Relying on Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), the US District Court for the District of Hawaii today denied a property owner’s motion for summary judgment in a case challenging the County of Maui’s “workforce housing” exaction ordinance. Kamaole Pointe Development LP v. County of Maui, No. 07-00447 DAE.
The ordinance requires a property owner to commit 40% to 50% of the units in most new housing developments to below-market-rate ownership or rental. A property owner subject to this exaction challenged the ordinance under the Nollan/Dolan doctrine of unconstitutional exactions, which requires the governmentto show a substantial nexus between the exaction and some problemcaused by the property owner before the government may demand tributeas a condition of development. The exaction must also be roughlyproportional to the problem. See this post for more on the nexus analysis.
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