Supreme Court rule for Florida property owner in land use case

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON | Tue Jun 25, 2013 11:39am EDT

(Reuters) - In a victory for advocates of private property rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said a Florida property owner may be owed compensation from a government agency that declined to award him a development permit for his land.

In a 5-4 ruling with the court's five conservative justices in the majority, the court said Coy Koontz could pursue a property rights claim against the St. Johns River Water Management District.

The legal issue was whether the agency's action constituted a "taking" subject to compensation, under the so-called takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said a government may not condition a land-use permit on an owner giving up the use of some property absent a "nexus" and "rough proportionality" between the demand and the effect of the proposed land use. He said this applied even if the permit were denied, and the demand was for money.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/us-usa-court-property-idUSBRE95O0XM20130625

[elleng]

1. Sounded like a good decision

but then I read this, so not sure:

'After Florida designated much of the parcel as protected wetlands, Koontz proposed to develop about a quarter of it and dedicate the rest for conservation, only to have local officials insist that he pay money to protect wetlands elsewhere.

Koontz said no, and a trial court awarded him $327,500 for being unable to use his property. Florida's Supreme Court then threw this award out, saying that because St. Johns never issued a permit and Koontz never spent money, "nothing was ever taken."

Justice Elena Kagan dissented from Tuesday's decision, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Kagan said the majority "threatens to subject a vast array of land-use regulations, applied daily in states and localities throughout the country, to heightened constitutional scrutiny. I would not embark on so unwise an adventure."'

[iamthebandfanman]

2. 5-4

sure seems to be a running theme.. doesn't it ?

[Baitball Blogger]

3. This is not good.

This battle was started in the late nineties. I know a local lawyer who was looking for a researcher who would search through periodicals looking for articles about property owners who could not develop property based on wetland issues. His aim was to find sympathetic property owners who could not develop because of wetland issues.

Why would a lawyer want to represent someone like this pro bono? Because, now the rule can be used by developers who can claim the same right. And he was a developer, and the land owner who was banking him was a an ex judge.

Florida is going to be in for some flooding problems.

[Igel]

13. It started before that.

Back in the '80s the church I was in saved up and bought an old guy's rump of a farm. He'd sold off much of it for individual houses. His little piece was kept for a barn with chickens and the occasional turkey and a horsepasture.

The church wanted to put up a building. It saved for the materials and building costs and when it went for a permit found that in the intervening year or so some EPA person had seen a waterfowl using puddles. It was Oregon. At certain times of the rainy season it might have puddles for a few days. He declared it to be a goose migrating in February. Geese don't migrate in February, but a farmer nearby had geese. Didn't matter. The EPA ruling was "wetlands."

As wetland, it couldn't be used for construction unless a wetland of the same size was built someplace (the wetland to be build had requirements, and was a nicer wetland that the puddly horsemeadow). The horse had been removed, so the grandfather provision said the horsepasture couldn't be used for livestock.

The church was stuck with a few acres of land that it couldn't dispose of for anything near it was bought for, couldn't build on, and had a house, yard and barn to maintain.

Courts at the time had ruled this wouldn't have been a "taking." The church, however, certainly felt "took"--not by the seller, but by the EPA.

[Baitball Blogger]

14. That does sound excessive.

In Florida you take wetlands seriously. Even though they know areas that are getting flooded out down creek or river, new developments are still pushing the envelope and making it worse.

It's stupid.

[groundloop]

4. Not so much a "property owner" victory as a "developer" victory

It appears that this will make it far easier for developers to build on protected wetlands.

Edit to add:

The headline got my hopes up, as state and local governments have used Imminent Domain in the past to hand land over to developers. I had hoped (wrongly as it turns out) that this was a ruling restricting when homeowners may have their homes taken from them under Imminent Domain.

[premium]

5. If that's the case,

then, this is a lousy ruling.

[PSPS]

8. It's "eminent" domain

[premium]

9. If it's eminent domain

then absolutely the owner has to be justly compensated at fair market value.

[PSPS]

10. It's just a quirk of mine

It had nothing to do with the point you were making, just a common grammatical error that bugs me.

Same as:

Good ON you
I should OF known
All of THE sudden

[freshwest]

15. Ooooh! Please don't take it the wrong way, but I have just the thing for you!

Just posting to relieve stress!

[Thor_MN]

6. Well damn, why did I turn down that offer to buy (swamp) land in Florida?

[SwankyXomb]

7. So much for zoning laws in America. n/t

[happyslug]

11. Here is the actual opinion

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1447_6j37.pdf

[csziggy]

12. That sucks - he should have already been getting a tax break

Because the land should not have been assessed as land suitable for development. So the taxes on the land should have been really low.

According to what I have read as soon as a property owner applies for development permits, their property assessment is supposed to change to reflect that.

For instance, if I subdivided my property in preparation to sell it or build houses on it, my appraisal and zoning would change from agricultural to single family residential and would be taxed at a significantly higher rate. Since about a third of my property is wetlands, at that point the county would probably change the classification of that area and it should have a different assessment and be taxed at a lower rate.

When we applied for the permits to build our house, the appraiser immediately changed the area of the farm set aside for the house from agricultural to single family residential. We pay four times the property tax on the house lot as we do on the entire rest of the farm since our agricultural exemption gives us a very low rate on the farm.

Wetlands unsuitable for development should also be assessed at a low rate and taxed at a low rate. That should be the compensation a property owner gets for not being able to destroy the wetlands and the incentive the government gives them to NOT destroy it.

The other part of it is that developers should be made liable for future flooding on for homeowners whose property was previously wetlands. WETlands are wet for a reason - and are not appropriate for building houses!