In Sheffield Development Co., Inc. v City of Glenn Heights,
the Court ruled that a downzoning that followed a development
moratorium did not result in a taking of a landowner's property,
in spite of the fact that the regulatory action resulted in a
significant reduction in the value of the affected property. After
an approximately year-long moratorium on development, the City
of Glenn Heights downzoned Sheffield's 194 - acre tract from a
minimum 6,500 square foot residential lots to minimum 12,000 square
foot residential lots. During a hiatus in the development moratorium,
Sheffield submitted a plat for the development of its property
under the minimum 6,500 square foot residential lot zoning. Sheffield
sued the city, alleging a "taking" of its property without just
compensation in violation of Article I, Section 17 of the Texas
Constitution. Sheffield also sought a declaratory judgment that
the plat it filed during the gap in the moratorium had been deemed
approved by the City's failure to take action on it, and the plat
therefore "vested" Sheffield's rights.
The Court held that the moratorium and the downzoning did not
constitute a "taking" of Sheffield's property, and affirmed a
remand by the Waco Court of Appeals to the trial court on the
issue of whether Sheffield "vested" its development rights by
the plat submitted during the gap in the development moratorium.
In Town of Flower Mound v. Stafford Estates Limited Partnership,
the Texas Supreme Court ruled that requiring a developer to improve
a boundary street as a condition to approval of the development
was an unconstitutional exaction. The Town of Flower Mound's land
development code required that a subdivision developer improve
abutting streets that do not meet specified standards, even if
the improvements were not necessary to accommodate the impact
of the subdivision. Accordingly, the town conditioned its approval
of Stafford Estates Limited Partnership's development of a 247
- home, 90 - acre residential subdivision on Stafford's improving
Simmons Road, an abutting boundary road, even though Stafford's
subdivision would only produce about 18% of the total average
traffic on the improved portion of Simmons Road. Stafford rebuilt
Simmons Road and then sued the town to recover the cost.
The Texas Supreme Court followed the reasoning set forth by the
U.S. Supreme Court in it's 1994 decision in Dolan v. City
of Tigard that there must be a "rough proportionality" between
the condition of development required by the government, and the
projected impact of the proposed development. The Texas Supreme
Court found that the Town of Flower Mound failed to show that
the improvements to Simmons Road bear the required relationship
to the impact of Stafford's development on the road itself or
on the town's overall roadway system. Consequently, conditioning
development on rebuilding Simmons Road was simply a way for the
town to "extract from Stafford a benefit to which the town was
not entitled." The court ruled that the exaction the town imposed
was a taking in violation of Article I, Section 17 of the Texas
Constitution for which Stafford was entitled to be compensated,
affirming the Ft. Worth Court of Appeals.
Smith|Robertson regularly handles local land use matters, such
as those at issue in these key Texas Supreme Court cases. For
more information, please contact Alan
Glen (512-225-5801), Craig
Douglas (512-225-5806), or David
Hartman (512-225-1704).
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IN
EARLY 2004, THE TEXAS SUPREME COURT
ISSUED
TWO DECISIONS THAT COULD HAVE