Question #1 Mr. Trump wants to have somewhere to get away from the hustle and bustle of his corporate, and political life. The place he has chosen is a little parcel of land on the picturesque Moosehead Lake in Maine. He owns a large track of land on the lake (24.5 acres) , but intends to sell the other 800 acres, and only keep a small track of land that he plans to build a summer home on. The building of this house would require the filling of a wetland, which under the Clean Water Act requires a permitting process through the U.S Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Trump wants to file a case under the takings clause against the USACE. This clause comes from the Fifth Amendment to the constitution which states “…nor shall private property be taken
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The test puts the burden on the property owner to show this loss of use, and if they can prove it then the government is required to compensate them for the full worth of the property. Because only a small part of Mr. Trump’s property is affected by the permit, I would say that the Lucas test would not apply. If the Lucas test cannot be applied, the the test developed in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City will be used. Penn Central owned Grand Central Station, a landmark building, and was denied the required certificate needed to construct a 50-story addition because of the states regulations that prohibit certain modifications to historic buildings. They then sued the state for taking the economic use of their property, because they would not be able to get the revenue from the office space. This case is actually where the “parcel as a whole” concept was formally used by name. The court developed a couple of tests to look at this problem, but settled for a three pronged test that looks at the economic impact of the regulation on the private landowner, the degree to which the regulation interferes with the private landowner’s investment-backed expectations, and the character of the …show more content…
This is similar to the Palazzolo v. Rhode Island case, where a man sued the state because they had deprived him of "all economically beneficial use" of his property, which was a tidal salt marsh. The court denied this, because he still had plenty of economic viability in the uplands. Going by this precedent, Mr. Trumps case would fail the first prong of the test. There are cases that do define the property as just the concerned area, such as Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. United States, but this is usually Investment backed expectations (IBE’s) are the assumed uses the property owner had when purchasing the property. The question must be asked if Mr. Trump’s assumptions about the use of this land were in line with what he purchased the land for. If he had bought the 24.5 acres of wet land looking to build a house (which would be foolish in its own right) then a case could be made, but as shown in Fantastic Four v. EPA, the intent Mr. Trump when purchasing the land was to build a theme park. It would be hard to make an argument that even while planning the theme park, he had set aside this pristine wetland to make a summer home in the middle of the park, especial with the precious attempts to build a water show
The test puts the burden on the property owner to show this loss of use, and if they can prove it then the government is required to compensate them for the full worth of the property. Because only a small part of Mr. Trump’s property is affected by the permit, I would say that the Lucas test would not apply. If the Lucas test cannot be applied, the the test developed in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City will be used. Penn Central owned Grand Central Station, a landmark building, and was denied the required certificate needed to construct a 50-story addition because of the states regulations that prohibit certain modifications to historic buildings. They then sued the state for taking the economic use of their property, because they would not be able to get the revenue from the office space. This case is actually where the “parcel as a whole” concept was formally used by name. The court developed a couple of tests to look at this problem, but settled for a three pronged test that looks at the economic impact of the regulation on the private landowner, the degree to which the regulation interferes with the private landowner’s investment-backed expectations, and the character of the …show more content…
This is similar to the Palazzolo v. Rhode Island case, where a man sued the state because they had deprived him of "all economically beneficial use" of his property, which was a tidal salt marsh. The court denied this, because he still had plenty of economic viability in the uplands. Going by this precedent, Mr. Trumps case would fail the first prong of the test. There are cases that do define the property as just the concerned area, such as Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. United States, but this is usually Investment backed expectations (IBE’s) are the assumed uses the property owner had when purchasing the property. The question must be asked if Mr. Trump’s assumptions about the use of this land were in line with what he purchased the land for. If he had bought the 24.5 acres of wet land looking to build a house (which would be foolish in its own right) then a case could be made, but as shown in Fantastic Four v. EPA, the intent Mr. Trump when purchasing the land was to build a theme park. It would be hard to make an argument that even while planning the theme park, he had set aside this pristine wetland to make a summer home in the middle of the park, especial with the precious attempts to build a water show