taking occurred and no compensation was required. Issue before the Court Whether a moratorium on development imposed during the process of devising a comprehensive land-use plan constitutes a per se taking of property requiring compensation. Decision of the Court Majority opinion The majority opinion written by Justice Stevens dealt with several issues that were raised by the petitioners seeking compensation. First Justice Stevens discarded the petitioners’ assertion that the enactment of the moratorium deprived the plaintiffs of all economic use of the property and therefore required compensation. Justice Stevens held the case law does not support and in fact rejects the idea that a temporary moratorium invokes the Just Compensation clause. The text of the Fifth Amendment itself, he argued, creates a distinction between physical takings and regulatory takings specifying that only physical takings of private property for public purposes require just compensation. Justice Stevens closed this section of his argument predicting that if all takings, physical and regulatory, were to require just compensation then the whole notion of government takings would be, “a luxury few governments could afford.” Next Justice Stevens dealt with petitioners urging to examine the Court’s case law dealing with regulatory takings especially Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992). Stevens however dismissed the precedent of Lucas saying that logically the property at issue in the present case cannot be considered to have lost all economic value since as soon as the moratorium is lifted it will recover all economic value. Fluctuations in property value cannot be considered constitutional takings. Lastly Justice Stevens moved on to more functional concerns. If governments are required to compensate landowners every time a moratorium is put into place in order to plan the development of an area, then officials will either rush through the planning process or skip it altogether fostering growth in the community that is either ill-conceived or inefficient. See also List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 535 List of United States Supreme Court cases Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978) References Further reading External links United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Takings Clause case law United States land use case law Lake Tahoe 2002 in United States case law 2002 in the environment