I have
been asked whether Palmetto Bay’s Ordinance 30-110: DIVISION 30-110. RELIGIOUS FACILITIES, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, CHILD CARE FACILITIES, AND OTHER NON-GOVERNMENTAL PUBLIC ASSEMBLY USES, enacted/last modified (Ord. No. 2012-23, § 4, 11-5-2012)
is discriminatory. CLICK HERE to read the minutes from the 11/5/12 Village Council meeting, when the
ordinance section on lighting was adopted by the 2012 village council. Then Councilman Tendrich asked if (the
section) concerning prohibiting lighting of recreational areas is more
restrictive. The answer from the Village Attorney was that it was more
restriction (page 10 of 14 of the minutes).
Palmetto
Bay has been through this before. See Palmer TrinityPrivate School, Inc., vs. Village of Palmetto Bay, Florida, et al., 3rd DCA Case No. 3D09-1587 (opinion filed March 24, 2010). This is written opinion from the Third
District appeal which came to be known as “Palmer I”
Please
feel free to read my February 5, 2012, post
entitled “An(unofficial) update on the Palmer Zoning litigation; Palmer I, II and III. The present standard of court review” for greater detail.
Palmer I
was the 2006 – 2008 zoning application proceedings which resulted in the first
Palmer zoning hearing which denied the application by Ordinance 08-06, on the
basis that the rezoning sought by Palmer was not consistent with the Village's
Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map," and that "Palmer Trinity
failed to adequately establish through its traffic studies that its site
specific application is compatible and within the proper level of service, and
failed to establish the proposition that the proposed use would not negatively
impact the community. . . ."
The Third
District Court of Appeal cites to a flagship decision on spot zoning: Richard Road Estates, LLC v. Miami-Dade County Bd. of County Comm’rs, 2 So. 3d 1117,
1118 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009) (county’s refusal to grant a change in zoning resulted
in impermissible reverse spot zoning). This decision was cited in Palmer I:
“Reverse
spot zoning occurs when a zoning ordinance prevents a property owner from
utilizing his or her property in a certain way, when virtually all of the adjoining
neighbors are not subject to such a restriction, creating in effect, a veritable
zoning island or zoning peninsula in a surrounding sea of contrary zoning classification.
Reverse spot zoning is invalid, as it is confiscatory.”
In short:
impermissible spot zoning occurs where Palmer Trinity is not afforded the same
beneficial use and restrictions that are enjoyed by the owners of the
surrounding properties. This includes how the government (Palmetto Bay - in
this instance) chooses to regulate itself - the rules for lighting and noise in government building and parks.
You cannot have two sets of rules.
There needs to be a single unified set of rules.
NOTE: this ordinance was NOT in place during the initial zoning hearing on the site plan (SEE Palmer II) - wherein part of the Palmer conditions did include elimination of the field lighting. My personal concern was its affect on other nearby activities such as the Southern Cross Stargazing that would go on, weather permitting, each Saturday evening at neighboring Sadowski Park.
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