Some folks would have you believe that if Measure A passes, property owners will be lining up to collect monetary damages anytime a new land use restriction displeases them, and that the County will be financially strained by paying all those claims. This is unlikely for three reasons.
First, the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act allows and encourages creative solutions that do not involve payments by the County. If faced with potentially expensive claims, the County can rescind the damaging ordinance, modify it to be less damaging, waive it in particular cases where damage results in claims, or enter into any compromise solution acceptable to both the County and the owner. Compromise solutions can include relaxation of other restrictions on the subject property or any other property, and can even involve third parties, with one of those parties, in exchange for the County relaxing unnecessary or unproductive restrictions on his property, compensating the other for accepting the new restrictions.
Second, filing a claim under Measure A will be expensive and time consuming. Filing fees will have to be paid, appraisals will have to be purchased, and in contentious cases, attorneys and expert witnesses will have to be hired, and court costs will have to be paid. Attorneys will not take these cases on a contingency basis, because any settlements with the County are unlikely to include cash payments, hence no contingency fee will be collected. Therefore, the property owner will have to bear all the costs whether he wins or not. And Measure A does not include any provision for him to recover costs, even if he wins.
The result is that property owners will be reluctant to file claims unless the damage is severe and their chances of winning are high. Annoying restrictions that do not severely damage property values will simply not be worth pursuing, so claims will not be filed, or at least not litigated. Small claims and dubious claims with less than an even chance of winning will not be pursued because of the unavoidable high cost of filing and litigating a claim.
The third and most important reason is that very few property owners want to sell their property rights. Would you sell yours? What property owners really want is to continue to be allowed to use their properties in all the ways that were allowed when they bought them. Accepting a cash payment from the County in settlement for damage done to property value by a new land use restriction would be the same as selling property rights. Property owners might file a claim for monetary damages in order to gain leverage and to get a seat at the bargaining table, but for most of us, actually accepting the monetary payment would be a very undesirable last resort. Most property owners will be eager to negotiate some compromise solution that includes them keeping as much of their property rights as possible. Giving up some rights but keeping others is far better than losing them all, even in exchange for money. There is plenty of room for the County to negotiate settlements that preserve essential public benefits while minimizing collateral damage to the property owner, thereby avoiding cash payments and expensive legal proceedings.