## Facts

- Morris G. Maher owned a Victorian cottage at 818–22 Dumaine Street in the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) of New Orleans.
- A city ordinance required a permit approved by the Vieux Carré Commission for construction, alteration, or demolition within the district.
- Beginning in 1963, Maher repeatedly sought permission to demolish the cottage and build a seven-unit apartment complex.
- The Commission denied demolition requests; the New Orleans City Council denied Maher’s appeal and prohibited demolition.
- Maher litigated in Louisiana courts; the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the City Council’s authority without deciding the ordinance’s constitutionality.
- Maher then sued in federal district court for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging Fifth Amendment (via Fourteenth Amendment) violations on the ordinance’s face and as applied.
- The district court upheld the ordinance, and Maher appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the ordinance violated due process on its face by failing to provide adequate standards to guide the Commission’s permitting decisions.
2. Whether denying demolition and imposing exterior-maintenance obligations constituted a taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court held the ordinance was a valid exercise of the City’s police power serving a legitimate public purpose in historic and architectural preservation.
- The court rejected the facial due process challenge, finding the ordinance supplied sufficient standards and procedures, including administrative review by the City Council.
- The court rejected the takings claim because the regulation did not deprive the owner of all economically viable use and was not unduly oppressive or confiscatory.

## Legal Principles

- Historic-district preservation is a legitimate public-welfare objective that may be pursued through municipal police power.
- Due process does not require rigid, mechanical criteria for land-use decisions when the law provides reasonable guiding standards, a defined administrative mandate, and meaningful procedural checks.
- A regulation that limits a more profitable use of property is not a compensable taking absent a showing that it is confiscatory or eliminates economically viable use.
- Maintenance requirements tied to preserving a protected district’s exterior character may be sustained as reasonable incidents of a preservation scheme.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit upheld New Orleans’s Vieux Carré preservation ordinance, concluding that its standards and review procedures satisfied due process and that restricting demolition and requiring exterior maintenance did not effect a taking because substantial beneficial use of the property remained.


Maher v. City of New Orleans, 516 F.2d 1051 (5th Cir. 1975)