810: Charged $23K Tax to Build on My Own Land?!

Brian Nichols  
Can local governments charge you 1000s of dollars just to build a home on your own land? Yeah, we got to talk about that instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. Thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host joining you live from our cardio miracle Studios here in a lovely Eastern Indiana The Brian Nichols Show is powered by amp America really excited to be part of the amp America team if you want to go ahead and read some awesome articles talking about current events, opinion pieces and more head over to amp america.com And also I am extremely excited to be powered personally by cardio miracle our studio sponsor now folks if you've been listening to the show here for at least a year you know I've been going through the cardio miracle journey for myself and yes, I've said it time and again. I am vouching for cardio miracle because I know the cardio miracle difference is 1,000% real I see it in my daily using it in morning and night I take it right before I go to the gym in the morning I get enhanced pump at the gym I see the better sleep at night I take a dose before I go to bed at night the secret ingredient is nitric oxide and by the way the the flavor is absolutely incredible. I tried a lot of these other you know health supplements and I'm not going to tease any there's one that's a green one that's out there. It's like a super nutrient one. It tastes like bubblegum garbage just putting it out there. Cardio miracle though absolutely delicious. It's got like this, like a berry kind of deep berry flavor. With a little bit of citrus. It's really really good. Mix it with like orange orange juice, or I like to mix mine just with water. It's that good. So anyways, the cardio miracle difference. Yes, it is real. So I want you to experience it for yourself. So use code TBNS at checkout, you're gonna get 15% off your order pretty a pretty good deal there. And by the way, there's a 100% money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose, but I know you're not gonna go ahead and need that 100% Money Back Guarantee because once you experience the cardio miracle difference for yourself, you're gonna be hooked. So one more time that link is in the description. You're watching us here in the video version head down there to the the description, click, it'll bring you right over to Carter miracle.com. Again, use code TBNS at checkout or if you just want to go ahead and you're listening to the audio version of the show. Just jot this down Brian Nichols show.com forward slash heart. That's all I need to know. So yes, join the 10s of 1000s of other folks out there who are experiencing the cardio miracle difference for themselves. I promise you your heart will thank you and promising your heart thanking you if you're a homeowner your hearts gonna thank you because you don't wanna have a heart attack if you end up like today's will not today's guests. But today's topic of discussion, a homeowner who all sudden was faced with a 20,000 plus dollar bill from his local government because he dare want to build a house on his own land. How dare he to discuss that. And more joining us from the Pacific legal foundation. Brian Hodges, welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. How you doing?

Brian Hodges  
Good. Thanks for having me.

Brian Nichols  
Great to have you on the show. And thank you for yes discussing this very interesting topic. I know you guys over the Pacific legal foundation, you guys always have some very fun ways you're helping save our constitutional rights when you're bringing a really important cases to the Supreme Court. But before we dig into today's case that we're going to discuss at hand let's do the audience a favor. Introduce yourself, Brian to The Brian Nichols Show audience. And then let's set the timeline for this case that we're going to discuss today. Well,

Brian Hodges  
briefly, I'm a senior attorney at Pacific legal foundation. I've been working at the foundation now for 18 years. Really fighting in defense of property rights and advocating for to get laws out of the way that frustrate the production of housing.

Brian Nichols  
So let's hope there we go. So let's go into this specific case. So this is the case of sheets V El Dorado County. So at play here is a traffic impact mitigation fee. Set let's set the stage here for us. Brian, you have George sheets he's applying for this this permit to build a single family home and his land isn't 2016 and all sudden he's hit with a fee. This Tim fee 23,420 $90 That's the starting off point. Take us from there.

