How the Bert Harris Act works

“The Bert Harris Act provides:

“The terms ‘inordinate burden’ or ‘inordinately burdened’ mean that an action of one or more governmental entities has directly restricted or limited the use of real property such that the property owner is permanently unable to attain the reasonable, investment-backed expectation for the existing use of the real property or a vested right to a specific use of the real property with respect to the real property as a whole, or that the property owner is left with existing or vested uses that are unreasonable such that the property owner bears a disproportionate share of a burden imposed for the good of the public, which in fairness should be borne by the public at large.

“The owner may demonstrate such an ‘inordinate burden’ by showing either (1) that the property has been unfairly singled out to bear a ‘disproportionate’ share of the regulatory burden imposed to meet a legitimate governmental end, or (2) that the owner is now permanently unable to attain reasonable, investment-backed expectations for use of the property. Those expectations may include expectations for the continued present use of the property, or for a vested right to a specific future use of the real property … 

“The second means of proving injury looks not at the regulation’s impact on specific proposed uses, but instead at the uses remaining after the governmental regulation takes effect, and considers whether the remaining uses for the property represent a reasonable range.  Under this option, a property owner must show that the property has such limited remaining uses that it is unfairly bearing the brunt of a regulatory burden that should not properly be imposed upon an individual property owner, but instead upon the public as a whole, which benefits from the regulation.”

Source: “Update on the Bert Harris Act,” by Ronald Weaver, Esq., 2007