03/06/1995 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

APPLYING THE SUPREME COURT'S "ROUGH PROPORTIONALITY" TEST TO LOCAL PARK DEDICATION ORDINANCES by John W. Shardlow, AICP President and Director of Planning DAHLGREN, SHARDLOW, & UBAN, INC. 300 First Avenue North, Suite 210 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401 (612) 339-3300 BACKGROUND In recent years, there have been a number of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have addressed the limits of governmental authority in the public interest versus land owners' rights. Some of these cases have been hailed as "landmark cases" largely because this is an area where there had previously been a great deal of ambiguity. You will note in reviewing the written materials provided by other speakers, that even with the famous "takings trilogy" of 1987 (First English, Keystone, and Nollan) and the 1994 Dolan v. City of Tigard (Dolan), the Court stopped short of defining a "taking" by either a formula or a rule. Rather, the court advises that one must rely on an ad hoc set of factual inquiries in evaluating specific cases. The purpose of this presentation is to address the question of how one should go about addressing the "essential nexus" requirement and "rough proportionality" test identified by the Court in applying a local park dedication ordinance. Obviously, this review will also assist landowners who are evaluating a proposed dedication that is being requested of them by a local unit of government. Unfortunately, this presentation will also fall short of providing a definitive formula or rule for evaluating the reasonableness of a local ordinance. The reason for failing to do so is that there is no general formula or rule that can be applied uniformly to a wide variety of jurisdictions. To the contrary, both the "essential nexus" requirement and "rough proportionality" test can only be understood and justified in the context of a particular local park and open space plan. Therefore, this presentation will identify the general steps that one could take to satisfy these requirements. I would argue that they are essentially the same steps that responsible communities have been taking for years in preparing and implementing their local park and open space plans. There is no question, however, that decisions made by local communities will come under closer scrutiny as a result of Dolan. Some more careful analysis of the effects of various developments on the community's park system will be needed to support the dedication requirements. This analysis will, in all likelihood, allow the community to fine tune its n ordinance to insure its fairness.