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You no longer need to pay impact fees!
Below is an excerpt of a letter from a developer that sued the City of Oakland over impact fees and won (project specifics omitted for privacy).
Big changes coming to a city near you.
"We need you to let the public know about our lawsuit and its effect on the ability of the City of Oakland to participate in affordable housing construction.
We filed a lawsuit against the City of Oakland’s... affordable housing impact fee.
We believe that the collection of these fees is unconstitutional. The recent supreme court ruling in Sheetz v. County of Al Dorado reaffirmed that there must be a direct relationship between the impact fee and the adverse impact on the City or County.
In our case the city must prove that our building...will cause the adverse impact of increasing the need of affordable housing. Obviously, the need for affordable housing is in no way related to the construction of... new housing units.
We were informed on Tuesday morning, January 7th that our impact fees had been waived. We are now able to receive our building permits without paying any of these affordable housing impact fees.
However, we believe that the City of Oakland will continue to require these fees be paid by anyone who is unaware of the unconstitutionality of the fees themselves.
The City Council recently discussed taking all of the money out of the affordable housing fee trust fund and using this money towards the $130 million budget deficit.
The individual and companies who have paid these affordable housing impact fees may be eligible for a refund if these monies are used for other purposes.
Should the City of Oakland unconditionally admit that the affordable housing impact fee is unconstitutional. Oakland’s ability to fund affordable housing construction would be severely impaired or ended entirely."
