June 2021

We’ve been meaning to post up the California Court of Appeal’s (now published) opinion in Alliance for Responsible Planning v. Taylor, No. C085712 (May 4, 2021) for a bit, and while we were distracted by lawyer work last week, our friend and colleague Bryan Wenter beat us to it with “County’s Initiative-Enacted General Plan Traffic Mitigation Policies Are Unconstitutional Exactions.”

So rather than do our own summary, we’re just going to recommend you read his analysis. Some high points of that and the opinion:

  • The court called the Nollan/Dolan/Koontz doctrine the “unconstitutional conditions doctrine.” Slip op. at 6. We like that. In our view, N/D/K really isn’t a takings doctrine so much as it is one that says the government can’t force you to choose among your rights (in these cases, one of those rights being your right to just compensation).
  • The N/D/K

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Continue Reading Ordinance Requiring Developer Pay For “All Necessary Road Capacity Improvements” Violates Nollan/Dolan

You may have noticed that we’ve been mostly offline the past week and that we have not been posting with our usual frequency.

Fear not: we were not AWOL or otherwise goofing off. We were actually doing what lawyers do: appearing in a real, live, in-person courtroom! 

This was a bench trial in the Sixteenth Judicial District, State of Florida at the literal end of the road (U.S. 1, the Overseas Highway), or maybe the beginning of the road, depending on your perspective. Otherwise known as the Monroe County courthouse, otherwise known as the Key West courthouse.

Yes, quite literally the southernmost courthouse in the (continental) United States (protip: there’s a lot of “southernmost [something]” in Key West, if you have not been there before).

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We’re not going to get into the details of the case due to it being still under consideration by the court. This was…

Continue Reading Back In The Courtroom: A Brief Report From An (In-Person!) Trial