St. Joe Paper Co. v. Adkinson
| Decision Date | 18 May 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. LL-134,LL-134 |
| Citation | 400 So.2d 983 |
| Parties | ST. JOE PAPER COMPANY, Appellant, v. Hubert R. ADKINSON, Property Appraiser of Walton County, Florida; Jack Little, Tax Collector of Walton County, Florida; Bob Anderson, Lawton Mathews, HughieInfinger, Milford Bass and Johnnie Moore, as members of the Board of TaxAdjustment ofWalton County, Florida; and J. Ed Straughn, Director, Department of Revenue,State of Florida, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Fred H. Kent, Jr., of Kent, Watts, Durden, Kent & Mickler, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Joseph C. Mellichamp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee Department of Revenue.
George R. Miller, DeFuniak Springs, for appellees Tax Collector and Property Appraisal Adjustment Board.
This is an appeal and cross-appeal from a final judgment which denied agricultural classification to certain properties owned by St. Joe Paper Company (St. Joe), appellant, and adjudicating the nonagricultural values placed on the land. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
The appeal arose out of three actions filed in the trial court by St. Joe against appellees. The complaints in the three suits are almost identical and involve basically the same lands. Each suit contests the St. Joe's first point on appeal questions the denial by appellee property appraiser of Walton County of agricultural classification to certain of its lands. St. Joe's Point II and appellees' cross-appeal relate to the nonagricultural values placed on the land.
classification, assessment and taxation of those lands the first suit for the year 1974, the second for the year 1975 and the third for the year 1976. The three suits were consolidated by the trial court, and a final judgment and amended final judgment were entered on the three consolidated cases.
St. Joe owns and operates a paper mill and two box plants in the State of Florida and numerous box plants outside the State of Florida. In order to supply the mill with pulpwood, St. Joe owns and utilizes large tracts of timberland in both Florida and Georgia, including Walton County, Florida. Its Walton County tract contains approximately 37,500 acres which lie between Choctawhatchee Bay and the Gulf of Mexico in south Walton County. Prior to the three suits contesting the 1974, 1975 and 1976 appraisals involved in this appeal, the property appraiser had reappraised all of the lands in Walton County in 1973. He carved from the edge of the St. Joe tract a strip along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico 210 feet deep and denied agricultural classification to that strip. St. Joe filed suit in the Circuit Court of Walton County both on its 1973 assessment and the denial of agricultural classifications. A final judgment was consented to by the parties and entered by the court in that case. The judgment applied to the assessment of St. Joe's lands for both 1973 and 1974 except for the Gulf frontage and two tracts described in that judgment. In 1974 and subsequently, the strip of Gulf frontage was broadened from 210 feet to 660 feet in depth, and in addition, the property appraiser denied agricultural classification to other portions of St. Joe's tract situated on small lakes near the Gulf. It is the denial of agricultural classification on the 660-foot deep strip of Gulf frontage and the property on the small lakes that is in controversy here.
Section 193.461, Florida Statutes (1977), provides that the property appraiser shall, on an annual basis, classify for assessment purposes all lands within the county as either agricultural or nonagricultural. Subsection (4)(a) provides in pertinent part as follows:
The property appraiser shall reclassify the following lands as nonagricultural:
1. Land diverted from an agricultural to a nonagricultural use;
2. Land no longer being utilized for agricultural purposes;
3. Land that has been zoned to a nonagricultural use at the request of the owner subsequent to the enactment of this law; or
4. Land for which the owner has recorded a subdivision plat subsequent to the enactment of this law.
Subsection (3)(b) sets out the factors to be considered in determining whether the use of the land for agricultural purposes is bona fide as follows:
1. The length of time the land has been so utilized;
2. Whether the use has been continuous;
3. The purchase price paid;
4. Size, as it relates to specific agricultural use;
5. Whether an indicated effort has been made to care sufficiently and adequately for the land in accordance with accepted commercial agricultural practices, including, without limitation, fertilizing, liming, tilling, mowing, reforesting, and other accepted agricultural practices;
6. Whether such land is under lease and, if so, the effective length, terms, and conditions of the lease; and
7. Such other factors as may from time to time become applicable.
The property appraiser gave three reasons for denying agricultural classification to the lands in question: (1) it is not economically feasible for agricultural use; (2) it is not being utilized for agricultural purposes; (3) it will act as a deterrent to the timely and orderly expansion of the area. The third of the foregoing reasons is The board of county commissioners may also reclassify lands classified as agricultural to nonagricultural when there is contiguous urban or metropolitan development and the board of county commissioners finds that the continued use of such lands for agricultural purposes will act as a deterrent to the timely and orderly expansion of the community.
not a legitimate consideration for the tax assessor in determining whether or not he will deny agricultural classification to lands or reclassify lands nonagricultural. This consideration may be made only by the board of county commissioners. Subsection (4)(b) of Section 193.461, Florida Statutes (1977), provides:
No similar language is contained in the statutory directions to the property appraiser in his classification or reclassification of lands as agricultural.
The parties agree that the 660-foot strip of Gulf frontage is composed of beach and sand dunes and that pine will not grow readily along this strip. St. Joe points out, however, that this strip is less than 1.5% of the area of the entire tract; that the record is clear that St. Joe is conducting a bona fide timber operation on its Walton County tract; that opening up the area along the beach to the public would have a negative effect upon their operation in that, as one expert witness testified, there would be increased traffic and more population in the area, all of which would result in increased exposure from fire, trespass, and a possibility of accidents that might occur because of interference with forest management operations; that also there would be an increased garbage problem. St. Joe argues that its Walton County tract is all one unit; that in any tract of forest land there will be a small percentage that is nonproductive; that such nonproductive land should not be...
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