Presentation: “Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, California: Could Washington’s Impact Fee Regime Come Under Attack?” by Brent Droze, Associate, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

       This presentation will cover:

• In Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, California, the Supreme Court recently heard oral argument related to a property owner’s challenge to a county’s imposition of a generally-applicable traffic mitigation fee. 
• The appellant argued that a generally-applicable traffic mitigation fee was not constitutional because (1) there was no nexus between the traffic mitigation fee and the appellant’s residential development project and (2) the amount of the fee was not roughly proportionate to any impact his development would have on traffic.
• Under RCW 82.02, cities and counties in Washington are authorized to impose generally applicable impact fees on development that are untethered from the constitutional concepts of nexus and proportionality (as expounded in the landmark cases of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. City of Tigard).
• If the Supreme Court sides with Sheetz and applies the Nollan/Dolan standard to generally-applicable, legislatively-imposed fees on development, the viability of impact fees imposed pursuant to RCW 82.02 will be severely curtailed.