Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 19 (2002)

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320

TAHOE-SIERRA PRESERVATION COUNCIL, INC. v. TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY

Opinion of the Court

Court's conclusion that they could not make out a taking claim under the Penn Central factors.

Over the dissent of five judges, the Ninth Circuit denied a petition for rehearing en banc. 228 F. 3d 998 (2000). In the dissenters' opinion, the panel's holding was not faithful to this Court's decisions in First English and Lucas, nor to Justice Holmes admonition in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 416 (1922), that " 'a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change.' " 228 F. 3d, at 1003. Because of the importance of the case, we granted certiorari limited to the question stated at the beginning of this opinion. 533 U. S. 948 (2001). We now affirm.

III

Petitioners make only a facial attack on Ordinance 81-5 and Resolution 83-21. They contend that the mere enactment of a temporary regulation that, while in effect, denies a property owner all viable economic use of her property gives rise to an unqualified constitutional obligation to compensate her for the value of its use during that period. Hence, they "face an uphill battle," Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 495 (1987), that is made especially steep by their desire for a categorical rule requiring compensation whenever the government imposes such a moratorium on development. Under their proposed rule, there is no need to evaluate the landowners' investment-backed expectations, the actual impact of the regulation on any individual, the importance of the public interest served by the regulation, or the reasons for imposing the temporary restriction. For petitioners, it is enough that a regulation imposes a temporary deprivation— no matter how brief—of all economically viable use to trigger a per se rule that a taking has occurred. Petitioners assert that our opinions in First English and Lucas have

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