Brian Hodges  
Yeah, well, let me just back up a little bit. You know, George sheets has worked most of his life in the county, had a home in the county bought a parcel of land where he wanted to build a house where he could retire. He's facing retirement wants to live there with his wife and raise his grandson. So he makes plans, he's worked his whole life, he pays for the property has that paid off, his plan was to pay off the home and live off of what he had saved up. So he was shocked when he went into the county to pick up his permit. And, you know, you're used to ordinary fees, like, you know, there is a permit processing fee there are, you know, sewer connection fees, things like that. But when he was handed his bill, it had this exceptional line item on it over $23,000 for what they claim to be traffic impact mitigation fees. And he asked them, what, you know, we're a retired couple, how in the world can we have this much impact? What is this based on? And the permit official said, you don't like it, you don't have to have a house, pay it, or you don't get a house. So that's really the origin of this fight. Back in 2016. He was told, basically, if you want to build a house, you're gonna have to pay us Don't ask any questions as to, you know, how we came up with this huge fee. But George wasn't going to put up with that. George decided to fight the case. And as it progressed, we, you're looking into how the county came up with this fee. It's not for Georgia's impacts. But the county decided that they Well, they wanted more money to build roads, they didn't want to tax people because people don't like taxes. And you they may get voted out. They didn't want to put the fees on business, because you know, business is a big revenue generator, they wanted to make it easier for new businesses to come in. So who is going to pay? Well, the easiest people to target are people who aren't there yet. You know, people who have to build a new home. You're they aren't currently in the county to protest when these fees are passed. So So what they did was they took this whole bucket of, of money that they needed, and put it on people who come to the county and build a new home.

Brian Nichols  
Wow. So that you this case was in I must MSA California, Cali, California. My apologies to my family who lives in California, it will in laws. But I digress. Now, you guys, this went through the California State courts. They rejected sheets claims, right and the Supreme Court they denied review 2013. In May you guys then bring this up to the Supreme Court walk us through their like, what was the argument to the Supreme Court and maybe help set the stage in terms of like what this this going to the Supreme Court could do for property owners like Mr. sheets here?

Brian Hodges  
Yeah, to understand why the US Supreme Court took the case, I have to kind of travel a little bit back into the state court proceedings. The reason why the county was able to get away with this kind of fee shifting, you know, making George pay for the impacts of new business and things like that was because California had adopted a rule. Typically, fees, there are a couple of US Supreme Court cases called nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. City of Tigard. That established that these sorts of demands when the government conditions a permit on some sort of like dedication to the public, that they have to be sufficiently justified, that they have to be based on the impacts of that development. So in George's case, they would have had to have been based on you know, the, the impacts of him and his wife building a single family home. Not and you can't put the burdens of neighbor's of commercial development of, you know, anything else. You can't make him pay that. But in California, the courts had adopted a rule that said, well, that only applies when it's the permit desk who makes the decision when the county board of supervisors or some legislative body says you will pay you will give property? Well, we're not going to hold that to any level of scrutiny, we're just going to let them take what they want. So when George took his case through the California courts, of course, he was denied under that California court rule that says that legislators can take what they want, and that there won't be this heightened level of review a little

Brian Nichols  
dystopian, a little a watch. Like that. Yeah.

Brian Hodges  
But it sets the stage for what happened to George is if if there's going to be no meaningful review, what's going to stop cities or counties from putting more and more into that bucket of money that they demand?

Brian Nichols  
So Brian, oral arguments, and let's go to the supreme court right now, by the way, folks who are wondering, you guys, Brian, at the Pacific Legal Foundation, were just in front of the Supreme Court back in early January. So we're still kind of waiting for the ruling to come down. But oral arguments usually can give a little bit of context in terms of where the justices heads are at. So in the questions and maybe in some of the questions from the justices based on the arguments being presented, kind of what's your gut telling you like? Where are some of the justices kind of leaning right now based on how those arguments were framed?

Brian Hodges  
Yeah, well, the question that we presented to the US Supreme Court and and that they granted review on was whether there was some sort of legislative exception to this is called the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. It's a type of regulatory taking argument that says that you can't use the opportunity of somebody having to ask the government for permission to use their property as a way of exacting or extorting them into giving up property, your money. The arguments went on that question went very well, at one point, Justice Gorsuch noted what he called Radical agreement among the justices in the parties that there is no exception that, that the Constitution applies to government, not just a single branch of government, and that if you were to exempt a branch of government from the Constitution, it would basically just, you know, create such a game. It's such a massive loophole that they could get away with just about anything. So you're confident that on the question presented, that, you know, the courts questioning indicates that they're that they're not interested in endorsing California's rule that said that legislatures are, are free from the restraints of the constitution.

