Central Florida Property Rights Case Before U.S. Supreme Court Today
 |
| St. John's River in Florida. Brevard Times / File. |
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for one hour regarding a Central Florida property rights case involving the St. John’s River Water Management District and an Orange County landowner.
Last year, attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation petitioned the
U.S. Supreme Court to hear the takings case of their client, Coy Koontz
Jr. as representative of his father’s estate. The property owner's attorneys contend that, before Coy Koontz Sr.
died, he was blocked from developing commercial property that he owned
in Orange County, because of confiscatory and unconstitutional demands
by the St. John’s River Water Management District.
For years, the late Coy Koontz, Sr., sought to develop some vacant,
commercially zoned land that he owned, immediately south of State Road
50 and east of State Road 408, in Orange County.
But the St. John’s River Water Management District refused to issue
any of the necessary permits, because Koontz would not agree to costly
and unjustified conditions that the District imposed as the price of
getting a permit. Specifically, the District demanded that Koontz
dedicate his money and labor to make improvements to 50 acres of District-owned property located miles away from the proposed project.
"The demand that Mr. Koontz spend his resources improving
government-owned property, miles away from his own land, bore no
connection to the development project that he proposed," said PLF
Principal Attorney Paul J. Beard II. "In other words, what we have here
is a classic case of an unconstitutional shakedown. The U.S. Supreme
Court has ruled that government violates property rights — it commits a
‘taking’ in violation of the Fifth Amendment — if it tries to use the
permitting process to extract conditions that aren’t related to the
impact of the proposed development."
Officially, most of the 3.7 acres that Mr. Koontz sought to develop
lay within a habitat protection zone, and was classified as wetlands
subject to District jurisdiction. But the property had actually been
seriously degraded, and made unfit for animal habitat, because of
development on adjacent land owned by others, including government land.
Nevertheless, Mr. Koontz offered to mitigate for the proposed
disturbance of wetlands by dedicating 11 acres of his own land in the
vicinity (nearly 80 percent of his property in the area) to the state
for conservation.
But the District was not satisfied with this offer. Instead, it
demanded that Mr. Koontz replace culverts and plug ditches on some of
the District’s own property located up to seven miles away. Cost
estimates for the off-site work ranged from $10,000 (the District’s
estimate) to between $90,000 and $150,000 (Koontz’s expert’s estimate).
"The District never demonstrated how the off-site improvement of 50
acres of wetlands on 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," said PLF’s Beard.
Mr. Koontz refused the District’s unreasonable demand. Because of his
refusal to comply, the District denied his permit applications
outright.
The Koontz family sued in state court, arguing that their Fifth
Amendment rights had been violated, and they won at the trial and
appellate levels. After the District issued the necessary permits
without the off-site mitigation condition, Mr. Koontz was awarded
damages for the period of time during which the District unlawfully
withheld permits.
However, the Florida Supreme Court then ruled for the District,
refusing to recognize that the District had imposed an unconstitutional
taking. Coy Koontz, Sr., died before he could see his property
developed, and his son took over his legal battle.
"We are now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case,
because the District unconstitutionally used the permit process for its
own gain, not as a means of reasonable regulation of property use," said
Beard.
The landowner's attorneys say that Nollan v. California Coastal Commission is the landmark 1987
U.S. Supreme Court ruling establishing that governments can’t impose
unrelated demands as the price of permits or other regulatory actions.
The Nollan case was brought to the Supreme Court by Pacific
Legal Foundation, and one of PLF’s ongoing missions is to force
regulators to abide by Nollan’s principles.
The case is U.S. Supreme Court No. 11–1447. Coy A. Koontz, Jr. v. St. Johns River Water Management District. Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Florida.
Donor-supported PLF is the leading legal watchdog organization that
litigates for limited government and property rights, in courts
nationwide. PLF’s Atlantic Center is headquartered in Stuart, Florida.
SIMILAR STORIES:
