The regulators would have been forced to buy the lot for pre=regulation FMV at the time they destroyed its value with their regulations.
It is an exception that the plaintiff is forced to take a lower price than market. My job at one time included evaluation of the cost of “making someone whole.”
Most often this would include such costs as providing a renter with suitable housing if they were forced to move.
This meant providing the tenant with comparable housing. But the standard was “suitable” housing which meant that the house/apt into which they moved had to meet minimum federal standards of suitable.
Hence, a family of 6 in a two bedroom house would move into
a 5 or 6 room house since children could not share a bedroom.
There are other ripoffs of the government. About 50 yrs ago I was urban renewed out in Chicago and got 3 grand for my trouble. Since I was a college student at the time it probably cost me two hundred dollars, if the robbery of the last night there, is not counted.
Too bad the subject in this suit did not sell when the price was alleged to be 400,000. It would also be interesting to know what value the country was using to calculate the taxes paid at the last payment. Are they going to reduce the taxes to those applicable to 40gs?
Many of these cases along the waters become subject to the Clean Water Act and its discharge permit requirements which often means a septic field cannot be used so the area must be sewered. This is terribly expensive since generally few hook-ups per mile of sewer means the owners get hit with hook-up fees in the thousands of dollars.