...and if the fifth amendment's taking's clause is restored in a measure, doesn't that also apply to ridiculous STATE laws and environMENTAL regulations as well?
I don't want to take anything away from your questions and concerns here. But as I see it, the environmental lobby is a minor player on this issue. The biggest culprit in this regard are the promoters of land use regulations via zoning. Temporary increases in property values, as well as protecting property values, by stealing property values from others (neighbors), has stolen far more property value from citizens than all environmental lobby activities combined.
Such theft, rarely gets the play that environmental theft gets, because so many profit by the theft. Yet it is this vary precedent that sets the stage for all the other thefts that occur.
Back in Munn v. State of Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876), the Court stated:
"The power of the State over the property of the citizen under the constitutional guaranty is well defined. The State may take his property for public uses, upon just compensation being made therefor. It may take a portion of his property by way of taxation for the support of the government. It may control the use and possession of his property, so far as may be necessary for the protection of the rights of others, and to secure to them the equal use and enjoyment of their property. The doctrine that each one must so use his own as not to injure his neighbor-sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas-is the rule by which every member or society must possess and enjoy his property; and all legislation essential to secure this common and equal enjoyment is a legitimate exercise of State authority. Except in cases where property may be destroyed to arrest a conflagration or the ravages of pestilence, or be taken under the pressure of an immediate and overwhelming necessity to prevent a public calamity, the power of the State over the property of the citizen does not extend beyond such limits."
Originally, zoning had a direct relationship to public health and safety - not having a slaughter house in the middle of a residential neighborhood; not having a livery stable next to hotels; not having brick making or industrial businesses in a residential area. So, under the legitimate police powers, certain commercial businesses were relegated to areas away from houses. (Nuisance per se and nuisance in law.)
The "police power" was originally associated with regulation [to prevent injury] for the general welfare. Somehow, this became twisted into regulation for [promotion of] the general welfare. This can be seen in the 1925 California Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Board of Public Works, 195 Cal.477, 485, 234 Pac. 381 where the court described the "police power" expanded from the original concept as follows:
"In its inception the police power was closely concerned with the preservation of the public peace, safety, morals and health without specific regard for 'the general welfare.' The increasing complexity of our civilization and institutions later gave rise to cases wherein the promotion of the public welfare was held by the courts to be a legitimate object for the exercise of the police power. As our civic life has developed so has the definition of the 'public welfare' until it has been held to embrace regulations 'to promote the economic welfare, public convenience and general prosperity of the community."
In the case of Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926,) the Court recognized the concepts of the "general welfare" as within the police/municipal powers justifying regulation. The Court also accepted the wisdom of the legislature as sufficient for the purposes of regulation as long as they could not be proven to be arbitrary or unreasonable and a "substantial relation" to the police powers could not be disproven.
In Gorieb v. Fox, 274 U.S. 603 (1927), although anchored in public fire and vehicle safety, we see the regulatory justification expanded under "general welfare" to include aesthetics, comfort and promotion of a "better home environment."
So there you have it - the subtle shift away from individual rights in property to the creation of an expanding overriding public interest to which our individual property interests are subservient.
According to California Real Estate Principles, (Third Edition), by Dennis McKenzie et. al., c.1988, pgs. 2-3, the law defines property as "that which is the subject of ownership." Ownership is essentially "the right of one or more persons to possess and to use the thing which is owned, to the exclusion of others."
McKenzie enumerates universally accepted "property rights" inherent in the concept of ownership, or "bundle of rights" to include:
The right to own property;
The right to possess property;
The right to use property;
The right to enjoy property;
The right to encumber property;
The right to dispose of property;
The right to exclude those who do not share ownership of the property from all the above mentioned rights.
The original purpose of the Fifth Amendment was to make a person "whole in his estate" for any personal property that had to be taken for legitimate public use. To the extent that any of these property rights are valuable, their diminishment should be compensible under the fifth amendment, (certainly the factor of exclusivity has been substantially diminished.)