The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that fees imposed by governments, including building permit fees, must be proportional to the damage caused by development. The ruling puts a stop to excessive fees and attempts to bypass the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against taking private property without just compensation.
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously ruled that fees governments issue — even those imposed by a legislature — must be based on actual adverse impacts. In other words, building permit fees , for example, can’t cost more than any damage the public would face from development. 'Holding building permits hostage in exchange for excessive development fees is obviously extortion,' said Paul Beard, the attorney who represented the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.
But he was told he would have to pay 'traffic impact mitigation' fee of over $23,000 to obtain a building permit. The county legislature created the fee a few years earlier to help pay for roadwork. 'That's when I started getting pissed off,' Sheetz, who spent 50 years in construction and built several homes throughout his life, told Fox News in January. 'I said, ‘this is ridiculous.’' Sheetz paid the fee but immediately sued El Dorado County.
Beard agreed that governments should be allowed to use taxpayer money to fund services. But he argued that El Dorado’s traffic impact mitigation fee was unconstitutional because the amount wasn’t tied to any actual estimated damage. The lower courts sided with the county since the traffic impact mitigation fee was issued by the local legislature rather than the administrative branch. The Supreme Court rejected that position.
Supreme Court Ruling Government Fees Adverse Impacts Building Permit Fees Development Fifth Amendment Private Property Compensation
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