Eide v. Sarasota County

• Decision Date: 08 March 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-3700,88-3700
• Parties: Elling O. EIDE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SARASOTA COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1326

895 F.2d 1326

Elling O. EIDE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SARASOTA COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Florida, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 88-3700.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

March 8, 1990.

Richard E. Nelson, Nelson, Hesse, Cyril, Smith, Widman & Herb, James D. Keeney, Sarasota, Fla., for defendant-appellant.

Donald E. Hemke, Carlton Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler, P.A., Tampa, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before ANDERSON and COX, Circuit Judges, and SHOOB ^*, District Judge.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

The issue in this case is whether a landowner's contentions that Sarasota County violated his equal protection and substantive due process rights are ripe for decision. ¹ We find that the plaintiff's claims are not ripe.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Florida's land use planning statutes provide for the adoption of comprehensive plans "to control and direct the use and development of property within a county or municipality." Machado v. Musgrove, 519 So.2d 629, 631-32 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987) (citations omitted), adopted en banc, 519 So.2d 629 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 529 So.2d 693, 694 (Fla.1988). Once a comprehensive plan for an area is adopted, all development approved by a governmental agency must be consistent with the plan. Fla.Stat. Sec. 163.3194 (Supp.1989).

On June 30, 1981, Sarasota County (the "County") adopted a statutorily mandated comprehensive plan ("Apoxsee") to map out the future development of land in the County. This comprehensive plan identified various areas as "village activity centers," "community centers," and "town centers." Village activity centers are permitted to have approximately 75 acres of commercially zoned land while community centers may have 125 acres in commercial use. ² Town centers are permitted to have variable commercial acreage with no upper limit on the amount of commercially zoned land. Centers where less than 50% of the acreage is commercial are authorized to adopt sector plans "to determine future commercial land-use allocations to support future population growth in the area." R9-110. In order for property included in a sector plan to be rezoned, the proposed rezoning and development plans have to be consistent with both Apoxsee and the sector plan. Adoption of a sector plan does not change the zoning of any of the properties involved.

Elling Eide, the appellee, owns two parcels of land--one of approximately fourteen acres (the "14-acre parcel") and the other of approximately nineteen acres (the "19-acre parcel")--which are situated west of U.S. 41 about five miles south of the city limits of the City of Sarasota in Sarasota County. Eide also owns a parcel east of U.S. 41 which he leases to developers who have transformed it into a Kmart shopping center. Apoxsee designates this area as a village activity center around a regional center (the Sarasota Square Mall). Prior to the development of a sector plan for this area, the 19-acre parcel was zoned RSF-2 (residential, single family, 3.5 units/acre), and the 14-acre parcel was zoned RMF-2 (residential, multi-family, 9 units/acre).

In 1984 another property owner in the area requested permission from Sarasota County to prepare a proposed sector plan. Eide discovered that the sector plan included his 14-acre parcel but not his 19-acre parcel. After a County official informed Eide that inclusion in the sector plan was the only way that his properties would be considered for commercial zoning in the future, he asked that the sector plan boundary be amended to include his larger property as well. The County amended the sector plan boundary as per his request.

In 1986, because Eide wanted to take advantage of the favorable capital gains tax law, he complained that the landowners who were preparing the sector plan were taking too long; at his request, the County's professional planning staff undertook the completion of the plan. The completed sector plan identified three possible alternatives for future zoning; two of these alternatives recommended some of Eide's property for commercial development, while the third would have zoned all of Eide's property residential (with the exception of the Kmart parcel). The sector plan's final recommendation adopted a hybrid of two of the alternatives; however, it recommended that Eide's parcels continue to be zoned residential. The sector plan also indicated that an amendment to Apoxsee designating the area as a community or town center would be appropriate in the future; however, the plan suggests that future commercial development should be located east of U.S. 41, and Eide's parcels are located to the west of 41. Sector Plan 84-2, pp. 47-48, 64, 93. On September 16, 1986, the County adopted the sector plan.

