We don’t often post trial court orders, but this one, Chiquita Canyon, LLC v. Cnty of Los Angeles, No. BS 171262 (Cal. Super. July 2, 2020), from the California Superior Court, is worth reading for you land use and exactions mavens.
It’s a long order, so we won’t go into great detail, but the short story is that the petitioner (a landfill) administratively challenged 22 of the 130 conditions and fees the County imposed on a Conditional Use Permit. Some of the conditions violated the trash law (California’s Integrated Waste Management Act) because they discriminated against out-of-area trash.And the condition requiring the landfill to support the state’s waste management goals? Compelled speech (no trash talk required!).
But you Nollan/Dolan mavens will really like the part about California’s Mitigation Fee Act, which essentially is a codification of the same exaction standards which the U.S. Supreme Court adopted in those cases. You know, nexus and rough proportionality. For example, the court ruled invalidated a condition that mandated that at the termination of the permit, the landfill pay for the conversion to a park, and convey it to the County. No can do, the court held, because the County didn’t make findings supporting any connection between the use (landfill) and the condition:
Petitioner contends that Board did not make nexus or proportionality findings for Condition 111. (OB 27-28.) The court agrees. In its decision, Board found that that it was “necessary” for Petitioner to dedicate the Landfill site as a park or other public recreation use. However, Board did not elaborate or make any findings that connect an impact from the Landfill to a requirement to convey hundreds of acres of private property and develop a park at a cost of up to $2 million. (AR 191116.) Nor did Board make any individualized determinations of the rough proportionality between Condition 111 , including the $2 million fee, and Landfill impacts.
Slip op. at 47. Importantly, the court looked at the record (and not at the County’s arguments about nexus alone), and held that the County had not overcome the lack of evidence in the record on which it could base a nexus and proportionality argument. That’s an important point: it’s not so much whether there is, in fact, nexus and proportionality, it’s whether the agency imposing the conditions had a factual basis at the time it imposed the conditions. Lacking proof of that, the condition is an illegal exaction.
Check it out.