Sheetz v. El Dorado County
On April 12, 2024, the United States Supreme Court decided Sheetz v. El Dorado County, No. 22-1074, holding that the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause “does not distinguish between legislative and administrative land-use permit conditions,” but instead “prohibits legislatures and agencies alike from imposing unconstitutional conditions on land-use permits.”
The Supreme Court’s prior decisions in Nollan and Dolan addressed the potential abuse of the permitting process in land-use matters by setting out a two-part test modeled on the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. The Nollan/Dolan test requires that land-use permit conditions must (1) have an “essential nexus” to the government’s land-use interest – “ensuring that the government is acting to further its stated purpose and not leveraging its permitting monopoly to exact private property without paying for it” – and (2) be “roughly proportional” to the “development’s impact on the land-use interest and may not require a landowner to give up (or pay) more than is necessary to mitigate harms resulting from the new development.” The Sheetz decision makes clear that the Nollan/Dolan test applies regardless of which branch of government imposes the permit condition, holding that the Takings Clause “does not distinguish between legislative and administrative land-use permit conditions.” As Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the opinion, “[T]here is no basis for affording property rights less protection in the hands of legislators than administrators. The Takings Clause applies equally to both—which means that it prohibits legislatures and agencies alike from imposing unconstitutional conditions on land-use permits.”
Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, filed a concurring opinion. Justice Gorsuch filed a separate concurring opinion. And Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson, also filed a concurring opinion.