In his most recent column in Daily Journal, Manatt Appellate Senior Counsel Michael Berger discussed a recent case involving exactions imposed as conditions to land use permits after the California Supreme Court failed to apply the exactions rules established by previous similar federal Supreme Court cases.
In the article, Berger explained three U.S. Supreme Court cases—Nollan, Dolan and Koontz—that collectively held that a land use condition must have an "essential nexus" between the exaction imposed and the burden caused by the development; there must be a "rough proportionality" linking the exaction and the expected impact of the project; and that this applied for exactions of both property and money. In a series of decisions, Berger explained, the California Supreme Court “constricted the ‘essential nexus’ and ‘rough proportionality’ rules to cases where the exactions were imposed as part of an administrative process applied to one property at a time.” Berger closed by urging the California Supreme Court to “revisit its earlier decisions in light of the clear holdings and analysis of Nollan, Dolan and Koontz, or for the U.S. Supreme Court to once again bring California back into line with federal constitutional law.”
Daily Journal subscribers can read the full article here.