Sheetz v. El Dorado County

Background

A homeowner wanted to build a small prefabricated house in El Dorado County but had to pay a $23,420 traffic impact fee set by the County’s General Plan rate schedule. The fee was assessed by type of development and location, not by calculating traffic costs tied to his particular project. He paid under protest, sued in state court, and argued the conditioned permit payment was an unlawful taking because the government failed to make an individualized determination required by earlier cases.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether the Constitution treats legislatively imposed permit conditions differently from ad hoc administrative conditions. It held the Takings Clause makes no such distinction: constitutional text, historical practice, and precedent show governments have long exercised eminent domain and that taking rules apply regardless of whether officials or legislatures act. The Court explained that the same Nollan/Dolan two-part test—an “essential nexus” to the government’s land-use interest and “rough proportionality” to the development’s impact—applies to monetary exactions imposed by legislatures as it does to conditions imposed case by case. The California court’s contrary rule was vacated, and the case was returned to state court.

Real world impact

The ruling means broadly applied impact fees set by legislatures can be reviewed under the same constitutional limits as individualized permit conditions. Homeowners and developers may renew legal challenges to formulaic fees, and local governments may need to justify or redesign fee schedules. The Supreme Court did not decide whether fees imposed on a class of properties must be tailored exactly like parcel-specific conditions; that question and other preserved issues go back to the state courts.

Dissents or concurrances

Several Justices wrote concurrences stressing narrower points: one emphasized that Nollan/Dolan scrutiny only applies if the condition would be a compensable taking outside the permitting context, and others noted the Court left open how specific fees must be when applied to classes of properties.