State and Local Reporter - 02/12/2004 (Plain Text Version)Duane Willenbring, Chair View Graphical Version | Subscribe
to NAHB Publications | Email our
Editor... In this issue: NAHB Funds Industry LitigationThe Legal Action Committee met recently to consider six applications for funding assistance from NAHB’s Legal Action Fund. The six cases recommended by the Committee to the NAHB Executive Board for litigation grant approval involve a range of issues that are often problematic for the building industry, and the NAHB Executive Committee approved all six applications. Two cases were extensions of previous grants. First, the Northwest Arkansas Home Builders Association continues its legal challenge to various impact fees that add nearly $4,000 to each new residential unit constructed. The HBA argues that the fees are, in effect, illegal taxes, which the localities have no express authority to enact. Second, a builder in Sevier County, Tennessee, is appealing a lower court decision in order to try to enforce an arbitration clause in a residential construction contract in which the defendant home purchasers did not separately sign or initial the clause. The committee also recommended grants for four new cases. The Home Builders Association of Greater Austin received funding for legal research to challenge a zoning and subdivision ordinance, which requires that single-family swellings be built with a 600 square foot garage, three-sided masonry requirements, and an increase in minimum house and lot sizes. Another case involves a challenge by the Central Oregon Builders Association to a system development charge applicable to new commercial and residential development, payable upon request for building permits. The charge was increased from $894 to $2,477 per single-family dwelling unit. The BA is arguing that that the resolution violated various provisions of state law, including requirements related to capital improvements and fee charge methodologies, and on state and federal constitutional grounds. Also receiving positive recommendations were two Clean Water Act cases. The Wisconsin Builders Association has challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s Construction General Permit for stormwater discharges, a regulation affecting developers in six states who seek to disturb more than one acre of land. On the wetlands front, NAHB will be filing another friend-of-the-court brief to try to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the issue of whether a roadside ditch next to a wetland are “navigable waters” such that the Army Corp of Engineers can regulate it. The Legal Action Fund exists to support litigation by state and local associations and builders in cases involving matters of common importance or national significance to the shelter industry. The committee reviews applications three times per year in conjunction with scheduled meetings of the Board of Directors. For more information on the Legal Action Fund or any of these grants, please contact Mary Lynn Pickel, Director of Legal Services, at 800-368-5242 x8485. For more information or to contact us directly, please visit www.NAHB.org | ©2004, National Association of Home Builders |