California man awarded $23,000 in fees to build home on his own property takes suit to SCOTUS

A man moved from New Jersey to Northern California with the intention of building a home near Lake Tahoe only to receive a gigantic shock when he was slapped with massive crash rates.

George Sheetz worked for 50 years in construction, saving his money for retirement. He bought a vacant lot near Tahoe and decided to put a prefab home on his beautiful piece of land. That's when the California government stepped in to want their pound of meat.

He went to get a building permit for the land and was issued a “traffic impact mitigation” fee totaling more than $23,000. The levy was established a few years earlier by the county legislature ostensibly to pay for road work.

“That's when I started to get angry,” Sheetz said Fox News Digital in an interview “I said, 'This is ridiculous.'”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Sheetz is no stranger to home building and the costs that come with it. He is very familiar with what the processes and administrative costs should be and this amount was not acceptable in his assessment. But the powers that be in California told him if he didn't like it, he could leave.

“Well, you don't have to build here,” a county official told Sheetz when he objected. the outrageous rate. “Go somewhere else.”

They cornered him in 2016 because he had already put a down payment on the manufactured home. He was forced to pay the monstrous fee. But the story didn't end there. Sheetz sued the county, claiming the rate he was charged was disproportionate to the impact his home would have on area roads.

“Mr. Sheetz thought this was outrageous, that their tiny 1,800-square-foot manufactured home wouldn't cause anything like this kind of traffic impact,” Sheetz attorney Paul Beard told Fox News. “What the county made Mr. Sheetz was fundamentally unfair. The county asked Mr. Sheetz to pay for pre-existing road and local road deficiencies as a condition of a permit.

Our client George Sheetz says the journey from fighting the county planning office to the Supreme Court has been a long one, and he understands why most people give up.

However, he calls the experience an exciting journey and is hopeful for victory and vindication. pic.twitter.com/HQ2abKJoFw

— Pacific Legal ⚖️ (@PacificLegal) January 22, 2024

“They asked him to pay for the traffic impacts caused by other uses and developments such as retail development and office development,” the lawyer added. “Why should I have had to pay for these pre-existing deficiencies and for those impacts caused by other uses?”

What followed was a seven-year legal battle that has now reached the Supreme Court. Beard and attorneys from the Pacific Legal Foundation argued Sheetz's case before the high court in early January.

“I never dreamed we would ever make it [the Supreme Court]to be honest with you,” Sheetz commented. “I just wanted to fight the fight because I knew what what they were doing was wrong“.

“El Dorado County, however, argued that its fee was necessary to pay for road maintenance and is similar to other local government fees that fund parks, police departments and other services. Beard said that the government has every right to collect revenue to fund these services that benefit the public, but the way the county is doing it is illegal,” Fox News reported.

“The outcome of this case could have national ramifications for how local agencies finance the cost of providing necessary public infrastructure, such as roads and firefighting equipment,” said Deputy Chief Administrator Carla B Hass, in January. ABC10. “The challenged county rates have already been upheld by the California Superior Court and the California Court of Appeals, which confirmed that the county met all applicable requirements for the imposition of mitigation rates development impact”.

This man speaks for many. Thanks to him and PLF for fighting the good fight.

— David (@NotNiceDavid) January 23, 2024

Sheetz and his attorney, however, are determined to move forward despite lower California courts siding with El Dorado County on the fee.

“It doesn't matter who imposes the fee, whether it's a bureaucrat behind the permit desk or whether it's the legislative body, it's the same,” Beard insisted. “A catch is a catch.”

“Every American should want to protect their rights against violations by the governmentregardless of which branch of government commits the violation,” he remarked.

If the case goes against Sheetz, his lawyer fears that governments across the country could impose land-use fees without court oversight.

“This means that the costs of general public infrastructure projects, which should be borne by the population as a whole through taxation, will now be borne entirely by new developments and applicants for new projects,” Beard said.

At the Supreme Court this morning, attorney Paul Beard told the court that California retiree George Sheetz “faced an impossible choice” when he tried to get a building permit: pay a “fee exorbitant traffic impact or give up your intended home.#Sheets @SCOTUS

— Nicole WC Yeatman (@nwcyeatman) January 9, 2024

If Sheetz is upheld, governments would bear the burden of proving that the fees they charge for land-use permits are commensurate with the impact of any new projects, the lawyer said.

“The average person has to stand up, take a stand and say, 'Hey, we're not going to do this.' hold this shit more,” argued Sheetz. “You're just pocketing money. You take it from the working person.”

“The average person who works every day is busting their butt trying to survive and trying to find a way to survive and retire comfortably,” he noted. “You can't keep taking money from the working class that is supporting this country and screwing it up.”

The Supreme Court is scheduled to issue a decision on the Sheetz case by June 30.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is a constitutional conservative who researches and writes extensively on politics and current affairs.

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