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B-302809 1 (2004-11-12)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptapqo0001 and id is 1 raw text is: i Accountability * Integrity Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 B-302809 November 12, 2004 The Honorable Mike McIntyre U. S. House of Representatives Subject: Case LawPertaining to Constitutionality of BillboardAmortization by State and Local Governments Dear Mr. McIntyre: This responds to your request for an update of our February 6, 1991 opinion to Senator Chafee, B-239187 (Enclosure 1), summarizing case law regarding the permissibility of billboard amortization under the U.S. Constitution. At the time of our 1991 opinion, the vast majority of cases had upheld the general practice of amortization as constitutional; some courts also addressed, on a case-by-case basis, whether a particular amortization practice was constitutional. As discussed below and in Enclosure 2, the small number of additional cases involving billboard amortization decided since 1991 have likewise upheld this practice, ruling that billboard restrictions which provided for an amortization period did not rise to the level of a taking triggering constitutional compensation obligations. Background The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the federal government from taking private property for public use unless the government provides just compensation. The courts have long imposed these same obligations on state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g, Chicago, B. & Q. R.R. v. City of Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1897). Under the government's inherent police power, the use of private property may be reasonably regulated and restricted through zoning or other land use laws, as long as the regulation bears a substantial relationship to the public health, safety, convenience or general welfare. See, e.g, Penn Central Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104 (1978). The Supreme Court has specifically applied these principles in the context of billboards, holding that a local ordinance excluding billboards (among other things) from a village residential district was a permissible exercise of municipal power. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). When such regulations effectively take the billboard owner's property, however, by eliminating or severely restricting

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