WASHINGTON (AP) — Property owners were the winners Friday as the Supreme Court made it harder for governments to require them to set aside private land for public purposes.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, said an Oregon city did not justify its requirement that a store owner make part of her land a public bike path in exchange for a permit to build a larger store.

“The city’s goals of reducing flooding hazards and traffic congestion and providing for public greenways are laudable but there are outer limits to how this may be done,” Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.

“The city must make some sort of individualized determination that the required dedication is related both in nature and extent to the impact of the proposed development,” he said.

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “Property owners have surely found a new friend today.” He said the court “has stumbled badly” by giving government the burden of proving that land-use regulations are valid.

But some environmentalists said governments should be able to meet the court’s standard for proving a need to regulate the use of private land.

“The good news is the court’s explicit recognition that land use can and should be regulated,” said John D. Echeverria of the National Wildlife Federation.

In other decisions Friday, the court:

Said Oregon cannot bar judges in personal-injury lawsuits from reducing punitive-damages awards they consider excessive.

Ruled in a Mississippi case that federal juries do not have to be told a criminal defendant will be sent to a mental hospital if found innocent by reason of insanity.

Said police may continue questioning criminal suspects who make an ambiguous request for a lawyer. The court added in a South Carolina case that police need not even seek clarification of such statements.

Upheld in a Philadelphia case the way federal regulators reimburse hospitals linked to medical schools for what they spend on training young doctors who serve Medicare patients.

In the land-use case, Florence Dolan sought to tear down her plumbing-supply store in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, and build another store almost twice as large.

City officials told her she could do so only if she turned over about 10 percent of her lot for use as a pedestrian-bike path and as open public land beside a creek to prevent flooding.

The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment bars government from taking private land without fair compensation, but the court previously had let government regulate private land use without paying the owners as long as the regulation does not deny all economically viable use of the land.

Dolan’s attorneys acknowledged city officials simply could have refused to let her build a larger store, but they said the city did not justify the conditions it set for allowing her to do so.

Led by Rehnquist, the court said the city did not show there was a “reasonable relationship” between Dolan’s proposed new building and the need for a bike path and other public space.

“No precise mathematical calculation is required, but the city must make some effort to quantify its findings,” wrote Rehnquist.