Panama City Beach Community Redevelopment Agency v. State, SC02-145.

• Decision Date: 17 October 2002
• Docket Number: No. SC02-145.,SC02-145.
• Citation: 831 So.2d 662
• Parties: PANAMA CITY BEACH COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, et al., Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

831 So.2d 662

PANAMA CITY BEACH COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, et al., Appellee.

No. SC02-145.

Supreme Court of Florida.

October 17, 2002.

Randall W. Hanna, Mark G. Lawson, Michael S. Davis, and Kenneth A. Guckenberger of Bryant, Miller and Olive, P.A., Tallahassee, FL, for Appellant.

William A. Lewis, Assistant State Attorney, Panama City, FL, for Appellee.

Jeffrey P. Whitton, Panama City, FL, for William Hendrick, Appellee/Intervenor.

LEWIS, J.

The Panama City Beach Community Redevelopment Agency entered this appeal seeking review of a circuit court judgment denying validation of a proposed bond issue. We have jurisdiction under article V, section 3(b)(2) of the Florida Constitution.

Facts and Procedural History

In 1998, the City of Panama City Beach ("City") approached the St. Joe Company ("St.Joe") regarding possible plans to embark upon an aggressive redevelopment of the City's parks and recreation facilities located near the center point of the City's major beachfront roadway, Front Beach Road.¹ St. Joe owned the real property which adjoined and separated portions of the City's parcels. In essence, the City sought to consolidate a large land area under its ownership to join and redevelop its land holdings in the area—the land commonly referred to as its fairgrounds facility (Aaron Bessant Park), and athletic fields (Frank Brown Park).

As part of an ongoing redevelopment effort, the City formally entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with St. Joe Company on March 10, 2000,² and moved to acquire a parcel of property adjacent to the fairgrounds owned by a third party. On November 30, 2000, the Panama City Beach City Council convened to discuss and determine its goals with regard to the proposed redevelopment. At this meeting, the City's assistant city manager, with the assistance of an attorney the City retained as special counsel for the redevelopment effort, summarized the problems and goals associated with the portion of the City that would become the Community Redevelopment Area. Following a fairly extended discussion of the City's redevelopment plans, the council adopted Resolution 00-23, in which it created the Community Redevelopment Agency ("CRA"), and legislatively determined that the redevelopment area was "blighted" within the definition of section 163.340(8), Florida Statutes (2000).

Subsequently, the CRA produced a Community Redevelopment Plan, which was adopted by the city council and CRA³ in Resolution 01-09, as amended by Resolution 01-43. In January 2001, the City advertised for the disposition of certain land interests within the redevelopment area held by the City, and for proposals for the development of the area. St. Joe was the only respondent, and its plan to develop the land was approved. In March 2001, the City held public hearings and established a redevelopment trust fund for the redevelopment area through enactment of Ordinance Number 717.

In September 2001, the City, the Pier Park Community Development District, and the CRA entered into an interlocal agreement, denominated the Public Improvement Partnership Agreement, for the purpose of developing the redevelopment area in conformity with the redevelopment plan. Among the provisions of the agreement were sections calling for the issuance of revenue bonds by the district. Pursuant to chapter 190, Florida Statutes (2000), the City, the district, and the CRA sought validation of the partnership agreement, a decision on the legality of each plaintiff entering into the agreement, and the issuance of the bonds in the Circuit Court of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit in Bay County.

Following the State Attorney's answer and agreement with the plaintiffs in a joint stipulation,⁴ the trial court scheduled an initial hearing and a subsequent evidentiary hearing regarding the City's findings of blight within the redevelopment area. Following the second hearing, the court issued its final judgment, in which it validated the entirety of the interlocal agreement but declared invalid the revenue bonds that the district planned to issue. In its order, the trial court reasoned:

The Re-development Act was intended to provide for the rehabilitation of previously built-upon properties that have outlived their usefulness and are so economically impaired that no-one is interested in rehabilitating them; the cost of leveling the property and of putting in new infrastructure and buildings would be too much, particularly in urban areas of decay.

. . . .

The law should not be at war with common sense. The Court has tried mightily to reconcile the stated purpose of the Redevelopment Act with the facts before it. But when the Court places the evidence alongside the Act—and reads all of it—it is plain that the District does not qualify for re-development. It has never been developed! By and large it is vacant land begging to be built on.

