If you are one of Florida's special interests, business may be down but the business environment is more favorable than it has ever been. That is saying a lot, for a state that lacks a state income tax and succeeded at keeping regulations so far at bay that you could take a multi-million acre wetland wilderness, The Everglades, and destroy it without rustling a polluter's feather.
In the area of land use planning at the edge of the Everglades (think, rock mines, Big Sugar, suburban sprawl), things are black as coal in Christmas stocking. The attack of the year landed earlier this week when a state appeals court ruled that for failing to prevail in a legal challenge to a local plan amendment, environmental groups must pay attorney fees of Martin County, the Florida Department of Community Affairs, and development interests.
Land speculators, like the ones who want to blow out Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary next to the Homestead Speedway-- the albatross that reeks of a taxpayer ripoff that no one was charged for -- are jumping with glee, pouring champagne over each other like they had won the World Series.
Environmentalists have been glum since the election of Rick Scott to be Florida's next governor. Scott, with no experience with government operations and no discernable feelings for the environment except those that can be captured from a private jet, appears willing to capitulate to ideologues and development interests in the Florida legislature who want to do away with the state's land use planning agency altogether. (Jeb! was the last Florida governor to toy with the idea of applying "free market" principles to environmental protection. It made great fodder for press releases and career-builders for top agency officials for when they needed high level jobs in the private sector, but did nothing to reverse the pollution of Florida waters.) They blame regulations from keeping Florida's economic engine from re-starting, as if the massive overhang in badly developed, overbuilt and now ghostly subdivisions will pop back once the hands of regulators are off the neck of poor, ill-thought of developers and lobbyists. (Good luck with getting DCA Secretary Tom Pelham to stick around another three months, Mr. Governor-Elect. I'm sure Pelham -- who spent the last four years defending his agency against repeated attacks-- feels it is his civic duty to stick around for the dour business of watching his agency being hacked into smaller pieces so Floridians "can get back to work".)
Now that poorly funded civic groups and environmental organizations may be held liable for attorneys fees for suing counties!, developers!, and the DCA! for violating state planning laws, you can bet that the market for challenges to land use plan changes will be deader than Chinese drywall. A dissenting judge on the 1st District Court of Appeal called the decision, "chilling". Chilling, as in, cryogenically frozen.
Yes, that sound you hear is champagne corks popping. For the lobbyists, land speculators, for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries, and the entire wrecking crew that pushed the economy off the cliff, it has not only been a very, very good year. With the decision of the 1st District Court of Appeals, for them Christmas came early, too.
Appeals court sanctions environmental groups in land-use case.
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December 14, 2010
By: Bruce Ritchie
A state appeals court ruled on Tuesday that environmental groups must pay the attorneys fees of Martin County, the Florida Department of Community Affairs and development interests for appealing a land-use case.
Richard Grosso, an attorney for the groups 1000 Friends of Florida and the Martin County Conservation Alliance, says the ruling sets a chilling precedent for groups that seek to enforce state growth management laws.
Martin County in 2007 reduced from 20 acres to two acres the minimum lot size required in 191,000 acres of designated agricultural land in western Martin County. 1000 Friends of Florida and the Martin County Conservation Alliance filed a legal challenge, contending the land-use change failed to establish meaningful and predictable standards for protecting environmentally sensitive lands.
An administrative law judge determined that the change won't create urban sprawl or more development because homes would be clustered on smaller lots with open space set aside for agriculture, conservation or parks.
When the groups appealed, the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that they lacked the legal standing because they were not affected since there was no increase in development. The majority of the three-judge panel then imposed sanctions and ordered the groups to pay legal fees incurred by the county, DCA and intervenors Martin Island Way LLC and Island Way, LC.
But in dissent, Judge William A. Van Nortwick Jr. said the case was "not close to providing a basis to impose sanctions." The erroneous standard used by the majority to impose sanctions "will create a precedent that will severely chill" those who seek appeals, Van Nortwick wrote.
Attorneys representing Martin County and the intervenors could not be reached for comment. Grosso, executive director of the Everglades Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, said his clients will consider their options, including appealing to the Florida Supreme Court or asking the 1st District Court of Appeal to rehear the case.
Grosso said his clients disagree with the administrative law judge's finding of fact that the groups will not be affected. And Grosso said that in response to their appeal, the majority judges with the 1st District Court of Appeal relied on the same facts established by the administrative law judge, creating a "Catch-22" that resulted in the sanctions.
