Court Opinion

ID: 9632278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:08:11.770763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:11.865978
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, J.,
dissenting.
Petitioners own a commercial building in the business district of Tigard. They sought permission to replace an existing building with a larger building. The City of Tigard *122imposed two conditions to the granting of a building permit: one was that petitioners convey a 15-foot easement adjacent to the east bank of Fanno Creek for “storm water management and greenway purposes”; the other was that petitioners convey an 8-foot easement for a pedestrian/bicycle pathway. Petitioners appealed, asserting a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The Fifth Amendment provides in part that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This case principally involves questions of federal law. The majority states the issue as follows:
“The issue is whether city has demonstrated the required relationship between the conditions that it attached to its approval of petitioners’ proposed land use and the expected impacts of that land use.” 317 Or at 112.
Development exactions such as those involved in the present case are not unusual. Over the years, a body of law has developed that permits governments, acting under their police power, to accomplish some things that also could be accomplished under their eminent domain powers. Roberts, Mining with Mr. Justice Holmes, 39 Vand L Rev 287 (1986).1 Local governments, in the exercise of their federal police power and without payment of compensation, have been authorized to require developers to grant easements, make payments, or give up rights as a condition to the development of their property.
The federal rule that applies to such exactions has two facets. First, the exaction must serve a legitimate state purpose. Second, the exaction must be reasonably necessary to address problems, conditions, or burdens created by the underlying change of use of the landowner’s property. Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 US 825, 107 S Ct 3141, 97 L Ed 2d 677 (1987). The second facet requires a showing that the development created a need for the exaction. If a recited need for an exaction is only an excuse for what actually is a taking, the exaction is invalid.
*123As does the majority, I place the burden of proving these two elements on the government that exacts the conditions. In establishing that the need for the exactions arises from an increased intensity of use, the government must show more than a theoretical nexus. It must show that the granting of the permit probably will create specific problems, burdens, or conditions that theretofore did not exist, and that the exaction will serve to alleviate the specific problems, burdens, or conditions that probably will arise from the granting of the permit. More than general statements of concern about increased traffic or public safety are required to support, as permissible regulation, what otherwise would be a taking. The Nollan opinion states:
“We view the Fifth Amendment’s Property Clause to be more than a pleading requirement, and compliance with it to be more than an exercise in cleverness and imagination. As indicated earlier, our cases describe the condition for abridgement of property rights through the police power as a ‘substantial advancing]’ of a legitimate state interest. We are inclined to be particularly careful about the adjective where the actual conveyance of property is made a condition to the lifting of a land-use restriction, since in that context there is heightened risk that the purpose is avoidance of the compensation requirement, rather than the stated police power objective.” 483 US at 841.
Here, Tigard had two possible ways to obtain the easements. The first, and less desirable from the city’s view, was to condemn the easements. That would require payment of compensation under either the state or federal constitution.2 A second possible way to obtain the easements is by making the granting of them a condition to the granting of a permit.
I am satisfied that the city has met the first test, that the exactions serve a legitimate state purpose. The pivotal issue is whether the second requirement — that the need for the exactions arises from increased intensity of use — has been established. For the answer to this question, the court *124should look at the city’s order to determine whether its findings of fact demonstrate a need for the exactions ordered by the city.3
The city’s order makes repeated references to other city ordinances that contemplate the creation of a floodplain greenway and a pedestrian/bicycle pathway. The order suggests that such exactions were to be attached to all requests for improvements. For example:
“Code Section 18.86.040 contains interim standards which are to be addressed for new developments in the CBD-AA zone. These requirements are intended to provide for projected transportation and public facility needs of the area. The City may attach conditions to any development within an action area prior to adoption of the design plan to achieve the following objectives:
“b. The development shall facilitate pedestrian/bicycle circulation if the site is located on a street with designed bike paths or adjacent to a designated greenway/open space/park. Specific items to be addressed are as follows:
“i. Provision of efficient, convenient and continuous pedestrian and bicycle transit circulation systems, linking developments by requiring dedication and construction of pedestrian and bike paths identified in the comprehensive plan. * * *
“A bicycle/pedestrian path is called for in this general location in the City of Tigard’s Parks Master Plans (Murase and Associates, 1988) and the Tigard Area Comprehensive Pedestrian/Bicycle Pathway Plan 1974). In addition, Community Development Code Section 18.120.180.A.8 requires that where landfill and/or development is allowed within or adjacent to the 100-year floodplain, the City shall require the dedication of sufficient open land area for greenway adjoining and within the floodplain in accordance with the adopted pedestrian/bicycle plan. The proposed development site includes land within the 100 year floodplain of Fanno Creek.
*125“It is imperative that a continuous pathway be developed in order for the paths to function as an efficient, convenient, and safe system. Omitting a planned for section of the pathway system, as the variance would result in if approved, would conflict with Plan purposes and result in an incomplete system that would not be efficient, convenient, or safe. The requested variance therefore would conflict with the City’s adopted policy of providing a continuous pathway system intended to serve the general public good and therefore fails to satisfy the first variance approval criterion.
