Citrus County v. Florida Rock Industries

• Decision Date: 12 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-2218.,98-2218.
• Citation: 726 So.2d 383
• Parties: CITRUS COUNTY, Florida, Petitioner, v. FLORIDA ROCK INDUSTRIES, INC., Respondent.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

726 So.2d 383

CITRUS COUNTY, Florida, Petitioner, v. FLORIDA ROCK INDUSTRIES, INC., Respondent.

No. 98-2218.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

February 12, 1999.

Thomas G. Pelham and Douglas W. Ackerman of Apgar & Pelham, Tallahassee, and Richard Wesch, Assistant County Attorney, Lecanto, for Petitioner.

Clark A. Stillwell of Brannen, Stillwell & Perrin, P.A., Inverness, for Respondent.

W. SHARP, J.

Citrus County seeks certiorari review of an order of the circuit court in a zoning case. The circuit court granted certiorari review of the Citrus County Department of Development Services' order which granted in part and denied in part Florida Rock Industries, Inc.'s vested rights application under the Citrus County Land Development Code. The circuit court quashed the order rendered by the Department, and directed that on remand the vested rights application be granted in full. We have jurisdiction,¹ and because we find the circuit court failed to apply the correct law in this case, we grant the writ and quash the circuit court's order.

The defects in the circuit court's decision under review are basically three-fold: 1) it imposed on the Department a duty to accept a hearing officer's opinion in an administrative review process provided for by the Code, which duty or obligation is not supported by the Code or by the interpretation of the Department; 2) it buttressed its opinion with fact findings consistent with the common law of equitable estoppel, which was not a viable issue in these proceedings; and 3) it erroneously determined Florida Rock had been deprived of procedural due process because the county attorney acted in the dual role of prosecutor and advisor to the Department.

The facts in this case are complex, but a brief summary is necessary to explain this decision. Florida Rock owns and operates a rock processing plant in Brooksville, in Hernando County. Florida Rock has used the plant since 1955 to serve its mining operations in both Hernando and Citrus Counties. In Citrus County, Florida Rock has mining leases on four sites; Montague, Landrum, Storey and Rose Hill. The fee is owned by the successor of General Portland, Inc., who in 1978, obtained a ruling affirmed by this court,² that it was entitled to have the County issue it a permit for mining those four sites, upon due application and payment of fees. However, no one applied for mining permits, although Florida Rock has been engaged in mining operations on at least the Montague and Landrum sites, since 1981.

Apparently because Florida Rock anticipated Citrus County might change the zoning on the mining sites to make mining operations difficult or impossible, it applied for a determination of vested rights pursuant to section 3160 of the Land Development Code. That section allows an applicant to preserve development rights, provided it can establish various conditions. Section 3160B. requires that the applicant establish that its development expectations were reasonable and final when they were formulated; that the development is investment backed to a substantial degree; and that failure to allow the development will deprive the applicant of a reasonable return on its investment, exclusive of various specified costs and expenses. Section 3160C. presumes development rights are vested if they were previously granted by prior development orders.

Pursuant to Code, an application for vested rights is filed with the County — specifically, the Department of Development Services.³ It must review the application to see whether criteria for vested rights is met. As part of the procedure, it consults with the county attorney, who is required to sign off on the decision rendered.⁴ The Department makes a written determination, which is furnished to the applicant.

If the applicant is dissatisfied with the decision of the Department, it may appeal to a hearing officer.⁵ The hearing officer is limited to a review of the record and the applicable law. The Code specifically provides that the hearing officer may treat as a question of law, whether the decision of the Department is supported by competent, substantial evidence in the record as a whole.⁶ If the hearing officer finds the Department erred in its decision, the officer refers the matter back to the Department for reconsideration. However, if the Department reaffirms its original decision, that decision becomes final, and the administrative process concludes.⁷

