City of Boynton Beach v. Carroll
| Decision Date | 23 January 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 72--167,72--167 |
| Citation | 272 So.2d 171 |
| Parties | The CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, a Florida municipal corporation, Appellant, v. The Most Reverend Coleman F. CARROLL, as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Miami, His Successors in Office, a corporation sole and Stuart Fuller, as Building Official of the City of Boynton Beach, a municipal corporation, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert F. Griffith, Jr., and Gene Moore, of Griffith & Moore, Boynton Beach, for appellant.
Joseph M. Fitzgerald, Miami, for appellees.
Appellant-respondent, The City of Boynton Beach, appeals a final judgment granting a peremptory writ of mandamus compelling the City and its building official to issue a building permit to the Most Reverend Coleman F. Carroll, appellee-petitioner. We reverse.
Reverend Carroll had applied to the City of Boynton Beach (City) for permission to build a seven story apartment complex for the elderly. In June 1971 Reverend Carroll submitted his preliminary plans of the apartment complex to the City for approval. The City concedes that the plans are basically conforming to city ordinances in effect at that time. However, a dispute arose between Reverend Carroll and the City over the proposed height of the building as the City had been preparing a new master plan and zoning map which contained a provision that no building shall be higher than 45 feet (approximately four stories). On November 11, 1971, the City published a notice of a public hearing to consider the adoption of a zoming ordinance amendment which would impose a building height limitation of 45 feet. On November 17 Reverend Carroll made an application for a building permit, which was denied by the building official because the City had passed a resolution prohibiting the building official from issuing a permit for any proposed buildings higher than 45 feet. (This was the only application for permission to construct a building higher than 45 feet.) On November 23 the ordinance was read for the first time, and it was subsequently adopted on December 7, 1971 at the second and final reading.
Reverend Carroll attempted to obtain a variance for his proposed project, and upon denial of his request, he filed on December 30, 1971, a petition for mandamus seeking to compel the issuance of the permit. The petition does not contain any allegations that the ordinance restricting the height of buildings was adopted in bad faith or arbitrarily, nor does it contain any allegations that the ordinance does not bear a substantial relation to the health, morals, welfare or safety of the public. After issuing an alternative writ and holding a hearing upon the City's answer, the trial court granted the peremptory writ and ordered the building permit issued. This appeal followed.
The City contends that the trial court erred in granting the peremptory writ of mandamus as the City was not under any clear legal duty, if any duty at all, to issue a building permit in violation of its amendment to its zoning ordinances. To determine whether or not a clear legal duty existed, two determinations must be made. First, what ordinance governs--the ordinance in effect at the time the application was filed, or the ordinance in effect at the time the final judgment granting the peremptory writ was rendered. Second, if the ordinance in effect at the time the peremptory writ was granted is determined to control and it differs from the ordinance in effect at the time the application was made, did the applicant acquire any vested right which would require the application of the ordinance in effect on the date of the application?
Turning first to the question of what ordinance governs, the general rule in suits of this nature is that the law in effect at the time of the final decision governs, notwithstanding the fact that there has been a change in the law since the time of application. This rule is especially applicable where, as in the case sub judice, the application for a permit was made after the publication of the required notice prior to amendment of the ordinance. Broach v. Young, 100 So.2d 411 (Fla.1958) (dissenting opinion); Davidson v. City of Coral Gables, 119 So.2d 704 (Fla.App....
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Coral Springs Street Systems v. City of Sunrise, No. 03-11497.
...regardless of later acts by the City, in the absence of a showing of bad faith or arbitrariness); City of Boynton Beach v. Carroll, 272 So.2d 171, 172-73 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1973) (when the plaintiff tried to rush through a building permit application before the City's new zoning ordinance too......
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Villas of Lake Jackson, Ltd. v. Leon County
...155 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994). 156 Kuge and Branca, thus, are similar. 157 See footnote 153, supra. 158 Similarly, City of Boynton Beach v. Carroll, 272 So.2d 171 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973), cert. denied, 279 So.2d 871 (Fla.1973), held that the zoning law in effect at the time of the final decision on th......
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Villas of Lake Jackson, Ltd. v. Leon County
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Henniger v. Pinellas County
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Most unlikely to succeed: substantive due process claims against local governments applying land use restrictions.
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