During NAHB's recent fall board of directors meeting in Milwaukee, three home builders associations received grant approval from the NAHB Executive Board for both new and continuing legal actions.

The grants from the NAHB Legal Action Fund were awarded based on recommendations from the NAHB Legal Action Committee, which met on Sept. 9 to consider several applications for funding.

NAHB created the fund to ease the burden on members and HBAs that want to pursue expensive and time-consuming cases involving nationally significant issues or legal matters commonly faced by builders and developers.

The cases approved by the Executive Board earlier this month indicate that HBAs still face onerous state and local regulations that create unnecessary roadblocks to housing in already challenging times.

The cases approved include:

• Adequate public facilities challenge. The Cabarrus County Building Industry Association in North Carolina is defending its challenge to Cabarrus County’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO), which requires developers to mitigate inadequate school facilities by paying a fee as a condition of development approval. The BIA successfully argued in both the trial and appeals courts that the county lacked the authority to impose the APFO under state law. But the county has appealed the rulings to the North Carolina Supreme Court and the BIA must now defend its victories.
  
  
• Excessive review and impact mitigation. The Home Builders Association of Connecticut is challenging the state’s reissuance of its stormwater general permit, which would now require a review and mitigation of the impacts to both state and federally listed endangered species. The HBA is arguing that the state does not have the authority to impose such requirements. 
  
  
• Preservation of a legislative victory. The Peninsula Housing and Building Association in Newport News, Va., is participating in a lawsuit to protect its hard-won impact fee victory in the Virginia General Assembly. The new legislation requires municipalities to collect impact fees upon the issuance of a certificate of occupancy, rather than when a building permit is granted. Several counties have balked at the state’s insistence that this requirement be applied retroactively, and the HBA has joined with local builders to preserve and maximize the benefit of this legislative victory to local builders.    

Fund Applications for Review During IBS Available Now

The committee reviews Legal Action Fund applications three times a year in conjunction with NAHB board of directors meetings.

Applications for consideration at the board meeting during the 2012 NAHB International Builders’ Show in Orlando are now available and due by Jan. 18. Click here to download applications and guidelines from the members-only pages of the NAHB website.

For more information on the grant program, email Christopher Whitcomb at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8329.