Brian Nichols  
So I kind of teased this question earlier. I'll circle back to it. Now. If you like Jen Psaki, we're gonna circle back now, Brian, what do you think this is going to set from a precedence win or lose? Right? Like, let Okay, how about this, let's paint the picture both ways. When what what does this do for landowners property owners going forward? Or lose right now? I preface that, that question with based on what it sounds like it might be leaning, it might be the win route, but just just in case, we need to hear that that last scenario. So pink paints a discrepancy for those two pictures for us, if you would,

Brian Hodges  
yeah. And the discrepancy really highlights why this is such an important case. A win? Well, let me start with the lose a lose would mean that legislative demands would get basically rubber stamped by the court. So the legislature could say things like, if you want to build a home, you have to give us you know, the fronts, the first front half of your property, we're going to turn it into a park or we're going to open up your property to the public, or we're going to demand really, if there's no review, there's no real limit to how much they can demand. We're going to demand that you pay your $20,000 $40,000 $100,000 into some public fund like a like a park fund or something like that. There would be no meaningful throttle on those sorts of demands. And you know, what that means is that home prices that are already skyrocketing, would be going up exponentially. So if $100,000 of fees was put on a home, add that onto the price tag. fewer homes get built, fewer people have the opportunity to get into homes. That is the consequence. If if we had an adverse decision in this case, if legislatures So we're held to be free of the constraints of the Constitution. Now, if the court rules in our favor, and says that these sorts of legislative demands are subject to the Constitution, specifically the cases that I mentioned earlier, Nolan and Dolan, it's a much better view of the future for people who are interested in property in liberty in transparent governments. Because what I would say is government, you're still able to make demands that are properly measured, to mitigate for some externality. So if I'm going to, you know, pave my parking lot, and it's going to cause water runoff, you can require me to do something. So that doesn't harm the public or harm neighbors. What you can't do is used the fact that I'm having to ask you for permission to use my land to steal. So what a ruling in our favor would mean that property owners get a meaningful day in court so that they can question the government, and they can force the government to lay out its reasons to justify these sorts of permit conditions.

Brian Nichols  
So, Brian, seven years, right, this has been going through the legal system, and the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court itself, even in those short, seven years, it's changed quite a bit. So do you see that this type of a case may be will be more looked at, in a favorable lens with the new shifting, ideological perspective of the Supreme Court, obviously, going in a much more, I would say, conservative, more liberty oriented direction you highlighted with one, Neil Gorsuch, who I'd say is probably the most Liberty oriented Supreme Court justice we have. So do you find that maybe this is more of a door opening now based on the opportunity that presents itself with the timing of the current makeup of the Supreme Court to get more of these pro Liberty pro property like property right cases before the Supreme Court, frankly, before God knows what happens, or dare I say it's too late,

Brian Hodges  
you know, in the current court has shown a lot more interest in property rights. In this case, so the question about the question that they accepted review on is, seems so obvious that you know that a legislature should not be that a legislative body should not be free of the demands of the federal constitution, that your Justice Sotomayor, in her questioning was very critical of the government's arguments when it came to, you know, the any sort of rule that would hold the legislature to a different standard. And she also echoed the same concerns that Justice Gorsuch did so just like some of the cases that we've recently brought up to the courts like the Geraldine Tyler B Hennepin County, that was the home equity theft case, which garnered broad support by the justices without regard to their where they lie on on ideological spectrum. We believe that this issue, also should Garner broad support. Now, when you get down to the brass tacks, like how these tests work and the level of scrutiny, that's where you start to see a divide among the justices with more liberty based justices holding government to a higher standard of proof than the more progressive justices.

Brian Nichols  
All right, Brian, I have one final question. And this kind of goes to maybe finding some common ground with some folks that you wouldn't normally find common ground with, and I think you mentioned this with the US, Justice Sotomayor. And, you know, I think one of the things I heard wasn't, isn't there. I'm on the for affordable housing advocate group that that's also filing an amicus brief with you guys as well. Or did I not maybe hear that?

Brian Hodges  
Well? Yeah. You know what? Yes, yes, it was, you know, housing interest filed an amicus brief with us. And, you know, that goes back to what I was saying that without government transparency and without the ability to take these sorts of cases to court to analyze the are the most extreme fees. These are the ones that that make it up to the US Supreme Court. Ordinary fees typically don't get challenged and typically don't make it very far. If it's a supportable fee, nobody's going to waste their money chasing litigation there. It's the extraordinary and the extraordinary cases show that if these are left unchecked, the cost of housing is going to go up because of government sees permits as a way to raise money without having to raise taxes. You can, you know, you guarantee you that they're going to exploit that opportunity until it breaks. And doing so just drives up the cost of homes.