“As noted above, approval of the variance request would have an adverse effect on the existing partially completed pathway system because a system cannot fully function with missing pieces. If this planned for section is omitted from the pathway system, the system in this area will be much less convenient and efficient. If the pedestrian and bicycle traffic is forced onto City streets at this point in the pathway system because of this missing section, pedestrian and bicycle safety will be lessened. * * *
“Code Section 18.120.180.A.8 requires that where landfill and/or development is allowed within or adjacent to the 100-year floodplain, the City shall require the dedication of sufficient open land area for greenway adjoining and within the floodplain in accordance with the adopted pedestrian/ bicycle plan. * * *
“* * * As already noted, the code at Section 18.120.080.A.8 and many other related sections (e.g., Section 18.84.040.A.7) require dedication of floodplain areas, not only for construction of pathways, but primarily to allow for public management of the storm water drainage system. * * *
“* * * In order to accomplish these public improvements related to increasing the flow efficiency of Fanno Creek, dedication of the area of the subject site within the 100-year floodplain and also the adjacent five feet is imperative. Not requiring dedication of this area as a condition of development approval, as the applicant’s variance proposal requests, would clearly conflict with purposes and policies of the Comprehensive Plan, Community Development Code, and the City’s Master Drainage Plan.’ ’ City of Tigard Planning Commission Final Order No. 91-09 PC, pp 9-22 (1991) (emphasis added).
*126The quoted sections show the resolve of the city to get the easements and the purpose for the easements. However, the quoted sections of the order in no way establish that the easements necessarily are needed because of increased intensity of use of petitioners’ (or anyone else’s) property. Unquestionably, omission of the easements from any of the planned floodwater or pathway developments would “result in an incomplete system.” But that is beside the point. If all that need be shown is that easements are needed for a legitimate public purpose, the constitutional protection evaporates. The critical question before us is whether the order shows an increased intensity of such magnitude that it creates the need for the exaction of the easements.
The following findings specifically relate to increased intensity of use in connection with the pedestrian/bicycle pathway easement:
“[T]he Commission finds that the dedication and pathway construction are reasonably related to the applicant’s request to intensify the development of this site with a general retail sales use, at first, and other uses to be added later. It is reasonable to assume that customers and employees of the future uses of this site could utilize a pedestrian/bicycle pathway adjacent to this development for their transportation and recreational needs. In fact, the site plan has provided for bicycle parking in a rack in front of the proposed building to provide for the needs of the facility’s customers and employees. It is reasonable to expect that some of the users of the bicycle parking provided for by the site plan will use the pathway adjacent to Fanno Creek if it is constructed.” Id. at 13.
Whether the first sentence of the quoted material is viewed as a legal conclusion or a finding of ultimate fact, it must be supported by findings of fact. Supporting findings are lacking. The sentence beginning with “It is reasonable to assume” is speculation, not a finding. Moreover, it states the obvious. If a pathway were built, of course customers and employees “could utilize [the pathway] for their transportation and recreational needs.” Concerning the third sentence, the fact that the plans contain a reference to a bicycle rack does not establish increased intensity of use (particularly because other city ordinances require, as was required in this case, provision for bicycle parking in the plans).
*127The city did make some specific findings relevant to the pedestrian/bicycle pathway:
“In addition, the proposed expanded use of this site is anticipated to generate additional vehicular traffic thereby-increasing congestion on nearby collector and arterial streets. Creation of a convenient, safe pedestrian/bicycle pathway system as an alternative means of transportation could offset some of the traffic demand on these nearby streets and lessen the increase in traffic congestion.” Ibid.
The real issue is whether the findings that a larger building is being constructed and the two sentences of the quoted findings are sufficient to support the pathway exaction. I maintain that if the city is going to, in effect, take a portion of one’s property incident to an application for a permit to develop the property, the findings of need arising from increased intensity of use must be more direct and more substantial than those. The findings of fact that the bicycle pathway system “could offset some of the traffic demand” is a far cry from a finding that the bicycle pathway system will, or is likely to, offset some of the traffic demand. (Emphasis added.) In essence, the only factual findings that support the pedestrian/bicycle pathway exaction are these: A larger commercial building is to be constructed and, as a result, there is anticipated to be “additional vehicular traffic.” That is not enough to support what amounts to a virtual taking of petitioners’ land. I would require findings that demonstrate that the increased intensity of use requires the exaction. These findings do not establish that the pathway exaction is needed because of any higher intensity of use.
I turn to the flood control and greenway easement. The factual conclusion asserted to support this exaction reads as follows:
“The increased impervious surface would be expected to increase the amount of storm water runoff from the site to Fanno Creek. The Fanno Creek drainage basin has experienced rapid urbanization over the past 30 years causing a significant increase in stream flows after periods of precipitation. The anticipated increased storm water flow from the subject property to an already strained creek and drainage basin can only add to the public need to manage the stream channel and floodplain for drainage purposes. Because the proposed development’s storm drainage would add to the *128need for public management of the Fanno Creek floodplain, the Commission finds that the requirement of dedication of the floodplain area on the site is related to the applicant’s plan to intensify development on the site.” Id. at 21.
