This paper examines the main ethical and legal issues on the imposition of development impact feesadopted in many US metropolitan areas. In the United States, many local governments have increasingly relied ondevelopment impact fees for the production of new infrastructures and public facilities at the fringe of boomingmetropolitan areas. However, the increasing reliance on the use of development impact fees on new developmentraises serious ethical issues including the effects of development impact fees in increasing the exclusivity ofcommunities. One of the spatial consequences of development impact fee use is that impact fees may be used as asort of membership fee, thus creating or intensifying the spatial pattern of socioeconomic inequalities among localities.It is highly likely that development impact fees can be used to-both intentionally and unintentionally-exclude certainsocial groups. There are similarities between zoning and development impact fees in that both have exclusivity effects.In addition to who does benefit from new development, another important question is who should benefit from newdevelopment. These questions are ultimately intertwined with the concept of social justice. The ongoing ethical debateson the production of new urban space at the edge of many booming US metropolitan areas, development impactfees, and social equity, can be reinterpreted in the Korean urban context.