The Plaintiffs' desire to extract a few words from the Act and apply them to the District, irrespective of the obvious purpose of the Act, leads to an absurdity. The Redevelopment Act does not apply. The request for validation must be and is denied.

Pier Park Cmty. Dev. Dist. v. State, No. 03-2001-CA-3463-J (Fla. 14th Cir.Ct. Dec. 7, 2001). This timely appeal followed.

Analysis

The issue before us today is the appellant's contention that the trial court improperly substituted its judgment for that of the city council with regard to the propriety of developing the redevelopment area. The CRA asserts that in declaring the City's determination of blight to be unfounded and without justification, the trial court ignored well-settled Florida law which holds that legislative findings by local governments may be overturned only when they are determined to be clearly erroneous. In effect, the appellant argues, the trial court fixated upon the fact that portions of the redevelopment area are undeveloped—a consideration entirely beyond the scope of the trial court's review in this bond validation proceeding-due to an erroneous interpretation of the applicable statutes. Therefore, it is asserted that the trial court erred by independently examining the merits of the City's redevelopment plan.

It is clear that this Court's review of the trial court's conclusions of law is de novo. See JFR Investment v. Delray Beach Cmty. Redevelopment Agency, 652 So.2d 1261, 1262 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995)

. Indeed, a concrete example of such de novo review is this Court's recent decision in Boschen v. City of Clearwater, 777 So.2d 958 (Fla.2001). While the factual setting we analyzed in Boschen differs from the instant case because "[a] final judgment validating bonds comes to this Court with a presumption of correctness," id. at 962, the comprehensive inquiry performed by this Court in Boschen reveals that we thoroughly examined all of the legal conclusions rendered by the trial court. For example, this Court both "determine[d] whether the evidence presented at the validation hearing supported the trial court's validation of the bonds," and examined whether sufficient evidence existed in the record to "demonstrate[] that the overall project promotes public health and safety." Id. at 966, 968.

In stark contrast to this Court's standard of review in validation proceedings, the decisions of this Court also clearly mandate that trial courts must maintain a very deferential standard of review when testing the validity of statutorily authorized revenue bonds. In Boschen, this Court stated:

Generally, "legislative declarations of public purpose are presumed valid and should be considered correct unless patently erroneous." Moreover, the wisdom or desirability of a bond issue is not a matter for our consideration. Indeed, we have recognized that so long as the Legislature does not exceed its constitutional authority, our review of legislative declarations is limited.

777 So.2d at 966 (citations omitted). Additionally, "questions concerning the financial and economic feasibility of a proposed plan are to be resolved at the executive or administrative level and are beyond the scope of judicial review in a validation proceeding." State v. City of Daytona Beach, 431 So.2d 981, 983 (Fla.1983). Thus, only where the legislative determinations and conclusions are clearly erroneous should a court refuse to validate the bond issue.

In its Final Judgment and Supplemental Final Judgment, the trial court made clear that it fully validated the creation and powers of the Community Redevelopment Agency and approved the interlocal agreement and redevelopment plans. The court only disapproved the issuance of bonds based upon its analysis and conclusions regarding the impropriety of the City's findings of "blight" within the redevelopment area. For this reason, this Court's standard full inquiry into whether (1) the public body has the authority to issue bonds, (2) the purpose of the obligation is legal, and (3) the bond issuance complies with the requirements of the law, see State v. Osceola County, 752 So.2d 530, 533 (Fla. 1999)

; Poe v. Hillsborough County, 695 So.2d 672, 675 (Fla.1997), is not necessary. Because the trial court narrowly defined its reason for refusing to validate the bond issuance, we need only examine the first condition.

Codified in chapter 163 of the Florida Statutes, the Community Redevelopment Act of 1969 details the various measures which must be taken by localities desiring to create redevelopment agencies, declare redevelopment areas, and issue revenue bonds to finance projects within these areas. Germane to the instant case is section 163.385(1)(a), which states:

When authorized or approved by resolution or ordinance of the governing body, a county, municipality, or community redevelopment agency has the power in its corporate capacity, in its discretion, to issue redevelopment revenue bonds from time to time to finance the undertaking of any community redevelopment under this part....

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