Cite as: 535 U. S. 302 (2002)
Syllabus
factual inquiries," Penn Central, 438 U. S., at 124, designed to allow "careful examination and weighing of all the relevant circumstances," Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U. S. 606, 636 (O'Connor, J., concurring). The longstanding distinction between physical and regulatory takings makes it inappropriate to treat precedent from one as controlling on the other. Petitioners rely on First English and Lucas—both regulatory takings cases—to argue for a categorical rule that whenever the government imposes a deprivation of all economically viable use of property, no matter how brief, it effects a taking. In First English, 482 U. S., at 315, 318, 321, the Court addressed the separate remedial question of how compensation is measured once a regulatory taking is established, but not the different and prior question whether the temporary regulation was in fact a taking. To the extent that the Court referenced that antecedent question, it recognized that a regulation temporarily denying an owner all use of her property might not constitute a taking if the denial was part of the State's authority to enact safety regulations, or if it were one of the normal delays in obtaining building permits, changes in zoning ordinances, variances, and the like. Thus, First English did not approve, and implicitly rejected, petitioners' categorical approach. Nor is Lucas dispositive of the question presented. Its categorical rule—requiring compensation when a regulation permanently deprives an owner of "all economically beneficial uses" of his land, 505 U. S., at 1019—does not answer the question whether a regulation prohibiting any economic use of land for 32 months must be compensated. Petitioners attempt to bring this case under the rule in Lucas by focusing exclusively on the property during the moratoria is unavailing. This Court has consistently rejected such an approach to the "denominator" question. See, e. g., Key-stone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 497. To sever a 32-month segment from the remainder of each fee simple estate and then ask whether that segment has been taken in its entirety would ignore Penn Central's admonition to focus on "the parcel as a whole," 438 U. S., at 130-131. Both dimensions of a real property interest—the metes and bounds describing its geographic dimensions and the term of years describing its temporal aspect—must be considered when viewing the interest in its entirety. A permanent deprivation of all use is a taking of the parcel as a whole, but a temporary restriction causing a diminution in value is not, for the property will recover value when the prohibition is lifted. Lucas was carved out for the "extraordinary case" in which a regulation permanently deprives property of all use; the default rule remains that a fact specific inquiry is required in the regulatory taking context. Nevertheless, the Court will consider petitioners' argument that the interest in protecting property owners
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