Brian Nichols  
Let no good crisis go to waste. Isn't that be the Rahm Emanuel approach to governance? Jeez, Brian, we're getting towards the the tail end of the episode here. So we like to do is a little segment we call final thoughts. So I'll let you kick things off here. What would you like the audience to take away from today's episode? So they're going to wrap this up in a nice bow? Well,

Brian Hodges  
to realize that, you know, we're across the nation, we're facing a we hear about this housing crisis. What it really is, is a supply and demand problem, that not enough homes are being built at all price points across the full spectrum from entry level to to the highest homes. One of the main reasons and this was recognized as far back as the Reagan administration, one of the main reasons that home prices are going up is the cost of regulation. Now, there's some regulation that is going on that is necessary. But a lot of it's unnecessary. And what we need to do is to be able to police the unnecessary and costly regulations, to make sure that there are more homes are produced across all price points, and just get rid of things like these excessive traffic fees, you know, things like that, that all they do is stymie production and take personal wealth.

Brian Nichols  
Brian Hodges, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. And by the way, you mentioned that case, we actually had Jim Burling on the show to talk about this case, Geraldine Tyler. She's a 94 year old woman who had it was a $25,000. Was it $25,000, the government decided to take on her property, and he's like, entirely steal her, her property from underneath her. So there's a whole case there being built out Jim outlines in detail. If you're joining us on the YouTube version of the show, stick around after the credits rule link will pop up right about here with my conversation with Jim where we dig into that and more. So if you are yes, joining us on the video version of the show. Well, thank you, by the way for doing that. Make sure you do yourself a favor by the way, hit subscribe, and hit that little notification bell so you don't miss a single time we go live and also do me a favor hit that like button because that helps more folks and the algorithms for whatever reason. That's how YouTube works. shows more of The Brian Nichols Show to more of our lively audience to please help the show out. And by the way, yes, we are not just on YouTube, we are on a bunch of other different video platforms. You can find me on rumble Ben swans sovereign spelled s o v r en which by the way, if you are checking us out over there today, you're seeing today's episode before anybody else, that's your sovereign exclusive. Plus, we upload our episodes in their entirety to x.com formerly Twitter as well as Facebook. And by the way, we are an audio version as well for a podcast so go ahead to your favorite podcast catcher on Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, I like podcast attic, hit subscribe, and then hit download all unplayed episodes. If you're a new subscriber here to The Brian Nichols Show, which I know we've been getting dozens and dozens of subscribers daily. It seems like as we joined amp American, we're reaching tons and tons of new people. So if you are new to The Brian Nichols Show go through, we have over 800 episodes of the program. You can go through from different topics. You know, we're talking about economics, health care, we're talking about cultural issues, all that and more. So please go ahead and hit download all unplayed episodes, I guarantee a few of them are more than a few will leave you educated, enlightened and informed and then where you can follow us find us on social media. Yes, Twitter x.com. As well as Facebook, you can find me at V. Nichols, liberty, Brian, where can folks go ahead and reach out to you but also support the Pacific legal foundation and learn more about all the other great cases that you guys are going out and fighting on behalf of folks in the world of liberty?

Brian Hodges  
Yeah, if you visit our website at WWW dot Pacific legal dot o RG you can find case pages for this case and really all the cases that we litigate we have a pretty robust blog a we have videos that we post so you can find pretty much everything there and if you wanted to get in touch with attorneys, there's also a case submission form on the site. Great

Brian Nichols  
stuff links all in the show notes plus, remember I said I was gonna say include that link with our great conversation with Jim Burling from the Pacific legal foundation as well talking about that, yes, very sad case of Geraldine Tyler, but have no fear. We also have some good news to that case, which also we talked about in a later episode. So make sure you go through and give it a subscribe and give it a listen. And also one final thing and that is for me, to please ask you members of the audience to support those who support The Brian Nichols Show and that is our sponsors. So please support our amazing sponsors over at liquid freedom energy T evil CBD cardio miracle B, NC technology advisors and more. If you'd go to the episode page over on our website, you will see all four of those awesome, awesome sponsors listed right there to the right. But if you go to our general sponsor page, you'll see all of the sponsors we have here at The Brian Nichols Show. And yes, they are the folks who help us keep the lights on so please go ahead and support them. And when you do use your code TBNS at checkout, and you'll get your special discount whether that's 15% off a $5 discount here, free ebooks here all that kind of fun stuff. So thank you again for supporting the folks who support us with that being said, that's all we have for you today. Brian Nichols signing off, you're on The Brian Nichols Show for Brian Hodges from the Pacific legal foundation. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai