If you want to build housing on your property, can the government demand that you first give your land to someone else to live on? Or that you pay for someone else’s house (on someone else’s property) before you get a permit to build housing for yourself? You would think the answer would be a resounding, “Of course not!” But consider the case of Jessica and Chris Pilling in Healdsburg, California. It may cause you to think again. 

Jessica and her husband run Bike Healdsburg, a small “party bicycle” business offering a fun way to explore Healdsburg. Since the couple and their three young children were outgrowing the duplex where they currently live, Jessica subdivided their lot to build a new family home and an attached accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on the second lot, with a plan to rent out their current duplex.
In a state and city facing a housing crisis, the Pillings should have been rewarded. They wanted to take their property, which included housing for two families (a duplex), and double the amount of housing available by building an additional house and an ADU (sometimes called a granny flat). Healdsburg, a community that needs more housing options, should have embraced the Pillings’ plan. 
But it didn’t. Instead, Healdsburg sought to penalize the Pillings.  
Under what Healdsburg calls its “inclusionary housing” program, Healdsburg demanded that the Pillings either a) give land at no charge to the city for affordable housing purposes (that is, for someone else to live on) or b) pay a $20,134.75 fee that Healdsburg would then use toward providing affordable housing for someone else. Only upon taking one of these steps would Healdsburg permit the Pillings to build more housing on their property. Many cities in California and elsewhere have similar inclusionary housing programs, sometimes labeled affordable housing programs. 
If the city was the mafia, we would call this extortion. Given no choice, the Pillings paid the fee the government demanded. But they did ...