- A Photographic Update
- on
- Lucas v South Carolina Coastal Council: A Photographic Essay
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- William A. Fischel
- Dartmouth College
- Department of Economics
- 6106 Rockefeller Hall
- Hanover, NH 03755-3514
- (603) 646-2940
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- Original: February 1995
- Updated: March 30, 2000
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- I revisited the site of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), on March 11, 2000. Jerry Finkel, a Charleston attorney who handled the Lucas appeal, took Glenn Harrison, a University of South Carolina professor, and me out to Lucas's lots on the Isle of Pines. There we met David Lucas himself, who gave us a tour of the area. The new photographs differ from my 1994 set solely insofar as they show the new house that was built by the purchaser of Lucas's two lots. Lucas did not build the house or sell the lot to the developer. As I indicate in my 1995 book, Regulatory Takings (p. 61), the state of South Carolina, which ad vigorously opposed any construction on the lot when it was in Lucas's possession turned around and sold the lot to a developer soon after they had purchased it to settle Lucas's successful lawsuit. See also David Lucas, Lucas vs. the Green Machine: Landmark Supreme Court Property Rights Decision by the Man Who Won It Against the Odds. Charleston, SC: Alexander Books, 1995.
- Photo 1 (3/11/00): The cube-shaped house, as before, is between Lucas's original two lots. (Lucas did not own the cube-shaped house or its lot.) On the left is the new house (salmon-pink color) built since my 1994 visit. The lot on the right remains vacant; the sandy platform, whose purpose I did not discover, is not part of any construction activity, according to Mr. Lucas.
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- Photo 2 (3/11/00): A closer view of the new, salmon-pink house. Jerry Finkel, who handled the sale of the lot for Lucas after he won his case, indicated that state officials had urged him to apply for a permit for the maximum-size house so that the state could get the highest possible price for the lot when it was sold. The house is about 5,000 square feet.
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| Photo 3 (3/11/00): Glenn Harrison (USC Economics Professor), Jerry Finkel and David Lucas on the street side of the cube house, with the salmon-pink new house in the background.
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| Photo 4 (3/11/00): Finkel, Fischel, and Lucas on the street side of the former Lucas lot that remains vacant.
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