Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 12 (1994)

Page:   Index   Previous  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  Next

Cite as: 512 U. S. 374 (1994)

Opinion of the Court

without paying for every such change in the general law." Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 413 (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 (1980).6

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 (1972); Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968).

Petitioner contends that the city has forced her to choose between the building permit and her right under the Fifth

6 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 (1992); Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 175 (1979); Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, supra, at 124.

385

Page:   Index   Previous  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007