One Small Victory for Property Rights

OK, the amount isn’t small, but this is one of many fights needing to be fought. The Las Vegas Review Journal opines:

EDITORIAL: Airport restrictions constitute a ‘taking’
High court upholds award to property owner

The U.S. Supreme Court’s loathsome ruling in Kelo v. New London did, at least, awaken Americans to government assaults on property rights.

Perhaps Nevada’s own high court has now seen the light.

Last week, the justices voted 5-2 to uphold a lower court ruling that requires McCarran International Airport to pay a $6.5 million judgment to Las Vegas businessman Steve Sisolak for placing a height restriction on his property years after he acquired the land, and for diminishing the value of that land by expanding airport operations.

Mr. Sisolak, who serves on the university system Board of Regents, successfully argued that the 35-foot height restriction on land zoned for a hotel, casino or apartments constituted an unconstitutional “taking per se” of his property, and that noise and pollution from jetliners flying a few hundred feet above the land amounted to a “compensable taking.”

What’s important here is that Mr. Sisolak didn’t seek the closure of McCarran or limitations on its operations as a remedy for his losses. The county was justified in placing such restrictions on land owned by Mr. Sisolak and others near McCarran because the development of a large, modern airport is crucial in sustaining Southern Nevada’s tourist economy.

But Mr. Sisolak rightly contended that because the county’s actions diminished the value of his investment, he should be compensated appropriately.

Unless zoning laws say otherwise, you own a certain amount of space above your land (no, I don’t know how high it goes). If you lose the potential for using that space, your property has lost value — maybe a little, maybe, as in Mr. Sisolak’s case, a lot. Assuming that the amount is beyond trifling, you should be must be compensated for that loss in value, even in a valid use of eminent domain, which the airport-Sisolak situation was. Compensation for loss of value would seem to be easy concept to understand, but post-Kelo, one never knows.