How Florida’s Property Rights Abuse Landed at the U.S. Supreme Court

Reason magazine's Damon W. Root shines a national spotlight on a Florida case that will soon be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. It implicates citizens' private property rights:

"Since 1994, [the St. Johns River Water Management District of Florida]has refused to permit the commercial development of a small piece of property located in Orange County, Fla., unless the owner first agrees to transfer the title to 75 percent of the lot to the government for conservation purposes and also fund costly and unrelated improvements to 50 acres of public land located between 4.5 and 7 miles away. The owner, Coy Koontz Sr. (now deceased), agreed to the first condition but balked at the second. Had Koontz agreed to fund the uncompensated upkeep of state land, the agency admits, 'the exact project [he] proposed would have been permitted.'

"But Koontz refused to pay what he saw as an extortionate demand and instead brought suit, charging the Florida regulators with violating [U.S. Supreme Court precedent] while also dodging the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use."

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The entire analysis is well worth a read; this is likely to be one of the major landmark cases of 2013.