[xdem]

> No, failure to comply with a contract condiction (rental agreement) is not a "taking".

Generally, yes. So why is this a taking? Because aircraft owners have been deprived, possibly only temporarily, of the use of their aircraft for the eventual purpose of building a park. I'll agree that most previous cases have been about real estate, not temporary loss of access to vehicles.

They have also been deprived of the rent they paid to store their aircraft at the airport.

If the aircraft have to be disassembled, and are not re-certifiable, they will be an even more complete taking, involving the future use of the aircraft, again for the purpose of building a park.

http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-pi210.html

http://www.nyu.edu/pages/elc/landuse/takings.htm

[taxcontrol]

I would say that another interpretation would be that the aircraft has not been taken for the following reasons:

1) The city has taken no action to assume ownership of the aircraft
2) They have not be deprived of their rent. After all the aircraft are using that very rent right now.
3) The ONLY thing that they have been denied is access to the air - from the city's property.

It has been ruled that consequential injury does not constitute a taking. Similar deprivations such as impairing access to premises (the airport which is city property) were also ruled as not constituting a taking.

Nor was government held liable for the extra expense which the property owner must obligate in order to ward off the consequence of the governmental action. In this case that would be the expense associated with the relocation of the aircraft.

I've not known anyone to be sucessfull in going against established rulings. And I doubt the city lawyers would over look such rulings.

The case you make may hold some merit if in the rental contract such provisions are declared - but I doubt it.
Either way an interesting legal exercise. Sounds like it would be a good hypothetical case for a law class.

[dufekin]

Let us take an analogue case: An American city owns a parking garage, in which several dozen vehicles are parked, day and night. The only exits from the garage is through the driveway and one pedestrian bridge too narrow for a car. A water-filled moat surrounds the garage at all other points. Throw in a pair of engangered American alligators and a few dozen cottonmouth moccasins for good measure.

One otherwise unsuspecting night, the Mayor or the City, in the interest of improving drainage and public recreation, orders City road crews to dig up the driveway. This action isolates 16 cars owned by private citizens who had paid monthly parking fees for the balance of the year for unlimited parking permission.

When the citizens paid for this parking, they assumed that they would be permitted to extract their cars on demand and at will. A few were at work in a nearby hospital at the time and commute from the distant suburbs. Has this amounted to an unconstitutional taking, even if the mayor decides that he'll retrieve the cars eventually. I think so.