Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled oral argument in Florida case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, to be held January 15, 2013. The case is being watched nationally for the guidance it may provide to both developers and regulatory agencies in the area of development permit conditions, also referred to as development exactions.
The case involves a long-running dispute between the Koontz family and the St. Johns River Water Management District (located in central Florida ) regarding development permit conditions demanded by the District as a condition of allowing Coy Koontz to develop his commercially zoned property. In addition to a substantial land dedication, the District also demanded that Mr. Koontz pay for improvements to District-owned land located miles away from the small-scale development he had proposed. When Mr. Koontz refused to pay for the demanded off-site improvements on top of the demanded land dedication, the District denied his development application altogether.
Mr. Koontz prevailed on a takings claim in the trial and intermediate appellate courts, both of which found that the District never demonstrated how the demanded off-site improvement of government lands was related in nature or extent to the alleged impact of Mr. Koontz’s proposed development on little more than three acres of his own property.
The Florida Supreme Court, however, reversed these lower courts, reasoning that Koontz’s application had been denied outright and therefore no exaction had ever materialized. The Florida Supreme Court also sided with some other state courts that have held that the Fifth Amendment requirement that development exactions be related to project impacts in both nature and degree do not also apply to exactions of money, contributing to a growing split of authority on this issue nationally.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Koontz may resolve this growing split of authority.
Property rights advocates around the country hope that the high court will restore reason and uniformity to this area of constitutional law by acknowledging that a permit denial based on a landowner’s refusal to accept excessive conditions is just as constitutionally offensive as an approval conditioned upon excessive exactions, and that reasonable constitutional limitations should apply to permitting exactions of money or performance conditions, just as they do to exactions of land.
Coy Koontz passed away during the long course of this litigation, and the case is being carried on by his heirs who will be represented by the highly regarded Pacific Legal Foundation at oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court next January.
The property owner’s case is in very capable hands. This author acknowledges she is a member of the Pacific Legal Foundation’s board of trustees and possibly biased, but Koontz is the eighth PLF case that has been accepted for review by the high court, and of its seven previous cases, PLF has won six – most recently Sackett v. EPA, decided earlier this year. (See Gunster’s March 22 alert: Historic Supreme Court ruling allows Idaho couple to take EPA to court.)
For more information on the Koontz case:
- Press release: Supreme Court accepts major PLF property rights case (Pacific Legal Foundation, 10/5/12)
- Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District (SCOTUSblog – Supreme Court of the United States blog)
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
