Plaintiff Esplanade Properties, LLC (“Esplanade”) challenges the legality of *980 the City of Seattle’s (“the City’s”) denial of its application to develop shoreline property on Elliot Bay in Seattle, Washington. Esplanade contends that the City’s action resulted in a complete deprivation of economic use of its property, constituting an inverse condemnation in violation of federal and state constitutional law, and violating both federal and state substantive due process. Specifically, plaintiff appeals three decisions of the district court which, in toto, resulted in the dismissal of its claims against the defendant, to wit, granting summary judgment to the defendant on plaintiffs takings claim, granting summary judgment to the defendant on plaintiffs federal substantive due process claim, and dismissing plaintiffs state substantive due process claim. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
In 1992, Esplanade began a long, and ultimately unsuccessful, process of attempting to secure permission to construct single-family residential housing on and over tidelands located below Magnolia bluff, near both a large city park and a large marina. The property is classified as first class tide-land, and is submerged completely for roughly half of the day, during which time it resembles a large sand bar.
Esplanade purchased the property for $40,000 in 1991, and quickly retained a development team to design and secure permits for nine waterfront homes, each to be constructed on platforms supported by pilings. In June of 1992, Esplanade applied for building permits, as well as various use permits, variance permits, and special use permits. None of these applications were ever approved. 2
■ After reviewing Esplanade’s permit applications, the City’s Department of Construction and Land Use (“DCLU”) identified three significant code compliance issues related to the proposed project: (1) the size of the proposed piers and docks, (2) the design of the causeway access to the houses, and (3) lack of parking on dry land. The City notified Esplanade of its concerns in a Correction Notice. Esplanade responded to the City’s concerns, and sought three formal code interpretations from the DCLU, each relating to the issues raised by the City. Central to the ongoing dispute, the City was asked, inter alia, to interpret the code with respect to parking. 3 According to the City’s interpretation, parking built over water in a single-family zone was prohibited, despite the general requirement that single-family homes be ■constructed with on-site parking. Esplanade appealed this interpretation, which was eventually affirmed by the Washington Court of Appeals on the ground that residential housing was not a water-dependent or water-related use.
*981 At the end of the appeals process, in November of 1997, Esplanade was informed by the City that it had 60 days to submit formal alterations to its proposed plan, in light of the DCLU’s code interpretations, without which the application would be cancelled. 4 Esplanade, instead of altering its parking proposal, simply applied for a variance. Because Esplanade failed to modify its plans with respect to each of the three design concerns raised by the City, on April 13, 1998, the City cancelled Esplanade’s application, 5 and later refused to reconsider its unappealable decision.
On June 5, 2000, Esplanade served a letter on the City threatening to make an inverse condemnation claim as a result of the cancellation of its application. Without a response from the City, Esplanade made good on its threat and filed the current action against the City on August 22, 2000.
In its complaint, Esplanade alleges, (1) “inverse condemnation [ ] in violation of the federal and state constitutional provisions prohibiting the taking of private property without just compensation,” and (2) “violation] [of] plaintiffs right to substantive due process, in violation of the state and federal constitutions.” Plaintiff seeks “monetary damages” under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and RCW 64.40.020.
The district court granted the defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment, dismissing Esplanade’s federal substantive due process claim based upon our holding in
Armendariz v. Penman,
The district court, in its Order, did not resolve Esplanade’s state substantive due process claim, but requested further briefing from the parties on the question whether the matter should be certified for review by the Washington Supreme Court.
Having received supplemental briefing from the parties, thé district court dismissed Esplanade’s state substantive due process claim on the ground that Washington state courts had authoritatively held that the Washington Constitution provides no greater substantive due process protection than that afforded by the United States Constitution.
Subsequently, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on Esplanade’s remaining claim,
to wit,
the City’s alleged taking of its property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The court held that because Esplanade failed to establish that the City’s action was the “proximate cause” of its alleged damages, and alternatively, because the “background principles” of Washington state law would have precluded the development, under
Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council,
Esplanade appealed, challenging each of the district court’s three decisions.
*982 II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review
de novo
the district court’s grant of summary judgment.
Panatronic USA v. AT & T Corp.,
III. DISCUSSION
We turn first to Esplanade’s federal and state substantive due process claims.
A. Federal Substantive Due Process
The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause provides that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. In
Armendariz,
Esplanade’s contention that
Armendariz
is no longer controlling after the Supreme Court’s decision in
Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel,
Eastern Enterprises
did nothing to overturn the relevant holding in
Armendariz.
First, of the five Justices constituting the majority, only Justice Kennedy, in concurrence, addressed the due process claim, and he addressed it to the exclusion of the
*983
takings claim. The four Justices in dissent decided that the plaintiff had neither a takings claim nor a substantive due process claim. For that reason alone there exists no conflict between the reasoning.of the Court in
Eastern Enterprises
and our holding in
Armendariz.
Second, it is beyond cavil that, in our cases decided subsequent to
Eastern Enterprises,
Armendariz is treated as controlling precedent.
See, e.g., Weinberg v. Whatcom County,
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Esplanade’s federal substantive due process claim.
B. State Substantive Due Process
Under Washington law, courts consider six factors in determining the propriety of independent examination of a constitutional claim under the Washington Constitution.
7
State v. Gunwall,
We agree with the district court that, three recent decisions by Washington courts answer the precise question before us.
State v. Manussier,
We agree with the district court that the Washington Constitution “is no more solicitous of substantive due process concerns than is the federal constitution.” Thus, Esplanade’s state due process claim fails as well.
C. Esplanade’s Takings Claim
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from taking “private property ... for public use,
*984
without just compensation.” U.S. Const, amend. V. This clause prohibits “Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”
Penn. Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York,
“Courts have had little success in devising any set formula for determining when government regulation of private property amounts to a regulatory taking,”
Tahoe-Sierra Preserv. Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Reg’l Planning Agency,
Here, the district court found no taking of plaintiffs property for two reasons. First, the court found that the City’s interpretation of the SSMP and its ultimate cancellation of Esplanade’s development applications were not the proximate cause of Esplanade’s alleged damages. Second, the court found that the background principles of Washington law, specifically the public trust doctrine, burdened plaintiffs property and precluded Esplanade from prevailing in a takings action against the City.
We agree with the district court that under both federal and state law a plaintiff must make a showing of causation between the government action and the alleged deprivation.
See Tahoe-Sierra
(9th Cir.2000),
1. Background Principle: Washington’s Public Trust Doctrine
As discussed above, a deprivation by the government of all beneficial uses of one’s property results in a taking unless,
inter alia,
the “background principles” of state law already serve to deprive the property owner of such uses.
Lucas,
In this ease, the “restrictions that background principles” of Washington law place upon such ownership are found in the public trust doctrine. As the Washington Supreme Court recently explained, the “state’s ownership of tidelands and shore-lands is comprised of two distinct aspects—the
jus privatum
and the
jus publicum.” State v. Longshore,
It is beyond cavil that “a public trust doctrine has always existed in Washington.”
Orion Corp.,
The public trust doctrine, reflected in part in the SMA, unquestionably burdens Esplanade’s property.
We agree with the district court that the Washington Supreme Court’s decision in Orion controls the outcome of this case, and that Washington’s public trust doctrine ran with the title to the tideland properties and alone precluded the shoreline residential development proposed by Esplanade.
In
Orion,
the plaintiff corporation, prior to the enactment of the SMA, purchased tideland property in Padilla Bay, the “most diverse, least disturbed, and most biologically productive of all major estuaries on Puget Sound.”
Id.,
We find that the development proposed by Esplanade would suffer the same fate under the public trust doctrine as the project proposed by Orion Corp.
Esplanade’s argument that Orion lacks authority, following the Court’s decision in Lucas, is without merit. Lucas, while articulating an expansive concept of what constitutes a regulatory taking, effectively recognized the public trust doctrine:
Any [regulation that prohibits all economically beneficial use of land] ... must inhere in the title itself, in the restrictions that background principles of the State’s law of property and nuisance already place upon land ownership. A law or decree with such an effect must, in other words, do no more than duplicate the result that could have been achieved in the courts — by adjacent landowners (or other uniquely affected persons) under the State’s law of private nuisance, or by the State under its complementary power to abate nui- *987 sanees that affect the public generally, or otherwise.... The principal “otherwise” that we have in mind is litigation absolving the State (or private parties) of liability for the destruction of “real and personal property, in cases of actual necessity, to prevent the spreading of a fire” or to forestall other grave threats to the lives and property of others.
