The Florida Bar's Environmental and Land Use Law Section has posted its columns on the environmental and land use cases in Florida that you need to know about for the third quarter of 2013, as well as the fourth quarter of 2013. Here is what we've got this quarter:
- Hillcrest Prop., LLP v. Pasco County, 24 Fla. L. Weekly, Fed. D 33 (M.D. Fla. 2013), finding that a local government may not require property owners to give up property in exchange for development permits, where the exaction is unconnected to the development's impact. Read more from on my friend Robert Thomas's blog. Disclaimer: my firm represents the plaintiff property owner in this case, and we submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Koontz case on its behalf.
- Town of Ponce Inlet v. Pacetta, LLC, No. 5D12-1982, 2013 WL 3357520 (Fla. 5th DCA July 5, 2013), reversing the trial court decision that I've written extensively about, and holding that a Bert Harris Act claim for the burdening of vested rights cannot be premised on local government assurances that it will amend its comprehensive plan.
- Collins v. Monroe County, No. 3D11-2944, 2013 WL 3455608 (Fla. 3d DCA July 10, 2013), determining that a special master's administrative recommendation that a local government purchase properties because they may be a taking is not enough to prove the taking, where the landowners could not prove they had explored the properties' development potential.
- Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Hendry County, 114 So.3d 1073 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2013), holding that a local government's land use procedures were not preempted by the Power Plant Siting Act when a property owner applied for a local government land use permit before activating Power Plant Siting Act review.
- Maronda Homes v. Lakeview Reserve Homeowners Ass’n, No. SC10-2292, No. SC10-2336, WL 3466814 (Fla. July 11, 2013), deciding that the implied warranties of fitness and merchantability apply to certain common areas, and a Florida law limiting these warranties cannot be applied retroactively.
- Angelo’s Aggregate Materials v. Pasco County, 118 So.3d 971 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013), holding that a local government may not require an administrative vested rights process to be exhausted by a landowner before requesting that a court issue a declaratory judgment.
- Manley v. City of Tallahassee, 2013 WL 4007650 (11th Cir. 2013), determining that a local government does not deprive a landowner of his property in violation of due process where it approves a site plan of a neighbor without allowing the landowner to be heard, even if the landowner has an access agreement concerning the neighbor's property.
- Foley v. Orange County, 2013 WL 4110414 (M.D. Fla. 2013), finding that a local government may not enact or enforce land use regulations in conflict with general laws and regulations concerning the care and keeping of exotic animals.
- U.S. Sugar Corp. v. 1,000 Friends of Fla., 2013 WL 4017136 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013), holding that comprehensive plan consistency is determined by analyzing the face of a development order, and not by what the developer intends to do under the development order.
- CBS Outdoor, Inc. v. Fla. Dep’t of Transp., 2013 WL 5744443 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013), determining that where Florida law allows the owners of signs and billboards to engage in an administrative process to receive compensation for blocked view, the billboards must conform to local, state, and federal regulations for their owners to use this process.
If you're so inclined, over two years' worth of these cases and these summaries on new environmental and land use cases in Florida are in my archives.
