Wager v. City of Green Cove Springs
| Decision Date | 26 April 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 40953,40953 |
| Citation | 261 So.2d 827 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Parties | Allen F. WAGER et al., Petitioners, v. CITY OF GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Florida, a municipal corporation, et al., Respondents. |
Berwick Anderson, of Anderson & Wilkes, Green Gove Springs, for petitioners.
Thomas J. Rivers, Green Gove Springs, Scruby & Yonge, Orange Park, for respondents.
This cause is before us on petition for writ of certiorari alleging conflict between the decision of the District Court of Appeal, First District, sought to be reviewed 1 and prior decisions of this Court and other District Courts of Appeal.
Petitioners, plaintiffs below, filed a complaint on March 31, 1970, against the City of Green Cove Springs and Clayton Revels and his wife, alleging that only a short time before the City had denied a petition to rezone a residential area where petitioners resided and such action had been affirmed by the Circuit Court and an appeal to the District Court dismissed. The complaint alleged, however, that the City had subsequently rezoned the same property in the absence of changed conditions, thus violating principles of res adjudicata. The Circuit Court dismissed petitioners' complaint for failure to allege special damages giving them standing and also dismissed the amended complaint. The District Court affirmed per curiam without opinion.
For many years the property owned by petitioners and the property owned by the respondents, Revels, was classified as R--1A which permits only single family residences. On January 16, 1968, the City Zoning Board, after a public-hearing, denied a petition filed by the Revels to change the classification of their property from R--1A to C--2 to permit a business use. The Revels filed a complaint in the Circuit Court seeking to declare the action of the City void and to require reclassification of the property. In that suit, the defendants were the City of Green Cove Springs and the present petitioners. On May 13, 1968, the Circuit Court upheld the validity of the City's action in refusing to rezone the property. An appeal to the District Court was taken but on February 16, 1970, was dismissed for failure to prosecute.
On March 3, 1970, the City Commission met in regular session to consider a second petition filed by Revels to rezone their property. Petitioners state that between the dates of January 16, 1968, when the first petition was considered and rejected and March 3, 1970, date of the second petition by the Revels, neither the character of the several properties owned by the petitioners herein and the respondents, the Revels, nor the character of the neighborhood had in any way changed. Nevertheless, the City Commission, acting as a Zoning Board, on March 3, 1970, granted Revels' petition and rezoned the property owned by Revels to the same classification sought on the January 16, 1968, petition.
In their complaint, petitioners alleged that the Revels intend to use their property for the storage and repair of a large number of motor vehicles in conjunction with their existing business of a retail automobile dealer carried on upon adjoining property. This commercial use will be carried on directly across the street from each of the petitioners' property and result in serious depreciation of the value of their property for residential purposes. 2
Petitioners cite for conflict Metropolitan Dade County Board of County Com'rs v. Rockmatt Corporation 3 wherein it was held that the doctrine of res adjudicata is applicable to rulings or decisions of administrative bodies and to rulings of such bodies dealing with zoning regulations unless it can be shown that since the earlier ruling there had been a substantial change in circumstances relating to the subject matter of the ruling sufficient to cause different or contrary determination. In the Rockmatt case the denial of the application made by a predecessor in interest of a nightclub operator for a special permit in the nature of a zoning variance to operate a nightclub in an area zoned for other uses, was held res adjudicata of...
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