Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/07/2017

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October 10, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 19 Zoning Bulletin tions afforded by the U.S. Constitution." The court also held that the Developers' allegation that the city failed to spend impact fees within six years or spent the fees on impermissible expenditures was inade- quate to support a takings claim. The court concluded that none of the City's alleged violations of the Impact Fees Act implicated the United States Supreme Court's unconstitutional conditions doctrine, which requires a nexus and rough proportionality between the property demanded (i.e.; the impact fees, here) and the projected social costs of the proposed development. The court held that "[t]he manner in which a city spends impact fees does not affect the constitutionality of the initial demand for fees, which is the focus of the [unconstitutional conditions] monetary exaction analysis." Thus, the allegation that the fee exacted from the Developers by the City were not spent within the time require- ments of the Impact Fees Act or were spent impermissibly, did not, found the court, affect the analysis of whether there was a nexus or rough proportionality of the impact fees and social costs at the time the fees were exacted. With respect to whether such a nexus or rough proportionality existed at the time the fees were exacted, the court noted that Utah's Impact Fees Act provides a one-year statute of limitations on challenges to the validity of an impact fee. Had the Developers here brought a challenge to the impact fee assessed by the City within that time frame, they would have been able to seek a "refund of the differ- ence between what the [Developers] paid as an impact fee and the amount the impact fee should have been if it had been correctly calculated," said the court. The Developers here, however, did not chal- lenge the impact fee within that period, and their standing to file such an action was therefore barred. (See Utah Code § 11-36a-701.) As to the Developers' claim for "equitable" reimbursement for the al- legedly unspent or impermissibly spent impact fees, the court held that the Developers lacked standing (i.e., the legal right) to bring that claim Since the Developers had no statutorily granted right to an equitable reimbursement claim, the Developers had to satisfy the common law requirements for standing, said the court. The court found that the Developers failed to establish standing under the "traditional standing test" as they did not establish a "distinct and palpable injury." The court found that the Developers failed to show that they had retained contractual rights with the purchasers of the homes they had developed to a refund of the impact fees if found excessive. The court also found that, contrary to the Developers' arguments, the Developers did not suf- fer an injury through the inability to recoup the impact fee paid in the purchase price of the homes they sold. "The impact fees, if constitutional at the time of exaction, are part of the price of doing business in real estate development, and developers assume the risk that they might not be recouped when individual lots are sold," said the court. See also: Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management Dist., 133 S. Ct. 2586, 186 L. Ed. 2d 697, 76 Env't. Rep. Cas. (BNA) 1649 (2013). 10 © 2017 Thomson Reuters