ship'^ or for acquisition of less than fee interests, 

 are made in response both to a desire to plan and 

 implement programs to develop or conserve land 

 or coastal areas and to minimize the initial or 

 long-term public costs. 



The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Devel- 

 opment Commission suggests possible goals that 

 could be implemented by acquisition; (1) control 

 of size, location, and extent of filling, (2) location 

 and design of facilities and land uses, and (3) 

 designation of permanent open space areas and 

 reservations for future water related uses.'^ 



The methods allow varying degrees of public 

 control of the use of property, and, in some cases, 

 permit public recovery of some of the increase in 

 property value resulting from public actions or 

 expenditures. They also offer varying degrees of 

 minimization of public costs, and a choice may 

 have to be made whether to minimize initial costs 

 or total costs, because measures to minimize initial 

 cost may raise the total final cost of land 

 purchases. 



The best way for the public to minimize the cost 

 of buying land is to buy it as soon as possible; no 

 matter how much the price of a parcel has risen 

 during past years, it seems certain that it will rise 

 more in the years to come. This is a problem in 

 every community in the country, but is more 

 acute in a state with a rapidly growing 

 population. . .'* 



B. Land-Use Regulations 



Under our Federal system of government, the 

 States possess certain sovereign powers inherent in 

 the nature of the State and not derived from the 

 U.S. Constitution, although restricted by it." 



Some incidents of sovereignty included in the 

 State police power are the power to tax,'* to 

 condemn land,'^ and to regulate land use.'* 



Public safety, public health, morality, peace and 

 quiet, law and order-these are some of the more 

 conspicuous examples of the traditional applica- 

 tion of the police power to municipal affairs. Yet 

 they merely illustrate the scope of the power and 

 do not delimit it.^^ 



The basic question facing all forms of land-use 

 regulation is to what extent private property can 

 be subject to governmental control. All regula- 

 tions are subject to the test of "reasonableness," 

 which one leading legal authority has defined in 

 terms of four elements: "'° 



—Is the regulation reasonably related to pro- 

 tectible legislative goals? Public health, safety, and 

 welfare, recreation, open space, conservation, and, 

 on rare occasion to date, aesthetic goals have been 

 held to be valid protectible legislative goals to 

 which private property can be subject to regula- 

 tion. 



—Does the regulation provide equal treatment for 

 similarly situated landowners? Particularly relevant 

 is whether comprehensive planning goals exist 

 related as to geography (location of residences, 

 commerce, industry, recreation, open space, agri- 

 culture, and other uses of the area to be regulated) 

 and functions (such as being related to communi- 

 cation and transportation). The presence of com- 

 prehensive planning may be a major factor in 

 judicial determination of discrimination between 

 similarly situated landowners. Included in the 

 problems of differential treatment of landowners 

 are questions related to denying owners of unde- 

 veloped property rights to activities performed by 

 others before the regulation was imposed, and 



92 



Examples of gradual acquisition of fee ownership are 

 (1) options to buy, (2) purchase at request of landowners, 

 (3) installment purchases, (4) purchase and a sale-back or 

 lease-back, and (5) covenants running with the land. 



93 



San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development 

 Commission, Powers, Vols. 1 and 2 (April 1968). 



"^Id., vol. 5, p. 39. 



'^^ House V. Mayes. 219 U.S. 270 (1911); Cincinnati v. 

 Louisville, etc. R.R., 223 U.S. 390 (.1912); International 

 Harvester Company v. Wisconsin Department of Taxation. 

 322 U.S. 435 (1944). 



""McCulloch V. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1816). 



97 



Cincinnati v. Louisville, etc. R.R., supra note 95; 

 Berman v. Parker. 348 U.S. 26 (1954). 



^^Munn V. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876); Village of 

 Euclid V. Ambler Realty Company, 272 U.S. 365 (1926). 



^^Berman v. Parker. 348 U.S. 26 (1954). 



San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development 

 Commission, Powers, vol. 1 (April 1968), by I. Michael 

 Heyman. 



III-123 



