Londono v. City of Alachua, AP-433

• Decision Date: 07 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. AP-433,AP-433
• Parties: Javier LONDONO, Charles A. Williams, John M. Hoce, and Alan Espinosa, Appellants, v. CITY OF ALACHUA, Florida, Turkey Creek, Inc., and Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 91

438 So.2d 91

Javier LONDONO, Charles A. Williams, John M. Hoce, and Alan Espinosa, Appellants, v. CITY OF ALACHUA, Florida, Turkey Creek, Inc., and Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission, Appellees.

No. AP-433.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

Sept. 7, 1983.

George H. Nickerson, Jr., Gainesville, for appellants.

Lansing J. Roy, Keystone Heights, Robert M. Rhodes, Tallahassee, and A. Bice Hope, Alachua, for appellee Turkey Creek, Inc.

Jolen Rawls and Linda Loomis Shelley, Asst. Attys. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee Commission.

ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., Judge.

Appellants are the individual owners of lots they previously purchased in a residential development called Turkey Creek, in the city of Alachua, Florida. In 1981 the developer, appellee Turkey Creek, Inc., proposed the further development of several hundred more acres, contiguous to appellants' lands, and submitted its plans for chapter 380 review and approval as a development of regional impact. Though the developer of course proposes no development for appellants' lands, as such, by agreement with the state land planning agency the developer included appellants' lands within the DRI so that the regional impact of developing all Turkey Creek lands, whether still owned by the developer or not, could be reviewed in connection with approving or not the developer's substantial new development plans.

The issue here is whether appellants, owners of the lands within the designated DRI but not proposed for new development, have chapter 380 standing to appeal to the Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission from Alachua's development order, adopted by city commission ordinance, conditionally approving the DRI and rezoning to "planned urban development" and "commercial" the owner-developer's lands not previously so zoned. The Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission dismissed appellants' appeal for their lack of standing to complain of the city's development order. From the Commission's order of dismissal appellants now appeal to this court. Sec. 380.085, Fla.Stat. (1981).

A party's standing to appeal from local government's development order to the Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission is determined by section 380.07(2), Florida Statutes (1981). That statute provides in pertinent part that "the owner, the developer, an appropriate regional planning agency ... or the state land planning agency may appeal the order of the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission ...."

Caloosa Property Owners Association, Inc. v. Palm Beach Board of County Commissioners, 429 So.2d 1260, 1263 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983), affirmed the Commission's dismissal of a section 380.07 appeal by an association of persons owning property adjoining a DRI, who complained of Palm Beach County's DRI approval. After reviewing the statutory terms at some length, the court held that section 380.07(2) permits appeals to the Commission only by "the owner of the property on which the DRI is to be located," or by the developer if that is someone else, or by the regional planning council whose public hearing, report and recommendation typically precedes, and in the present case preceded, the public hearing and action by local government. The concerns of the Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission (the Governor and Cabinet), the court found, are the regional concerns addressed by chapter 380 as debated primarily by "two groups--developers on one hand, and on the other, government planners and permitting authorities." 429 So.2d at 1264.

Caloosa held that property owners other than "the owner of the property on which the DRI is to be located" are restricted to initiating in circuit court, by various means discussed in the opinion, their complaints concerning zoning of other properties, adversely affecting their own, the burdensome use of other properties amounting to a taking of their own, and other wrongs cognizable in circuit court as portrayed in Renard v. Dade County, 261 So.2d 832 (Fla.1972).

The distinction between this case and Caloosa is that appellants Londono, Williams, Hoce and Espinosa indisputably own property within the designated development of regional impact, which in all comprises nearly 1,000 acres. Though appellants' properties were already developed as part of Turkey Creek before the expansion that transformed the development into one of regional impact, appellants' lands are included in the DRI designation, though not proposed for development, so that the regional impact of the total development, past, present and future, may properly be assessed and managed without detriment to regional interests. See Fla.Admin.Code Rule 27F-2.10(2)(a).

We believe the Commission...