Private property rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution through the 5th and 14th Amendments which guarantee due process of law and just compensation when private property is taken for public use. The Framers deemed property rights as fundamental and linked them directly to liberty.
The U.S. Supreme Court defines a “taking” as any government action that deprives a private property owner of the use or enjoyment of their property. Importantly, a taking can be a physical seizure of property or a regulatory taking in which a regulation is so restrictive it destroys the property’s value or denies all reasonable economic use. It is this second category, a “regulatory” taking, that I address today.
A suit has been filed in federal court in New York City by two brothers, Pashko and Tony Lulgjuraj, who own a 5-story apartment building in Manhattan. Their hardship derives from the fact that, based upon rent regulations, many New York city apartments have been taken off the rental market.
Long and short, “the brothers are challenging NYC’s rent ‘stabilization’ law. The statute limits the rent increases a landlord can demand of existing tenants or new ones. Rent increases are limited to between 3% and 4.5% when a tenant renews an existing lease or when the apartment is vacated. Many landlords look at their income statements … and calculate that getting the apartments back up to code would cost thousands of dollars that couldn’t be recouped at the artificially low rent cap. So, the apartments sit vacant and off the rental market.” (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 13, 2025).
The brothers have argued that when the rent is so heavily regulated that no profit can be realized from a property, it meets the definition of a “taking” under the 5th Amendment.
The Supreme Court has held, in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, that if the government prevents all economically beneficial use of property, it is a taking. “[W]hen the owner of real property has been called upon to sacrifice all economically beneficial uses in the name of the common good … he has suffered a taking.”
The Court has further stated that “a statute regulating the uses that can be made of property effects a taking if it “denies an owner economically viable use of his land.”’ That is what we have with the Lulgjuraj brothers in New York City.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious cases in the area of 5th Amendment takings, Kelo v. City of New London. In Kelo, the Supreme Court held that the city of New London, Connecticut could condemn fifteen privately owned residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner to promote “economic development.”
The glaring problem with Kelo is that the 5th Amendment only allows the taking of private property for “public use.” However, the Kelo Court ruling allows virtually any possible public benefit to qualify as a public use. I believe that using the power of eminent domain to seize private property and transfer it to a private party is simply a bridge too far.
While a city may seek to enhance economic development and address blight, it is simply inconsistent with America’s sacred view of private property rights to allow a private party to seize private property—using the coercive eminent domain power of the state—even if for a so-called public use.
I hope this case of the Lulgjuraj brothers makes its way to the Supreme Court. The potential danger to our nation embedded in this issue is especially lethal in light of the election of NYC’s new Socialist mayor, Mamdani, who supports “the abolition of private property.” According to Mamdani, “if there was any system that could guarantee each person housing—whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it a statewide housing guarantee—it is preferable to what is going on right now.” Mamdani also speaks in support of the Marxist policy of “seizing the means of production.”
It is simply unconstitutional to regulate private property—vacant apartments here—in such an onerous fashion that the owners cannot profitably rent them. That should be construed as a taking and the brothers should be compensated. Though more subtle and insidious, a ‘regulatory taking’ is just as much a ‘taking’ as the outright government theft of private property through a garden variety ‘taking.’ The Supreme Court should make this clear.
Shreveport attorney, Royal Alexander, worked in D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 8 years for two different Members of Congress from Louisiana.