Voskerician v. City of Menlo Park (SB 9 Park Fee Takings Challenge)
Developer Mircea Voskerician, represented pro bono by the Pacific Legal Foundation, sued Menlo Park after the city conditioned ministerial approval of a two-lot SB 9 subdivision on a $127,400 'recreation in-lieu' fee, which he paid under protest in January 2026 to preserve his right to sue. The complaint alleges the fee fails the rough-proportionality test the U.S. Supreme Court applied to legislatively adopted fee schedules in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado (2024), and separately violates a state law barring 'offsite improvement' exactions on ministerial SB 9 approvals.
Why it matters
Tests how far Sheetz's extension of Nollan/Dolan scrutiny to legislatively set fee schedules reaches in practice, a question with direct application to commercial impact fees, traffic mitigation charges, and affordable-housing in-lieu payments that municipalities calculate by formula rather than project-specific study. Developers and REITs paying such fees as a matter of course should watch the ruling for a template on challenging fee schedules that lack documented nexus and proportionality findings.
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