Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

This case involves approximately 450 plaintiffs who own property in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The lead plaintiff, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. (TSPC), is an association of Tahoe-area property owners. Each individual property owner has alleged, inter alia, that each of several land-use regulations enacted in the 1980’s by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) constituted a “taking” of his property under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The principal question on this appeal is whether a temporary planning moratorium, enacted by TRPA to halt development while a new regional land-use plan was being devised, effected a taking of each plaintiffs property under the standard set forth in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 , 112 S.Ct. 2886 , 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992). In addition, we must determine whether any taking that may have occurred following TRPA’s adoption of a regional land-use plan in 1984 was attributable to the promulgation of that plan, in light of the fact that the plan was enjoined immediately after it was enacted and was never implemented. Finally, we must decide whether the plaintiffs’ claims regarding the successor regional land-use plan…