"Enforcement of the growth management act will be a nullity" if the ruling stands. Grosso said. "No one will seek to enforce it any more out of fear of sanctions for attorney fees."
Originally published in the Florida Current - exclusively distributed via Lobbytools - Florida's Premiere Legislative and Media Monitoring Service.
7 comments:
Maybe this will help us finally get some of the planners at Dade County to start planning for a new West Kendall. We need good planning to handle the 25,000 new homes that will be here soon, like it or not, east of Krome. We need to be smart and stop Grosso from all this wasteful litigation. We should all get together with developers and make a deal to make a permanent UDB line at Krome and let them build a well planned community east of Krome. This is are only chance to really plan for the long term best interest of Dade County. We are to blame for fighting one little meaningless fight at a time, as if this really helps. The only one these piece mail applications help is Codina, Pino, miners. Time to wake up and make deal on giving them development rights to krome and never more before it's to late.
The comment above must have been written by one of the attorneys for
Parkland, a proposed development east of Krome and outside the UDB. As one who has fought for years to preserve South Dade's agriculture, I can say, "There is no such thing as fixing the UDB". So many times we have been told that if a certain project goes forward, it will be the last; that the UDB will be set in stone. It never happens. There is always the next developer to proclaim that his project will be the last. It is never ending so we have to fight each one peicemeal. I remember being told that the line would be at 152 St east of 137 Ave. Now, south of 152 St is crowded suburbia. Developers are never satisfied and they could care less about farmland. Hooray for Grosso. I hope he keeps going on this nasty precedent.
They are lying corrupt fools maybe not fools who argue about "coming together" east of Krome. Sounds like little Napoleon Joe who talks Kumbaya about fixing the line. Yeah today it makes sense and tomorrow there is another Lowe's looking to build outside the UDB right next to property it owns next to the UDB. Just drive out to Krome and see what a mess they made out of what they could. It is disgraceful. These people take public input and throw it in the trash can. Parkland? And you don't think the people who own land west of Krome wouldn't fight like caged animals to get their Walgreens, Target or maybe US Century Bank branch out there, too? A just world would know what to do with them.
It's this same closed minded attitude of ours that keeps us from a good long term strategy. If we made a deal now we can insure a real line forever with non breakable covenants. If not we will be fighting this same loosing battle for the next 50 years until they pave into the everglades. Most of our same old closed minded attitudes will assure all their victories forever. Weneen to wake up and be smarter. No more DCA to help! No more Katy to help! No more Alvarez! Bell, no DCA, and Robina soon to be. Let's keep funding Grosso legal fees instead of making good deals for the future. Why would he want to make a deal.
Soon we will not even have county staff to recommend against spraw. We have all been making the same comments about the udb for years. All we have done is slow them down. The future is theirs. Now is the only time we have to use leverage. The UDB fight is over. We lost and still have time to save most of what's left. I am realistic and many will blog "no way let's keep fighting" "hate those developers" but if you really care you would put the environment first. Not the loosing fight. Writing is on the wall. Open your eyes!!!!
Hey Mr. Potato Head, what kind of iron clad deal you can make west of Krome that doesn't get broke by the next guy who says, there's gotta be another 25,000 or 60,000 or 100,000 homes west of Krome? Wake up and smell the roses. You killed land use planning in Miami Dade and Tallahassee and you got what you want. Houston. You're gonna turn this place into Broward just as soon as the real estate market comes back, maybe even before, just like all those ghost towns in Spain. Get the feds to pay for it. Oops, I mean us taxpayers.
Mrs. Potato head Unlike you I care about the environment. As you know, having been to broward, the roads all connect in broward. The planners in broward actually plan.
In west Kendall no roads connect, it's a hodgepodge, like everything in Miami. Do want west Kendall to be west west Hialeah. This road problem and your comments are the reason that the Brown application was approved. Keep up the smart work and we will accomplish what you want.
Mrs Potato Head, excuse me. What happened in Broward is a good thing? Good planning? You are a joke. A lobbyist or land use lawyer whatever. And u never answered the point about landowners west of Krome crying property rights as soon as the "deal" you think can be brokered east of Krome would happen. Move to Weston, dude. Commute to Miami. Its what u deserve.
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