Articles

Stopping development for cheaper condemnation later is a taking

February 17, 2015 | By CHRISTINA MARTIN

The Fifth Amendment requires the government to compensate a property owner when it takes property from a private landowner. To get around the requirement of paying “just compensation,” government entities often get creative. One trick is to depress property values prior to taking the land by excessively regulating land or by announcing ...

Articles

South Carolina conservation proposal recognizes incentive problem

December 04, 2012 | By CHRISTINA MARTIN

South Carolina’s legislature is looking for ways to protect its wetlands from development by increasing a deed tax to fund the purchase of development rights to vital wetlands. Although problematic in other ways, such an approach is preferable to the government’s usual tactic of increasing regulations on private property owners, not onl ...