Editor’s note: This is the eighth installment in a series examining the roots of America’s housing crisis. To read the earlier pieces, visit the roots of today’s housing crisis. Seventy-two-year-old George Sheetz is not a rich man. He is not a greedy developer. But to officials in California’s El Dorado County, he is an ATM. In July 2016, Sheetz applied for a permit to place a modest 1,854-square-foot manufactured home for his family on a rural 10-acre lot on Fort Jim Road, just east of Sacramento. His simple goal was to live in a home away from the city where he and his wife could raise their grandson.

The county gave Sheetz a permit – but then demanded that he pay $23,420 for “traffic mitigation.” The fee is based on a formula and not tied to any particular traffic impacts caused by the

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