City Com'n of City of Miami v. Woodlawn Park Cemetery Co.

• Decision Date: 01 August 1989
• Docket Number: No. 86-2376,86-2376
• Parties: 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1799 CITY COMMISSION OF the CITY OF MIAMI, et al., Petitioners, v. WOODLAWN PARK CEMETERY COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1227

553 So.2d 1227

14 Fla. L. Weekly 1799

CITY COMMISSION OF the CITY OF MIAMI, et al., Petitioners, v. WOODLAWN PARK CEMETERY COMPANY, Respondent.

No. 86-2376.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Third District.

Aug. 1, 1989.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 6, 1989.

Lucia A. Dougherty, City Atty., and Joel E. Maxwell, Asst. City Atty., for petitioners.

Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwody & Cole, and William J. Dunaj and Philip A. Allen, III and Teresa Ragatz, Miami, for respondent.

Robert D. Korner, Miami, for intervenors.

Before HUBBART, FERGUSON and JORGENSON, JJ.

HUBBART, Judge.

This is a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the City of Miami and certain intervenors which seeks review of a final order of the circuit court sitting in its appellate review capacity in a zoning matter. The circuit court order under review requires, in effect, the City of Miami to rezone from residential to commercial a small parcel of a large historic cemetery in Miami. We find no legal basis to upset this order and, accordingly, deny the petition for a writ of certiorari.

I

The relevant facts of this case are, for the most part, entirely undisputed. As revealed by the record, they are as follows.

A

Woodlawn Park Cemetery [Woodlawn] is an historic sixty-eight-acre cemetery located within the City of Miami. It was chartered in 1913 and is the burial place of over 60,000 persons, including many of Miami's most prominent pioneer families; there are also countless other persons of national and international renown buried there. It contains the oldest Jewish cemetery in Since at least the 1930's, the subject property has been zoned residential, currently RS- 2/2 (general residential), which permits its present and long-standing use as a cemetery. The sixty-eight-acre, entirely fenced cemetery fronts to the north on S.W. 8th Street for approximately 900 feet. Along 229 feet of this frontage is the cemetery entrance, a parking lot, and an office building from which the Woodlawn personnel have conducted the business of the cemetery for over fifty years. S.W. 8th Street--although once a sleepy, residentially zoned country road which was commercially undeveloped on either side--is now a busy, rezoned, four-lane major thoroughfare in Miami which passes through many miles of continuous commercial development with abutting residential communities located to the immediate rear of such development. Indeed, with the sole exception of Woodlawn's 900-foot cemetery frontage, virtually every parcel of property bordering S.W. 8th Street in Miami, with abutting single-family residences to the rear, has been rezoned from residential to commercial use. In the immediate area itself, across S.W. 8th Street from Woodlawn's property to the north and extending for over a city block on either side, is a wide variety of commercial establishments, including: a motel, a restaurant, a travel agency, a dental lab, a print shop, a shopping center, a gas station, a car stereo shop, a garage, an auto rental business, a flower shop, an antique shop, a used car lot, and a donut shop. To the immediate east and west of Woodlawn's cemetery on the south side of S.W. 8th Street where the cemetery is located are similar-type commercial establishments, including: a used car lot, a restaurant, a tire store, and, most significantly, the Rivero Funeral Home, which is located in the adjoining block to the west, approximately 600 feet from Woodlawn Cemetery. Moreover, up and down S.W. 8th Street for miles in either direction of the cemetery is heavy commercial development of the same general nature as that in the immediate vicinity of the cemetery.

Dade County, as well as the county's oldest Greek, Chinese, Cuban, Roman Catholic and Masonic burial sections. It currently serves all sectors of the ethnically diverse Miami community and is the only cemetery in Miami with available burial space. Moreover, the cemetery is a bird sanctuary and is considered by many to be a beautiful, serene place.

