In Aamaans Properties, Inc. v. DOT (2017AP1220), the Court of Appeals District IV held that a property owner is not entitled to compensation when the Department of Transportation (DOT) relocates a nearby highway but does not physically take the property or legally change its use.

Aamaans owned a property on a road that closely intersected with Highway 26 and developed the property into a sort of travel station with a gas station and restaurant. In 2011, DOT relocated Highway 26 so that it no longer connected with the road where the Aamaans property was located. The relocation increased travel time from the highway to the property by over a mile, decreasing the property’s value as a convenient travel stop. The restaurant closed and the assessed value of the property dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Aamaans argued that the relocation of the highway was a compensable inverse condemnation. However, the court ruled that compensable takings must be either a physical taking of property or a regulatory taking wherein all practical use of the property becomes restricted by law. Here, DOT did not physically take Aamaans’s property. Furthermore, the relocation of the highway did not impose any legal restrictions causing the property to lose all practical uses. Therefore, Aamaans was not entitled to compensation for his property’s loss of value.