Abstract
In Santa Fe Pacific Trust v. City of Albuquerque, the New Mexico Court of Appeals considered whether a city’s pre-condemnation planning and publicity activities could constitute a taking when the property condemnation itself never comes to fruition. This Note takes a critical look at the Court’s analysis of this unique issue under both federal and state law. Under the federal Fifth Amendment takings analysis, this Note argues that the Court should have provided a more thorough examination of the plaintiff’s claim using the ad hoc balancing test first articulated in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York. Next, under New Mexico law, this Note argues that the New Mexico Constitution provides broader protection than the federal counterpart, but that the Court’s approach reads out any added protection by limiting compensation to situations where the property suffers a near-total loss of beneficial use. Finally, this Note argues that pre-condemnation planning and publicity cases should consider unreasonable delay in cases where the threat of condemnation persists for an excessive period of time.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Jennifer Kittleson,
In the Crosshairs of Condemnation: A Look at Pre-Condemnation Planning and Publicity in Santa Fe Pacific Trust v. City of Albuquerque,
47
N.M. L. Rev.
139
(2017).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol47/iss1/6