The rest of the Woodlawn cemetery, like much of the commercially zoned property along S.W. 8th Street, largely abuts single-family homes which are zoned residential. The cemetery extends eight blocks deep on either side of its frontage in a southerly direction from S.W. 8th Street to S.W. 16th Street, forming a large, slightly misshapen, rectangular parcel of land. It is bordered on the east by S.W. 32nd Avenue which intersects S.W. 8th Street, the west by S.W. 33rd and 34th Avenues which also intersect S.W. 8th Street, and the south by S.W. 16th Street--all noncommercial streets largely bordering single-family residences. The cemetery has a main entrance and exit on S.W. 8th Street; it also has its own internal road system which provides additional ingress and egress at S.W. 16th Street and S.W. 34th Avenue, both streets with single-family residences thereon. In this respect, the cemetery is no different from virtually all the commercial properties along S.W. 8th Street which also abut single family residences to their immediate rear and are connected thereto by an extensive public road system. ¹

B

On April 12, 1985, Woodlawn Park Cemetery Company filed an application with the City of Miami seeking to rezone a portion The City of Miami Zoning Board held a public hearing on the proposed zoning change. Mr. Richard Whipple of the City of Miami Zoning Department reported that his department recommended approval of the rezoning based on the department's study that the rezoning would not have an adverse effect on the surrounding area. Woodlawn then called a number of witnesses who explained the details of the proposed funeral home, the projected number of funerals at the proposed home over a five-year period, and two surveys prepared by Woodlawn's experts concerning the traffic and noise impact these funerals would have on the surrounding area. It was shown that (a) for the past year there were approximately four internments per day at Woodlawn with an average of fifteen vehicles per procession; ³ (b) if the proposed funeral home were built, after a five-year period, the average number of funeral processions would, at most, be increased by one procession of fifteen additional vehicles ⁴ per day--most of which vehicles, based on past experience, would not use the residential exits to the cemetery but, instead, would enter and exit from and onto S.W. 8th Street; and (c) the noise impact of these additional funerals would be negligible. The only opposition to the rezoning request consisted of representatives from four nearby funeral homes which would compete with Woodlawn, several local residents, and an attorney for the competing funeral home directors. These witnesses expressed generalized concerns about the possible traffic impact of the proposed funeral home, but presented no studies or other empirical data in opposition to Woodlawn's traffic and noise studies. The funeral home witnesses also expressed other concerns about alleged decreased burial Woodlawn then sought certiorari review of the City Commission's action in the circuit court. The circuit court granted the requested review, quashed the city's zoning decision, and enjoined the city from enacting, maintaining, or enforcing any zoning classification on the subject parcel more restrictive than CR-2/4 [commercial]. The circuit court held, in effect, that the city abused its discretion by arbitrarily and capriciously denying Woodlawn its constitutionally guaranteed right to make reasonable use of its property in accord with the character of the adjacent area. The court concluded that the refusal to grant the requested rezoning constituted "reverse spot zoning" because all property fronting S.W. 8th Street for miles in either direction is currently zoned for commercial purposes, except for the subject Woodlawn property. This petition for a writ of certiorari follows.

of its cemetery from a residential to a commercial classification. The requested rezoning sought to change only a 1.3-acre parcel of its sixty-eight-acre cemetery in order to build a 14,000 square foot funeral home thereon with eighty-one, on-site parking places--far more than the available parking spaces for other funeral homes in the area. The subject 1.3-acre parcel fronts on S.W. 8th Street along 229 feet of the cemetery's 900-foot frontage and is otherwise completely surrounded by cemetery property. It is located 285 feet to the east and 393 feet to the west of the nearest adjoining property, and it is eight blocks north of the residential area located to the immediate rear of the cemetery. ² Woodlawn's administrative office building and parking lot are currently located on the subject parcel and have been for the last fifty years sites, and "breaking faith" with present grave owners. At the end of the hearing, the Zoning Board voted six to two to override the zoning department's recommendation and recommended to the City Commission that the rezoning application be denied. The City Commission, based on much the same showing as was made before the Zoning Board, approved this recommendation by a vote of three to zero and denied the requested rezoning. ⁵

II

It is well settled in Florida that a zoning restriction must meet the constitutional test of being within the police power of the governing authority to enact or enforce, i.e., the restriction must bear a substantial relationship to the public health, welfare, safety, and morals of the community. ⁶ This police power is admittedly a very broad power entrusted to legislative bodies to exercise, and the courts have traditionally given great deference to legislative decisions in this area. So long as it is "fairly debatable," i.e., open to dispute or controversy on grounds that make sense, whether the zoning restriction advances the public health, welfare, safety, or morals of the community, the subject restriction is considered to be constitutional. ⁷ Moreover, the burden is not on the governmental...