Florence Dolan owned a plumbing and electric supply store in Tigard, Oregon and sought a permit to expand the store and pave a larger parking lot. The city approved the permit subject to two conditions: Dolan had to dedicate part of her land within a floodplain for a public greenway and another strip for a pedestrian/bicycle pathway. Tigard justified the conditions as mitigating increased flooding and traffic caused by the proposed development. Dolan argued that requiring these dedications as a condition of permit approval amounted to an uncompensated taking of private property.
Whether the City of Tigard’s permit conditions requiring dedication of land for a greenway and bike path constituted a taking because they lacked the necessary connection and proportionality to the projected impacts of Dolan’s development.
Under the Takings Clause, an exaction imposed as a condition of a land-use permit must have an "essential nexus" to a legitimate state interest and also be "roughly proportional" in nature and extent to the impact of the proposed development. The government bears the burden of making an individualized determination that the required dedication is related both in kind and degree to the projected impact of the development.
The Court held that although Tigard’s conditions had an essential nexus to legitimate interests in flood control and traffic reduction, the city failed to show that the required dedications were roughly proportional to the impacts of Dolan’s proposed expansion. The permit conditions therefore effected a taking unless just compensation was paid.
The Court relied on Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987), which requires an essential nexus between an exaction and the governmental purpose. It agreed that preserving the floodplain and reducing traffic were legitimate objectives connected to the permit conditions. But Tigard had not made the required individualized findings showing why Dolan’s specific expansion justified dedicating a public greenway and bike path, especially since the city did not quantify or otherwise demonstrate that the extent of the demanded property matched the anticipated harms. Because the city sought more than mitigation closely fitted to the project’s impacts, the exactions failed the rough proportionality test.
Justice Stevens dissented, joined largely by Justices Blackmun and Ginsburg, arguing that the Court improperly heightened scrutiny of ordinary land-use regulation and that the city’s conditions were a reasonable exercise of local planning authority. Justice Souter also dissented separately, questioning the basis for distinguishing this case from other development conditions.
Dolan is a leading unconstitutional-conditions/takings case that added the "rough proportionality" requirement to the exactions doctrine established in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987). It limits local governments’ ability to demand land dedications in exchange for development permits unless they can specifically justify the demand in relation to the project’s impacts. The decision is closely related to Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, 570 U.S. 595 (2013), which extended Nollan and Dolan to certain monetary exactions and permit denials.
Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987) |
Abstain |
Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, 570 U.S. 595 (2013) |
Abstain |
Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987) |
Abstain |
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