Lateral Easement for Public Access As a Condition for Building Permit

In Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n (1987) 483 U.S. 825, 834, 97 L. Ed. 2d 677, 107 S. Ct. 3141, the California Coastal Commission required residential property owners to grant a lateral easement for public access across the seaside of their beachfront property as a condition for approval of a building permit to construct a larger beach house. (Nollan, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 828.) In Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), the City of Tigard, Oregon, required the plaintiff to dedicate a portion of her property to public use as a pedestrian and bicycle pathway as a condition for granting a building permit allowing her to expand her business. (Dolan, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 377-380.) In each instance, local government conditioned the approval and issuance of a development permit on a land-use restriction, dedication, or exaction that would have amounted to the uncompensated requisition of private property for public use, but for the claim that the conditions were justified by the ultimate police power to deny a permit altogether. (See Ehrlich, supra, 12 Cal. 4th at p. 868.)