The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear the appeal of the owner of a Florida Keys island who alleged that increasingly restrictive development regulations have harmed his property rights. The property owner argued that the zoning of the 9-acre Bamboo Key as a bird rookery constituted a taking. Florida’s lower court ruled that the city of Marathon’s payment of rate of growth ordinance points, which can be used toward the purchase of one of a limited number of development permits, was just compensation for the property. The property owner argued that the compensation received was a nonmonetary credit that was virtually useless.