Briefs Filed in Ponce Inlet Land Development Case
Case History
The links below are the initial brief and the brief filed by the Florida League of Cities and the American Planning Association in support of the Town of Ponce Inlet’s position in the case. Note that it is highly unusual for entities like these to file a brief “in support” of either side of a pending case. Typically, amicus briefs are not filed to favor one side or the other but to point out to the court the potential unforeseen consequences of ruling in a particular way and to ask that those consequences be taken into account. Here, both the League and the APA took the extra step of actually filing their brief in support of the Town. It is important for anyone following the case to be aware of some important facts in the case:
1) All of the restrictions that prohibited the Plaintiffs’ project were in place when they bought the property. These included express prohibitions in the comp plan, the Land Use Development Code and the zoning for the property.
2) No uses have ever been taken away from the properties owned by Plaintiffs during their ownership and in fact eleven additional uses have been added during that time period.
3) The case involves the Plaintiffs’ ultimately unsuccessful efforts to get the Town to change its comp plan and codes to accommodate what they wanted to build on the property. The Town decided, after public input, not to change the code or comp plan. As a result of the Town’s decision not to change its comp plan or code, the Plaintiffs’ plan was never legally permissible.