Esplanade’s contention that the proposed development was consistent with the SMA at the time his project vested in 1992 is similarly without merit. As the City concedes, at the time of the purchase, the SMA, theoretically, permitted single-family dwellings to be constructed on the property. As the district court noted, however, “[t]here are numerous limitations that the SMA places on developments of shorelines, even if those developments, like Esplanade’s, are not categorically prohibited.” (citing, e.g., RCW 90.58.020(2)(requiring that shoreline developments “[pjreserve the natural character of the shoreline”), and RCW 90.58.020(4) (requiring that “[p]rojects protect the resources and ecology of the shoreline”)). In this case, because Esplanade’s tideland property is navigable for the purpose of public recreation (used for fishing and general recreation, including by Tribes), and located just 700 feet from Discovery Park, the development would have interfered with those uses, and thus would have been inconsistent with the public trust doctrine. Therefore, Esplanade’s development plans never constituted a legally permissible use.
As the district court correctly noted, “Esplanade ... took the risk,” when it purchased this large tract of tidelands in 1991 for only $40,000, “that, despite extensive federal, state, and local regulations restricting shoreline development, it could nonetheless overcome those numerous hurdles to complete its project and realize a substantial return on its limited initial investment. Now, having failed ..., it seeks indemnity from the City.” The takings doctrine does not supply plaintiff with such a right to indemnification.
IV. CONCLUSION
Esplanade’s proposal to construct concrete pilings, driveways and houses in the navigable tidelands of Elliot Bay, an area regularly used by the public for various recreational and other activities, was inconsistent with the public trust that the State of Washington is obligated to protect.
For the reasons given, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Under Washington's Shoreline Management Act (“SMA”), RCW 90.58.010, enacted in 1971, localities are required to develop a set of regulations with respect to their shorelines. Before 1992, under the Seattle Shoreline Master Program ("SSMP”), developed pursuant to the dictates of the SMA, above-water residential construction was seemingly allowed where the lots had less than 30 feet of dry land. Though the Seattle City Council later amended that provision in the SSMP, instead allowing for such use
only
where a lot has
at least
15 feet of dry land, Esplanade filed its building permit applications before this change took effect, thus vesting its application to the former provision.
West Main Assoc. v. City of Bellevue,
. SSMP prohibits parking above water unless it is accessory to a water-dependent or water-related use. SMC 23.60.092.
. After meeting with one of the City’s senior land use planners, Esplanade contends that it was given the impression it could satisfy the City's demand to "alter” its application by simply resubmitting the same application along with a request for a parking variance. The City contends that Esplanade had no reason to believe such a submission was adequate, specifically, that it never gave Esplanade the impression that it need not address the full panoply of concerns raised by the City with respect to its application.
. Under SMA 23.76.010(F), "An application shall be deemed abandoned and void if the applicant has failed without reasonable justification to supply all required data within sixty (60) days of a written request for it.”
. In
Graham
the Court held that claims of excessive force brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must be analyzed under the explicit textual sources of constitutional protection found in the Fourth and Eighth Amendments, rather than under the "more subjective standard of substantive due process.”
Armendariz,
. Those factors are: (1) the textual language; (2) differences in texts; (3) constitutional and common law history; (4) preexisting state law; (5) structural differences; and (6) matters of particular state or local concern.
Gunwall,
. The district court erred in stating that "whatever public trust doctrine existed prior to the enactment of the SMA has been super-ceded and the SMA is now the declaration of that doctrine.” The doctrine itself is reflected
in
the SMA, but is not superseded
by
it, as made clear by the Washington Supreme Court in
Orion,
. Plaintiff alleged that the SMA and the Skag-it County Shoreline Management Master Program (SCSMMP), adopted and approved by the Washington Department of Ecology and designating plaintiff's property as "aquatic,” a designation "that foreclosed dredging and filling the tidelands,” combined to take its tideland property without just compensation.
Orion,
