Property owners in Fayette and Clark Counties in Kentucky learned of an effort to “nominate” their property to be listed on the National Historic Registry run by the National Park Service. The properties involved totaled well over 10,000 acres and would be designated as a National Historic District. Several property owners requested for their property to be removed from the effort. Those individuals pushing for the listing refused. The objectors then presented official objections to the nomination as the applicable federal regulations set forth. As the objectors learned, once the process of the nomination is started — and it only takes one person to start the process — it may be impossible to stop it as the federal rules have been written to essentially make stopping the process an impossibility. The objectors totaled more than 50% of the landowners by number and totally much more than 50% by acreage owned. Yet the movants continued to press forward with the guidance and assistance of employees in the Kentucky Historical Council under the Department of Tourism. The objectors filed an action in the trial court to stop the process. The Court provided little assistance in stopping the process but ultimately found that and ruled that the process followed by the movants using the federal regulations was flawed and arbitrary. On appeal to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, a 34 page published Opinion sets forth that the effort of the movants violated the property owners’ due process rights and that the property owners have a constitutional right to be left alone. The movants sought discretionary review by the Kentucky Supreme Court which was denied. This ruling is significant because it makes clear that the process to nominate real property to be listed on the National Historic Registry violates the due process rights of the property owner citizens of Kentucky and is arbitrary.
