Taking: Is the claim ripe?

I happened to stumble across a recent decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals addressing the ripeness doctrine in the context of a takings under Hamilton Bank v Williamson County. The case is styled Sherman v Town of Chester, 2014 WL 1978726 (2nd Cir 2014), and involves the 10 year effort of a developer to get approval for a 400 acre development in Chester, New York. The court concluded that the town had erected roadblock after roadblock to prevent the development from being approved, and ruled that for purposes of the developer's takings claim, a final decision by the town was unnecessary.

However, the interesting part of the case is the introduction which begins with a brief discussion of “Catch-22" the famous book by Joseph Heller. It’s worth reading the first couple pages for that alone.