Local Government Law

Plaintiffs filed a mandamus action after the defendant county rejected the plaintiffs’ request for special use permits to build commercial solar energy facilities. The circuit court granted the mandamus and entered an order directing the county to issue the permits and the county appealed. The appellate court affirmed, finding that amendments to section 5-12020 of the Counties Code demonstrated a clear legislative intent to substantially restrict the county’s traditional and discretionary regulatory land-use powers in the context of commercial solar energy facilities and that the circuit court properly found that the county was statutorily obligated to issue the requested special use permits. (HOLDRIDGE and BERTANI, concurring)

Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the defendant’s creation of a Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district under the Tax Increment Allocation Redevelopment Act. The circuit court entered summary judgment for the defendant and plaintiff appealed. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the defendant did not satisfy the but-for test under the TIF Act, the parcels did not meet the TIF Act’s contiguity and substantial benefit requirements, that there were insufficient eligibility factors to designate the TIF district as a conservation area, and that the defendant impermissibly extended parcels in one TIF district by transferring them to another district. The appellate court affirmed, finding that the circuit court did not err in finding that there were substantial improvements for all parcels, that defendant made sufficient findings related to the relevant eligibility factors to properly designate the area as a conservation area, and that there was nothing in the Act that prohibited the defendant from placing a parcel in a TIF district after it was removed from another district. (PETERSON and ANDERSON, concurring)