Those findings do not establish such an increased intensity of use as to require the exaction of the flood control and greenway easement. All that these findings establish is that there will be some increase in the amount of storm water runoff from the site. A thimbleful? The constitution requires more than that.
Jurisprudence lags behind the times. It is its nature to react, rather than to act. Today, forces of change are at work that challenge traditional “takings” law, forces that jurisprudence has not yet had time to accommodate. Those forces coalesce into a single phenomenon: increasing interdependence among us. There are more of us, we live closer together, and we are increasingly interconnected. That phenomenon is not going to change except, perhaps, to accelerate.
With respect to “takings” jurisprudence, two essentially opposing tendencies emerge. The first is a tendency to recognize the legitimacy of attempts by state and local governments to regulate private property in ways that once might have been unthinkable. No person has the same range of possible uses for real property that he or she once may have had, because many uses that once were possible now may be forbidden because of their palpable impact on others. In truth, by regulation, governments regularly and permissibly take private property for public use without compensation.4
*129The second tendency — to some extent an outgrowth of the first — is that state and local governments attempt to further particular goals by placing limitations on uses of private property that only will be lifted if the property owners “dedicate” some portion of their property to the particular government program. The temptation, particularly in times of limited tax revenues, is to place the primary burden for funding projects on the shoulders of those whose private property happens to be in the neighborhood of the proposed projects, whether or not the projects bear any relationship to the property or to the uses to which the property is put.
The first of these tendencies seems benign and, even if it were otherwise, it would be inevitable. Some private property rights are going to have to bend, if our increasingly interdependent society is to continue to evolve and progress peacefully. The second tendency is an attempt at licensed extortion. The trouble is, what once would have been recognizable as extortion may turn, in time, into something considered benign because it is so familiar. That transmogrification is encouraged every time a court cannot distinguish whether a particular governmental regulation falls within the ambit of the second tendency, rather than the first.
In cases involving exactions attached to permits, hearings are held, evidence is taken, and findings are made, and the government must show why the development spawns the need for the exaction. The findings relating to the need for exactions arising from future increased intensity of use after the property is developed must establish more than a potential increase in intensity; they must establish more than some increase in intensity; they must establish a bona fide need for the extraction that arises from the development.
Because this case turns on federal law, the majority and I rely on the same federal precedents. Why, then, do we arrive at different results? Under current federal law, if a local government follows the procedures mandated by federal law, it can, incident to the regulation of use of land, take a large part of the owner’s ownership rights, so long as there remains some economically feasible private use. Lucas v. So. Carolina Coastal Council, 505 US_, 112 S Ct 2886, 120 L Ed 2d 798, 815 n 8 (1992). As the Lucas opinion itself states, landowners who lose 95 percent of the beneficial use of their *130property are entitled to no compensation, whereas landowners who lose all beneficial use fully are compensated. Ibid.
That power of the government gives it tremendous leverage against landowners who seek to improve their property. Because of the profound potential adverse effects that the substantive rule places on landowners, I read the federal precedents to require a high threshold that the government must meet in showing that the exaction is needed because of intensified land use by the landowner. It is not enough for a government to read the latest pertinent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States and insert in its order ‘ ‘magic words ’ ’ from the decision (such as ‘ ‘the dedication and pathway construction are reasonably related to the applicant’s request to intensify the development of this site”). If in fact the government needs to take part of a landowner’s property because of intensified uses of the developed property, imposing the burden of showing precisely why the need in fact exists is a modest burden to place on the government. Such precision is lacking in this order.
From reading the order in this case, I am convinced that Tigard decided that it needed a pedestrian/bicycle pathway and a flood control greenway easement along Fanno Creek. One way of getting these, free of cost, is by requiring all owners who propose to change the use of their property to convey the easements to the city. That is what happened in this case.
The findings here do not establish any cognizable remediable purpose attributable to the change in use. The conditions relating to the pedestrian/bicycle pathway and flood control and greenway easements are impermissible on the record made in this case. I therefore dissent.

A note in the Boston University Law Review contains an excellent historical overview of exactions. See Note, “ ‘Take’ My Beach Please!”: Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and a Rational-Nexus Constitutional Analysis of Development Exactions, 69 BUL Rev 823, 848-49 (1989).

 Article I, section 18, of the Oregon Constitution, provides in part:
“Private property shall not be taken for public use * * * without just compensation * *
In this court, petitioners make no claim under the Oregon Constitution.

 Petitioners do not contest the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings of fact.

“For a long time, there has been no Just Compensation Clause in constitutional law. Three words, ‘for public use, ’ have been cut away from it, treated as if they prescribed a distinct command of their own. Instead of the Just Compensation Clause as written, we have a Takings Clause engulfed in confusion and a Public Use Clause of nearly complete insignificance.
“This strange breach is never remarked on. It is simply presupposed, most clearly, by those who complain about the toothlessness of the ‘Public Use Clause’ in modern doctrine. Their complaint is an old story: it has to do with the line of Supreme Court decisions in which the public-purpose requirement received its current, broad construction.” Rubenfeld, Usings, 102 Yale LJ 1077, 1078-79 (1993) (footnotes omitted; emphasis in original).