover most of the golf course, and it excluded golf courses from the list of permitted uses.  The DeCooks alleged that the Board’s decision constituted a taking or damaging of private property for public use for which the DeCooks must be compensated.

A jury found that the new ordinance was a regulatory taking and that the DeCooks must be compensated with $170,000.  But the trial judge ruled that the diminution of value determined by the jury did not constitute a taking as a matter of law and entered judgment in favor of the Board.

The Supreme Court held: “A landowner must be compensated if his or her property sustains a substantial and measurable decline in market value as a result of the application of an ordinance to the property.”


READ THE FULL CASE DECISION: 

Leon S. DeCook, et al., Respondents, vs. Rochester International Airport Joint Zoning Board.

March 30, 2011     2011-032            

https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/1103/OPA090969-0330.pdf