Real Estate & Property Law

County Motion in Maui Affordable Housing Exaction Case

By rht

The County of Maui has filed a motion for summary judgment in the federal court challenge to the County's affordable housing exaction ordinance.  The memorandum in support of the motion is posted here (215k pdf).

The Maui ordinance, enacted last year, imposes a 40% to 50% affordable requirement on new housing developments.  I posted on the case earlier here (contains a link to the complaint), and analyzed the legal problems with the ordinance under state law here .

The plaintiff landowner earlier filed a motion for partial summary judgment (1.5mb pdf) asking the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional on its face under the Nollan/Dolan doctrine of unconstitutional exactions, which requires the government to show a substantial nexus between the exaction and some problem caused by the property owner before the government may demand tribute as a condition of development.  The exaction must also be roughly proportional to the problem.  The plaintiff's motion is posted here.  See this post for more on the nexus analysis.

The hearing on both motions is currently set for June 2, 2008, at 9:45 a.m., before District Judge Ezra.

Disclosure: I presented testimony against an earlier version of the ordinance.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).