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Visitor by put up by Bob Unruh
‘Native governments can not use the duvet of laws to skirt the Fifth Modification’
A house owner who was compelled to pay the native authorities a $23,000 payment for the “site visitors” impression of his new, modular retirement dwelling goes to the U.S. Supreme Court docket difficult its constitutionality.
In response to a report from the Pacific Authorized Basis, “The county claimed that George was required to pay that payment beneath native laws that sought to shift the price of addressing present and future highway deficiencies onto new growth. Thus, the county imposed the payment with none proof tying George’s new dwelling to any particular public prices or impacts.”
The struggle is over the $23,000 George Sheetz was compelled to pay El Dorado County in California when he put in his dwelling on a vacant lot he’d bought for that objective.
“Holding constructing permits hostage in trade for exorbitant charges is extortion plain and easy, whether or not it’s carried out on the allow desk or metropolis corridor,” stated Brian Hodges, senior lawyer at Pacific Authorized Basis. “Native governments can not use the duvet of laws to skirt the Fifth Modification’s prohibition in opposition to taking personal property with out simply compensation.”
Sheetz purchased his vacant lot and was working to place a manufactured dwelling there for retirement however was ordered, when he utilized for a constructing allow, to pay the site visitors payment.
He paid the payment, beneath protest, claiming it was an unconstitutional allow situation beneath Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Administration District.
That case established that the federal government “can not weaponize the allowing course of to extort extra land or cash from property house owners than is required to pay for the recognized public impression of the proposed constructing venture.”
That call “ought to have protected” Sheetz from the county, however over time some courts “have evaded Supreme Court docket precedents limiting authorities authority to impose extreme allow charges by creating a large loophole that permits metropolis councils and different legislative our bodies to make such calls for freed from significant constitutional scrutiny.”
Sheetz’ case now could be in search of an affirmation from the Supreme Court docket of landowner rights.
The Supreme Court docket has agreed to listen to the case.
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