Damon W. Root|Jan. 14, 2013 9:10 am

Tomorrow morning the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, the biggest property rights case of the current term. At issue is a Florida regulatory agency’s refusal to allow a property owner to commercially develop a small piece of land unless he first agreed to hand over 75 percent of the lot to the state for conservation purposes and also fund unrelated improvements to 50 acres of public land located several miles away. The owner refused to agree to that second requirement, which he considered to be an act of extortion by the government, and the necessary building permits were not issued.

The legal question before the Supreme Court is whether that permit condition violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use. In addition, the Court will consider whether the Florida agency violated two previous Supreme Court decisions which placed strict limits on the sort of conditions land-use agencies may impose when issuing building permits.

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Read More:http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/14/suprem...ajor-property-r