346 TAHOE-SIERRA PRESERVATION COUNCIL, INC. v.
TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
velop their land from April 1984 through the enactment of the 1987 plan. Without the environmental thresholds established by the Compact and Resolution 82-11, the 1984 Plan would have gone into effect and petitioners would have been able to build single-family residences. And it was certainly foreseeable that development projects exceeding the environmental thresholds would be prohibited; indeed, that was the very purpose of enacting the thresholds.
Because respondent caused petitioners' inability to use their land from 1981 through 1987, that is the appropriate period of time from which to consider their takings claim.
II
I now turn to determining whether a ban on all economic development lasting almost six years is a taking. Lucas reaffirmed our "frequently expressed" view that "when the owner of real property has been called upon to sacrifice all economically beneficial uses in the name of the common good, that is, to leave his property economically idle, he has suffered a taking." 505 U. S., at 1019. See also Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 258-259 (1980). The District Court in this case held that the ordinances and resolutions in effect between August 24, 1981, and April 25, 1984, "did in fact deny the plaintiffs all economically viable use of their land." 34 F. Supp. 2d 1226, 1245 (Nev. 1999). The Court of Appeals did not overturn this finding. And the 1984 injunction, issued because the environmental thresholds issued by respondent did not permit the development of single-family residences, forced petitioners to leave their land economically idle for at least another three years. The Court does not dispute that petitioners were forced to leave their land economically idle during this period. See ante, at 312. But the Court refuses to apply Lucas on the ground that the deprivation was "temporary."
Neither the Takings Clause nor our case law supports such a distinction. For one thing, a distinction between
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