Before the completion of the sector plan, Eide filed a petition for the rezoning of his 14-acre parcel. However, a traffic study was required to accompany all rezoning petitions. The County's planning staff returned the petition to Eide for a required traffic impact analysis; Eide then voluntarily withdrew his petition. Eide never requested that the 19-acre parcel be considered for rezoning.

Challenging that the sector plan was unconstitutional as applied to his property, ³ Eide then filed a suit for damages and declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Sarasota County raised several defenses to Eide's claims, including a challenge to Eide's assertion that the County had made a final decision concerning his land parcels. The district court rejected this ripeness defense. After a jury trial, Eide was awarded $850,000. In addition, the court ordered the County to grant Eide commercial zoning.

We disagree with the district court's determination that the case was ripe for adjudication. Therefore, we reverse the district court's judgment and order that the Section 1983 claims be dismissed as not ripe. See Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985).

II. ANALYSIS

The question of ripeness affects our subject matter jurisdiction in this action. See Greenbriar, Ltd. v. City of Alabaster, 881 F.2d 1570, 1573 n. 7 (11th Cir.1989); St. Clair v. City of Chico, 880 F.2d 199, 201 (9th Cir.1989); Unity Ventures v. Lake County, 841 F.2d 770, 774 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 226, 102 L.Ed.2d 216 (1988); Duke City Lumber Co. v. Butz, 539 F.2d 220, 221 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1976) (per curiam), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1039, 97 S.Ct. 737, 50 L.Ed.2d 751 (1977). The purpose of the ripeness doctrine is to avoid premature judicial review of local decisions, particularly in an area such as zoning where the courts must be careful not to usurp local authority. In Williamson County, the Supreme Court held that a Section 1983 claim involving a regulatory taking of property in violation of substantive due process is not ripe for review until the plaintiff shows that the local authority has reached a final decision regarding the application of the regulation to the plaintiff's property. ⁴ 473 U.S. at 199-200, 105 S.Ct. at 3123. The reason for this requirement is found in the test for a successful substantive due process claim. In order to establish a substantive due process claim, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the "regulation [ ] goes so far that it has the same effect as a taking by eminent domain." Williamson County, 105 S.Ct. at 3122. "A court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone 'too far' unless it knows how far the regulation goes." MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U.S. 340, 348 n. 8, 106 S.Ct. 2561, 2566 n. 8, 91 L.Ed.2d 285, reh'g denied, 478 U.S. 1035, 107 S.Ct. 22, 92 L.Ed.2d 773 (1986). The Supreme Court has interpreted its line of cases: "[o]ur cases uniformly reflect an insistence on knowing the nature and extent of permitted development before adjudicating the constitutionality of the regulations that purport to limit it." 477 U.S. at 351, 106 S.Ct. at 2567.

Several reasons persuade us that Eide's claim is not ripe. First, Eide has neither submitted a development plan to the County nor presented the County with a petition for rezoning, and, therefore, the County has not had the opportunity to consider the arguments for commercial zoning of Eide's land concretely and independently. Second, the County has not made a determination of the extent of development that would be permitted on Eide's land; thus, we cannot determine if a taking has occurred. In addition, commercial zoning of Eide's parcels may be consistent with the sector plan. Finally, Eide may petition for an amendment to the comprehensive plan to upgrade the area to either a community or town center. This option would enable the County to grant Eide commercial zoning with the additional acreage available.

Eide has not submitted even a single plan for the commercial development of his properties. He has not submitted a petition to rezone his properties from their present residential zoning to either higher density zoning or commercial zoning. As a general rule, the challenging of the application of a zoning plan or ordinance to a particular property is not ripe until the landowner has submitted a plan for development of his or her property. Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 2141, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980).

Eide argues that his reasons for wanting his land rezoned commercial were presented to the Planning Commission and to the County during the proceedings which culminated in the adoption of the sector plan. He argues that his reasons were fully considered and rejected by the appropriate decision-making bodies, and thus the decision is final and the instant action is ripe. We reject Eide's argument. We are not satisfied that the consideration of his arguments as merely a few of...