In this case, the Department granted Florida Rock's vested rights application only for the Montague and Landrum tracts, and denied it for the Storey and Rose Hill sites. The Department made numerous findings of fact in denying vested rights for Storey and Rose Hill. In summary, the Department found that all four sites are separate properties, treated as such by Florida Rock's lease with General Portland and others (DEP permits, etc.), and that they are not contiguous but are separated by roads.⁸ It found that neither Florida Rock nor General Portland had ever obtained a special exception to mine the sites or other permit from the County. Thus it concluded, there was no development order issued by the County for these sites. It also found that Florida Rock had never mined the Storey or Rose Hill sites. Mining had been undertaken by another corporation on the Storey site, but mining had ceased there and there was no linkage between Florida Rock and that other mining company. There was an easement granted to Florida Rock for haul trucks to cross a county road on the Landrum and Montague tracts. This was part of the basis for granting Florida Rock vested rights for those tracts.

This decision was appealed to a hearing officer under the Code.⁹ The hearing officer recommended that vested rights be granted to Florida Rock on all of the sites "as a matter of law." The hearing officer concluded that there were two prior development "orders" in the record for mining all four sites: the 1978 judgment affirmed by the Fifth District Court of Appeal; and the haul road easement issued by the County. He also concluded that all four sites should be treated as one property for purposes of vested rights, and that the sites were contiguous. In addition, he found that there was no period of time over 180 days during which the property had not been continuously mined since 1981, and he found that the investments made by Florida Rock in its Brooksville plant and in the mining operations in Citrus County were sufficient expenditures to establish the Code's requirement for vested rights.¹⁰

The Department reconsidered the matter as required by the Code. Florida Rock sought to have the county attorney and any staff or assistant counsel removed from the function of advising the Department because the county attorney had signed off on the original decision of the Department and because a county attorney had defended the Department's decision before the hearing officer. The record, however, is not clear as to whether the same attorney acted in all of these capacities.

The Department affirmed its original decision in all regards. It rejected the hearing officer's recommendation because it said the hearing officer had reweighed the evidence presented and substituted his judgment for that of the Department. It disagreed that Florida Rock had ever obtained development orders as required by the Code. The special permit that was in the record pertained only to the original special exception application, which was denied and had resulted in the litigation culminating in the Fifth District Court of Appeal's decision. It rejected the hearing officer's conclusion that the haul easement was a "development order" under the Code. At best, the Department concluded, the easement related only to the Landrum and Montague tracts.

The Department also reaffirmed its original conclusion, based on its fact findings, that the four sites are separate and should be considered individually. It maintained the view that the substantial investment expenses put forth by Florida Rock on its mining operations in Citrus County pertained primarily to the Landrum and Montague sites. Buttressing that finding, it pointed out that Florida Rock had filed a separate application to mine Storey in 1992, which was not granted nor pursued, and that mining operations there had stopped from 1987 to 1991.

At this point, the administrative process was complete and final under the Code.¹¹ Florida Rock filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the circuit court to review the decision of the Department, and a complaint for declaratory relief under the common law doctrine of equitable estoppel. Florida Rock maintained throughout these proceedings that it had a dual remedy and that in the certiorari proceeding it was only seeking review of the administrative decision. It intended to preserve and later pursue other potential rights to establish common law estoppel or other grounds to force the County to permit it to mine all four sites. Only the certiorari case went forward and is the subject of our review.

The circuit court quashed the Department's decision, in part, and directed that on remand it must grant Florida Rock's vested rights application for all four sites. The major source of the difficulty in unraveling the various levels of standards of review in this case is the Code's "appeal" process to a hearing officer. The circuit court interpreted the Code to require the Department, on reconsideration, to apply an appellate standard of review to the hearing officer's decision. In other words, the court concluded that the Department could not reject the hearing officer's findings and conclusions, if reasonable people could have reached the same conclusion and if the findings were supported by substantial, competent evidence. The circuit court judge said the Department could not re-evaluate testimony or evidence on reconsideration. However, as the County points out, there is no support...