Cite as: 520 U. S. 725 (1997)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice O'Connor and Justice Thomas join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, and join its opinion except for Parts II-B and II-C. Those sections consider whether the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) must have reached a final decision regarding Suitum's ability to sell her Transferable Development Rights (TDRs), and whether the value of Suitum's TDRs must be known. That discussion presumes that the answers to those questions may be relevant to the issue presented at this preliminary stage of the present case: whether Suitum's takings claim is ripe for judicial review under the "final decision" requirement. In my view they are not relevant to that issue, and the Court's discussion is beside the point.
To describe the nature of the "final decision" inquiry, the Court's opinion quotes only the vague language of Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172 (1985), that there must be a "final decision regarding the application of the [challenged] regulations to the property at issue," id., at 186, quoted ante, at 734, and of MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U. S. 340 (1986), that "[a] court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone 'too far' unless it knows how far the regulation goes," id., at 348, quoted ante, at 734. Unmentioned in the opinion are other, more specific, statements in those very cases (and elsewhere) which display quite clearly that the quoted generalizations (and the "final decision" inquiry) have nothing to do with TDRs. Later in Williamson County, for example, we explained that the purpose of the "final decision" requirement was to ensure that the Court can ascertain "how [the takings plaintiff] will be allowed to develop its property," Williamson County, supra, at 190. And on the very same page from which the Court extracted the vague statement, MacDonald says quite precisely that the essential function of the "final decision" re-
745
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