America faces a housing crisis – a crisis that has become particularly acute in New York City. The City’s rate of overcrowding is more than double the nation’s rate, and the City’s homelessness rate is the highest in the nation. By 2030, the City will need 560,000 more housing units than it currently has. As a result, the average rent there has skyrocketed. New York City’s decision to impose a fee to convert Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists (JLWQA) to unrestricted residential use has exacerbated this crisis.

The fee imposed by the City amounts to at least $250,000 for the typical home. The Petitioners challenge this fee as a taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. The New York Court of Appeals disagreed, so the Petitioners have filed a Petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. Cato has filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to grant their petition.

The lower court failed to protect the Petitioners’ property rights—rights which hark back to England’s pre-colonial common-law right to property. That vision of property rights encouraged the Framers to craft the robust property rights found in the Takings Clause. The Takings Clause is meant to protect those like Petitioners who are subject to the government’s overreach.

In particular, the Takings Clause prevents the government from subjecting a land-use permit applicant to an unlawful monetary demand—that is, a demand that fails the requirements set out by the Supreme Court in Nollan and Dolan. The Nollan/​Dolan standard requires the government’s demand to have both an essential nexus and a rough proportionality with the land use. The requirement the City has imposed on Petitioners lacks both, and so Cato has asked the Court to grant the Petition so that it may strike down the City’s unconstitutional regulatory scheme.