This past summer, in Koontz v. St. Johns River Management District, the United States Supreme Court handed a significant victory to real estate developers across the country, when it announced that it is unconstitutional under the Takings Clause for municipalities to impose "extortionate" conditions for the granting of development permits.

The last clause of the Fifth Amendment, know as the Takings Clause, requires that "just compensation" be paid if the government takes private property for public use. Typically, this clause is invoked when the government, under the power of eminent domain, literally takes land from private owners and provides just compensation for doing so. In this case, the Supreme Court expanded the scenarios in which a landowner can readily make a claim against the government for an unconstitutional taking.
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