Opinion
No. WW-13.
February 23, 1981.
Petition for review from the Circuit Court, Duval County, Marion W. Gooding, J.
Dawson A. McQuaig, General Counsel, William Lee Allen, and David C. Carter, Jacksonville, for appellant.
William L. Coalson, of Greene Greene, P.A., Jacksonville, for appellee.
The City of Jacksonville seeks review of an order enjoining the City from enforcing the existing zoning classification as to appellee's property. We find record support for the conclusion of the trial judge that the existing zoning classification effectively deprives appellee of all reasonable use of the property, and we affirm the order appealed.
Appellee's property is a narrow lot in an area, one mile in length, zoned OR (open-rural); the lands on either end of this one-mile strip are zoned so as to permit commercial development, and have been extensively so developed. Because of the narrowness of appellee's property the city building code would prohibit residential construction had the property not been a "lot of record" prior to the code's enactment. While such construction was thus permitted, the record contains evidence of current unmarketability of a residence built on the property which supports the finding that the restriction as a practical matter deprives appellee of reasonable use of the property. In addition to the narrowness of the lot, the record supports a conclusion that all reasonable use, including marketability, for such residence was destroyed by the surrounding commercial intrusion and the traffic problems created by the fronting street's use as a connector road between commercial developments.
A zoning authority's determinations are of course entitled to great deference, precluding judicial intervention so long as the prescribed restriction is reasonably debatable. Broward County v. Capaletti Brothers Inc., 375 So.2d 313 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979); Alachua County v. Reddick, 368 So.2d 653 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979). Upon appeal, however, the determination of a trial court that a zoning classification precludes any reasonable use of property and has no reasonably debatable relationship to public safety, health or welfare, should be sustained when the record supports that determination. Davis v. Sails, 318 So.2d 214 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975). We conclude that the trial judge correctly applied the law in enjoining the City from enforcing against appellee's property any zoning classification more restrictive than CPO (commercial-professional-office), which the evidence indicates is the next most restrictive classification.
The order appealed is affirmed.
MILLS, C.J., concurs.
ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., J., dissents with opinion.
I fear the trial court's judgment is rather too much influenced by professional opinions that the highest and best financial use of this property is a commercial or professional office building — is it not always so? — and that "it is just a matter of time" before Baymeadows Road, on which the property fronts, will be widened, followed by more traffic and inevitably by commercial development. The land in question can legally and practicably be developed for residential purposes in one of several classifications which are less intensive than commercial-professional use. Moreover, the property is located in a one-mile-long segment of Baymeadows Road which is insulated by a creek at one end and a major intersection at the other, and in which there is no commercial development whatsoever. In the neighborhood the predominant use — virtually the exclusive developed use, except for a wholesale nursery and a residence where a man sharpens saws for a living — is residential.
The trial court's judgment requiring rezoning of this property will of course usher in similarly intensive uses all up and down this previously protected segment of Baymeadows Road, to the doubtful comfort of existing residents. The character of the neighborhood is to be judicially changed now on the ground that adjacent neighborhoods have changed, and this one, too, will inevitably change.
Considering that rezoning was denied by the city's zoning board, by the urban affairs committee of the city council, and by that legislative body itself, I think rezoning at this time, and the resulting conversion of the area into commercial development, is a fairly debatable proposition, and that circuit court intervention is at least premature and probably wrong in principle. I would therefore sustain the city council's judgment in the matter and reverse that of the circuit court. Alachua County v. Reddick, 368 So.2d 653 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979).