Lake Rosa v. Board of County Com'Rs, 5D04-2559.

• Decision Date: 23 September 2005
• Docket Number: No. 5D04-2559.,5D04-2559.
• Citation: 911 So.2d 206
• Parties: LAKE ROSA and Lake Swan Coalition, Inc., et al., Appellants/Cross-Appellees, v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, etc., et al., Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

911 So.2d 206

LAKE ROSA and Lake Swan Coalition, Inc., et al., Appellants/Cross-Appellees, v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, etc., et al., Appellees/Cross-Appellants.

No. 5D04-2559.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

September 23, 2005.

C. Allen Watts of Cobb & Cole, DeLand, for Appellants/Cross-Appellees.

Russell D. Castleberry, Palatka, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant Board of Commissioners of Putnam County, Florida.

William L. Townsend, Jr. of Walton & Townsend, P.A., Palatka, for Appellee/ Cross-Appellant Southeastern District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

SAWAYA, J.

Lake Rosa and Lake Swan Coalition, Inc. and intervening plaintiff John King (collectively the Coalition) appeal the final order rendered in their suit for injunctive and declaratory relief under section 163.3215, Florida Statutes, challenging the issuance of a building permit as being inconsistent with the Putnam County Comprehensive Plan (the Comprehensive Plan). The defendants in the underlying action are the Board of County Commissioners of Putnam County (County) and an intervening defendant, the Southeast District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (Alliance). The general issue we must resolve is whether the trial court properly applied the Agricultural II classification under the Comprehensive Plan when determining whether the building permit applied for by the Alliance should have been issued. Stating this issue is much easier than resolving it, given the many complicating factors that we must consider in our search for the correct legal answer. Our search begins with the facts.

The Alliance owns property known as Lake Swan Camp, and it is here that the dispute between the parties began. The camp is a recreational facility situated between Lake Rosa and Lake Swan, which is a location it has enjoyed since the 1920's. The purpose of the camp facilities, as stated in its mission statement, is "to enrich the Church of Jesus Christ by providing Christ-centered programming and quality facilities for all age groups." The facilities consist of a motel, lodge, chapel, conference center, dining hall, kitchen, dormitories, cottages, and other recreational amenities that allow for sporting events. The camp property includes approximately fifteen percent of the shoreline of Lake Rosa, which is a rather small lake of approximately eighty acres. Nestled along the shores of Lake Rosa are some thirty-eight homes whose inhabitants witness the almost daily and nonstop use of the lake by camp residents operating power boats and jet skis.

To further its mission and increase its revenues from the rental of these facilities to the public, the Alliance decided to expand its camp facilities. According to its master plan, it intended to construct numerous dormitory facilities, a human foosball court, gymnasium/auditorium, health club with swimming pool, a new administration building, tennis courts, RV parking facilities, convention center, and a sewage treatment plant. Phase one of this plan, which called for construction of a dormitory facility housing eighty youth campers, spawned the underlying litigation. Fearing increased use of an already overburdened lake by an even greater camp populace, homeowners whose property borders on Lake Rosa formed the Coalition to resist and prevent the planned expansion.

Just as the Alliance's master plan was to be implemented in phases, so too was the opposition to that plan by the Coalition. We note parenthetically that as the opposition efforts progressed, certain dates became significant and are presented by the parties to support their opposing positions, and so we will dwell on them.

Phase one began in September 2000, when the Coalition sought to prevent issuance of the building permit on the grounds that the new construction would violate certain zoning ordinances. As the zoning contest wound its way to an unsuccessful conclusion—for the Coalition that is—phase two began on May 6, 2002, when the Coalition took the initial steps to file suit under section 163.3215, Florida Statutes (2001), by filing a verified complaint with the County. The County responded on May 28 that it would not grant the relief requested in the complaint. Compliance with these conditions precedent set the stage for the Coalition, on June 5, 2002, to file the section 163.3215 complaint in the circuit court seeking a determination that the building permit was inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan and thus invalid; a permanent injunction preventing the County from acting upon the permit or implementing it; and an injunction requiring the County to rescind the permit.

Now we must digress just a bit to note that in November 2001, the Alliance applied for its building permit, and its building plans were approved on December 3, 2001, contingent upon issuance of a septic permit. The septic permit was obtained, and the building permit was actually issued on April 12, 2002. The significance of these dates becomes apparent when we consider that at the time application for the building permit was made by the Alliance on November 19, 2001, the camp property was within an area designated for "Agricultural II" land use on the Comprehensive Plan's Future Land Use Map. On December 11, 2001, the Board adopted an ordinance that amended the Future Land Use Map by changing the land use designation of a large segment of land, including the camp property, to the classification of "Rural Residential." The import of this change is dramatic because camps were a permitted land use under the Agricultural II designation, but are not a permitted land use under the Rural Residential designation.

Acceding to the argument advanced by the Alliance, the trial court ruled that the operative event is application for the permit as opposed to issuance of the permit and, therefore, the Agricultural II designation controls because that was the land use designation at the time application was made on November 1, 2001. Significantly, however, the trial court noted that "[u]nder the current designation of rural residential, the Court accepts that no further construction of dormitories would be permitted without running afoul of Section 163.3215." Advocating for the notation rather than the ruling, the Coalition contends that issuance of the permit, which was well after the change in the land use designation, controls because it is government action that triggers application of the provisions of section 163.3215. Hence, the general issue, previously stated, that we must resolve is whether the trial court properly applied the Agricultural II classification under the Comprehensive Plan when determining whether the building permit applied for by the Alliance should have been issued. The answer lies in various statutory provisions, which we next examine.

We look first to section 163.3215, which governs when an action for injunctive or other relief may be taken against a local government to...