Court rejects government attempt to toss Colosi’s challenge to exactions scheme
A federal judge ruled yesterday that Michael Colosi’s lawsuit against Charlotte County, Florida, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will proceed, rejecting efforts by both the county and the federal government to have the case dismissed. The decision, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, keeps alive Colosi’s challenge to unconstitutional conditions imposed on his right to build a home.
A homeowner caught in arbitrary regulation
Colosi owns a 5.07-acre parcel in Charlotte County where he plans to build a modest single-family home and detached garage on just a small portion of the land. But before he can break ground, local and federal authorities insist he must pay exorbitant fees or navigate a burdensome federal permitting process—all in the name of protecting the Florida scrub-jay, a small blue songbird listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The county demands a so-called “HCP Development Fee” of $139,440. This fee is calculated based on the entire size of Colosi’s parcel, regardless of how much land he actually intends to develop or whether scrub-jay habitat even exists there. Alternatively, federal regulators have told him he could seek an incidental take permit—but only if he agrees to costly and time-consuming mitigation measures that could run upwards of $180,000 and delay construction for up to a year. Either path leaves Colosi facing crushing costs and indefinite delay simply to exercise his basic right to use his property.
The lawsuit and the government’s motions
Michael Colosi.
Represented by PLF, Colosi sued in October 2024. His lawsuit argues that Charlotte County’s fee violates the unconstitutional conditions doctrine under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because it lacks any “essential nexus” or “rough proportionality” to the impacts of his project. He also challenges FWS’s regulation of the scrub-jay as exceeding federal authority under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, since the bird exists only in Florida and has no commercial value.
Charlotte County and FWS responded with motions to dismiss, claiming Colosi lacked standing, that his claims were not ripe, and that recent agency letters made his claims moot. But in a detailed opinion, the court rejected those arguments. The court held that Colosi had “plausibly pled several concrete, particularized harms,” including project delays, lost use of his property, and being forced to choose between paying a $139,440 county fee or pursuing a “more burdensome and more time-consuming” federal process. The court concluded that “[a] plaintiff like [Colosi], who suffers these concrete harms himself, necessarily satisfies the particularity requirement” for standing.
Why this matters
The court’s ruling is an important step forward for Colosi and for other landowners who find themselves trapped by sweeping habitat regulations. Under the Constitution, government cannot use the permitting process as leverage to force property owners into surrendering their rights or paying unrelated fees. Nor can federal agencies stretch their powers beyond what Congress has authorized.
At stake is more than just Colosi’s ability to build a home. If local governments can impose six-figure “mitigation” charges without individualized proof of impact, and if federal agencies can compel permits for activities with no connection to interstate commerce, the door is open to unchecked control over how Americans may use their property. That is precisely what the Constitution forbids.
What’s next
The case will now move forward to address the merits of Colosi’s constitutional claims. A victory would not only allow him to build his long-planned home but also reinforce vital protections for property owners facing arbitrary environmental exactions.
Pacific Legal Foundation will continue to fight for Colosi and others like him—defending the principle that environmental stewardship must respect constitutional limits, and that prosperity and conservation can go hand in hand when guided by liberty and human ingenuity.
