Town of Longboat Key v. Lands End, Ltd., 82-1595
| Decision Date | 25 May 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-1595,82-1595 |
| Citation | 433 So.2d 574 |
| Parties | TOWN OF LONGBOAT KEY, Florida, Appellant, v. LANDS END, LTD., Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Scott R. Christiansen of Christiansen, Dehner & Dart, P.A., Sarasota, Nancy E. Stroud of Ross, Hardies, O'Keefe, Babcock & Parsons, Boca Raton, and Fred P. Bosselman and Edward F. Ryan of Ross, Hardies, O'Keefe, Babcock & Parsons, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
M. Joseph Lieb, Jr. and Jimmy Syprett of Syprett, Meshad, Resnick & Lieb, P.A., Sarasota, for appellee.
In January, 1981, appellant, the Town of Longboat Key, formally adopted Ordinance No. 80-9. The ordinance requires developers to deed land or pay a fee to appellant before receiving any permits "following approval of final development plans...." The ordinance, through use of a formula, determines how much land must be dedicated or how large the assessed fee will be. The stated purpose for this ordinance is to insure that, as future land development in Longboat Key proceeds, there will either be preserved therein land for parks and open spaces or that there will be sufficient fees assessed to permit acquisition of land for such purposes. The use of the fees collected is explained in section 6 of the ordinance as follows:
The fees collected hereunder ... shall be placed in a reserve account within the General Fund .... Monies within the Reserve account shall be used and expended solely for the acquisition, improvement, expansion of Town Parks, open space land and land for specified Town purposes and facilities required as capital improvements of the Town of Longboat Key.
Appellee, Lands End, Ltd., a developer, paid a fee under protest and pursuant to the ordinance and then filed this declaratory judgment action seeking a determination that Ordinance No. 80-9 was unconstitutional. The circuit court so found, stating that the ordinance in effect levied an invalid tax. The court reached this conclusion because the fees collected under the ordinance
are not restricted solely for the purpose of acquiring open space and park land. In theory, at least, the funds could be used for "other specified TOWN purposes" which could include the building of capital improvements and things totally unrelated to the Ordinances regarding acquisition of open space and parks. Without a specific restriction as to the use of funds, the Ordinances constitute invalid taxation.
The court also denied appellant's suggestion that it should apply Ordinance No. 81-27 instead of Ordinance No. 80-9, since 81-27 was adopted subsequent to the filing of the suit but prior to the final hearing in this matter. Appellant then filed this appeal, and we now affirm in part and reverse in part.
Very recently, one of our sister courts considered a question similar to the one presented here. In Hollywood, Inc. v. Broward County, 431 So.2d 606, (Fla. 4th DCA 1983), the court sustained an ordinance that required developers to dedicate land or pay a fee as a condition of plat approval. The court stated that such exactions for county level parks "are permissible so long as ... the exactions are shown to offset, but not exceed, reasonable needs sufficiently attributable to the new subdivision residents and ... the funds collected are adequately earmarked for the acquisition of capital assets that will sufficiently benefit those new residents." Hollywood, Inc., 431 So.2d at 614.
Applying that test to Ordinance No. 80-9, we find that there is a lack of clear and adequate restrictions on the use of the fees collected. In Hollywood, the ordinance made it clear that the fees collected could only be used to develop additional county level parks, the...
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Case List
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