The Court of Appeal held that a city-developer agreement that ostensibly precluded the City of Oakland from imposing any new impact fees on the project constituted an impermissible infringement of the City's police power. Discovery Builders Inc v City of Oakland, 92 Cal. App. 5th 799 (2023).

A recent case involving developer Charles Keenan and the City of Palo Alto highlights the importance of strict compliance with Mitigation Fee Act's requirement that findings be made every five years concerning unexpended fees.

A hotel owner brought a lawsuit against a county transportation authority and a general contractor for nuisance and inverse condemnation alleging that the construction of an underground subway line disrupted the operation of the hotel and caused various problems, such as noise and dust, which interfered with the use and enjoyment of the property and resulted in monetary damages.

A traffic mitigation fee required for construction of a single-family home did not amount to an "unconstitutional condition" in violation of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the County complied with the Mitigation Fee Act in assessing the fee. Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, No. C093682 (4th Dist., Oct 19, 2022).

The Court of Appeal ruled that a suit concerning an affordable housing fee that plaintiff had agreed to pay two decades earlier was still timely because the 90-day limitations period under the Subdivision Map Act did not begin to run until a dispute arose over the interpretation of provisions in the affordable housing agreement. Schmeir v. City of Berkeley, 76 Cal. App.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that property owners do not have to comply with state administrative processes to obtain a final decision before bringing a takings claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when the government's position is clear. Pakdel v.

An initiative measure that required new development to mitigate not only its individual traffic impacts but also cumulative impacts of other projects on traffic levels of service violated the rough-proportionality standard of Nollan and Dolan and was therefore unconstitutional.

Multiple applications for a development project are not required where the first permit denial makes clear that no development of the property would be allowed under any circumstance. Felkay v. City of Santa Barbara, No.

Complete physical dispossession of a property is not a prerequisite to an award of damages after a condemnation proceeding is abandoned—moving from the property in reliance on the order granting the agency possession is sufficient. San Joaquin Regional Transit District v. Superior Court, No. C084755 (3rd Dist., Dec.

The City of Los Angeles was required to offer to sell condemned property back to its original owner because the property had not been used and the City Council did not adopt a resolution reauthorizing the public use until 19 days past the 10-year statutory deadline.

The court of appeal held that plaintiffs' inverse condemnation and damages claims based on dredging in the bay adjacent to their properties was barred under the doctrine of res judicata based on a 1931 judgment conclusively establishing that the property alleged to have been taken or damaged was not owned by plaintiffs.

The State of Hawaii Land Use Commission's reversion of 1,060 acres from a conditional urban land use classification to the prior agricultural use classification was not an unconstitutional taking because the landowner could still reap economic benefits from the property, the reclassification did not substantially affect the overall valuation or any potential sales, and the landowner should have