River Cross Land Co. v. Seminole Cnty.
| Decision Date | 04 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No: 6:18-cv-1646-ACC-LRH |
| Parties | RIVER CROSS LAND COMPANY, LLC, Plaintiff, v. SEMINOLE COUNTY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida |
This cause comes before the Court on Seminole County's Motions for Summary Judgment (Doc. 35) and to Exclude the Opinions and Expert Testimony of Dr. Charles Cowan (Doc. 34), as well as Plaintiff River Cross Land Company, LLC's ("River Cross") Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 36). The parties have filed Responses (Docs. 41, 42, 43) and Replies (Docs. 45, 48) to the respective Motions. The Motions are ripe for review.
The timing, the litigants, and the type and location of development proposed in this case are very rarely present in a Fair Housing Act claim. River Cross, as a non-minority commercial developer, is not the traditional tenant or non-profit plaintiff committed to integrating the housing available in a historically segregated community. The vast majority of the development proposed by River Cross in this case is commercial and, if approved, would comprise some of the only large commercial and multi-family development built in the rural section of Seminole County, which is inhabited by a tiny sliver of the County's half a million residents.
The River Cross proposal to develop affordable housing in such a rural area is also highly unusual. The proposed site currently has no infrastructure: no roads, no bridge, no public transportation, no potable water or sewer utilities, and no expansion of such infrastructure is planned by the County. The land is surrounded by a significant river basin area, a wilderness preserve, rural agricultural lands, and more than forty percent of the proposed site consists of wetlands. Affordable housing tax credits are awarded to developers for units in areas with public transportation and employment opportunities for the low-income tenants.
River Cross decided to add the "affordable housing" provision to its application at the last minute, just two days before the County Commission meeting and after it became clear that County staff and the zoning commission would recommend denial of the River Cross application. During the County Commission meeting, although River Cross represented that it intended to develop what it characterized as one of "the best premier communities" in Seminole County, River Cross disingenuously used the threat of a lawsuit under the federal Fair Housing Act1as the fulcrum to urge County Commissioners to approve the entire River Cross proposal for 1.5 million square feet of commercial space and 1370 densely-grouped residential units.
Since 1991, in order to avoid "urban sprawl," Seminole County's urban-rural boundary line has restricted development of commercial projects like the River Cross proposal to the western two-thirds of the County where there is sufficient infrastructure and vacant land. Undeveloped land in the County to the east of the Econlockhatchee River Basin lacks the adequate infrastructure to support commercial and dense residential developments, and is comprised primarily of parks, conservation area, agricultural land, and timberland. Single-family residences on five- and ten-acre lots—completely dependent on well-water and septic tanks—constitute the other fifth of the rural area. At the time the County considered the River Cross proposal in 2018, a significant amount of land in the urban area was vacant and still available for development of commercial and multi-family projects, with the concomitant infrastructure already in place. Seminole County has more than 5,000 affordable housing units located in this urban area close to transportation and employment.
During the Board of County Commissioners meeting, County staff and urban-planning consultants explained that, without River Cross providing adequate and accurate plans for expanding infrastructure requirements for higher-density water and wastewater services, transportation, and protection of the natural resources abundant in the rural area, they recommended that the River Cross application be denied as incomplete. At the end of the four-hour meeting, the Chair of the County Commission summed things up: the boundary line has 2 The Board of County Commissioners followed the staff recommendation and denied the River Cross proposal. Shortly thereafter, River Cross sued the County under the Fair Housing Act.
River Cross asserts a single claim against Seminole County under the Fair Housing Act, alleging that the boundary line "perpetuates a segregative effect." Unsurprisingly, River Cross lacks standing to sue because it has not shown that the 75 units of "affordable" or income-based housing would serve minority residents.River Cross has also failed to produce any evidence that the County's denial of the proposal significantly perpetuates or reinforces segregation, which is also fatal to its claim. Moreover, even if River Cross had significant evidence that the boundary line caused a segregative effect, the County has shown it had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for denial of the River Cross proposal based on its desire to avoid "urban sprawl" under the governing Florida community planning statutes, and River Cross has failed to propose a less-discriminatory alternative.
For the reasons set forth in detail below, Seminole County's Motions to Exclude the Expert Opinions of Dr. Charles Cowan and for Summary Judgment will be granted and River Cross' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment will be denied.
In 2018, Plaintiff River Cross Land Company, LLC,3 a non-minority private developer, proposed a plan to convert approximately 670 acres of real property in the undeveloped, rural area of Seminole County, adjacent to the Econlockhatchee River4 Basin, into a large commercial and residential development which would becomprised of 1.5 million square feet of commercial space, 600 single-family residential lots, 270 townhome lots, and 500 multi-family apartment units.
Two days before the Board of County Commissioners voted5 on the application, counsel for River Cross sent County staff an email adding the condition that fifteen percent of the multi-family units would be "affordable housing units" if it received approval for funding from a state agency. At a public meeting on August 14, 2018, after hearing from River Cross and residents of Seminole County, the County Commissioners denied the River Cross proposal. Plaintiff subsequently filed suit under the Fair Housing Act on October 2, 2018.
Seminole County, spanning approximately 220,000 acres, is made up of densely-populated urban pockets in its western portion and less densely-populated rural areas in the eastern section; about one-third of the county is designated a "rural area." (Doc. 1 ¶ 5; Doc. 52-1 at 11). According to the Decennial Census, the population of Seminole County in 2000 was 365,196; in 2010, the population was 422,718 persons.6 In 2019, the population was estimated to be 471,826. (Doc. 52-1at 11). The percentage of the population living in the "rural areas" was less than 2% of Seminole County's total population. (Doc. 36-6 at 13).
The Econlockhatchee River (or "Econ River"), a 54-mile tributary of the St. Johns River, acts as the current rural boundary where the land in the County east of the River is predominately rural, and the western acreage is predominately urban and contains most of Seminole County's cities. (Doc. 1 ¶ 5). The property that River Cross planned to develop abuts the Econ River and preservation-managed lands to the west, and rural Orange County to the south at the Orange-Seminole County line (Doc. 35-5 at 7-8).
Although Seminole County is a charter county, it did not have the power to preempt annexation of land in the County until a charter amendment was passed in 2004. "The most significant feature of charter counties is the direct constitutional grant of broad powers of self-government, which include local citizens' power to enable their charter county to enact regulations of county-wide effect which preempt conflicting municipal ordinances." Seminole County v. City of Winter Springs, 935 So. 2d 521, 523 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006) (internal citation omitted) ( that the amendment constitutes a proper exercise of the County's home rule power under Article VIII of the Florida Constitution).
Although the County acted in 1991 to create an urban-rural boundary to protect rural and environmentally-sensitive lands from urban sprawl in the eastern part of the County—along the eastern edge of the City of Winter Springs—the County's charter did not provide for preemption of conflicting municipal land use regulations and was not effective in controlling the urbanization of its eastern rural lands. Id. at 524. Consequently, "the City could simply annex property protected from dense development under the County's Comprehensive Plan [and] [o]nce incorporated within the City's jurisdiction, the City could then incorporate the land into its own comprehensive plan and change the land use designation to allow for high-density development." Id. Thus, the County's urban-rural boundary was not effective at deterring urban sprawl "[b]ecause the County's charter provided that the municipal ordinance would control in the event of a conflict" such that the "City's newly amended comprehensive plan would then control over the rural designation in the County's [p]lan, and development would proceed." Id.
As the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal summarized...
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