The Captiva Civic Association (CCA) has appealed two decisions of Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal. One reversed the Circuit Court order that enforced the 2003 Settlement Agreement limiting South Seas to 912 dwelling units. A second affirmed without a written opinion the decision of the DOAH administrative law judge upholding the County’s Land Development Code amendments that permitted South Seas to seek increased densities and building heights.
The first appeal seeks a rehearing before the Panel of three judges or a rehearing before the whole Court of twelve judges, and for certification to the Florida Supreme Court because the Panel’s decision allowed the County to renege on its 2003 Settlement Agreement with CCA by misapplying the concept of “contract zoning.” CCA argues that the Panel’s incorrect interpretation of “contract zoning” at the expense of CCA’s contract rights conflicts with other District Court interpretations of “contract zoning” and is an issue of broad public importance worthy of Supreme Court review. CCA’s Motion is attached here.
The second appeal requests the Sixth District Court of Appeal to issue a written opinion, to grant a rehearing and to certify the case to the Supreme Court. CCA argues that the three-judge Panel of the District Court of Appeal wrongly upheld a DOAH ruling that a determination of the amount of development a Land Development Code amendment could allow is not relevant to a proceeding determining the amendment’s consistency with the density limits of the County’s Comprehensive Plan. CCA’s Motion is attached here.
In both of these cases, the same three-judge Panel of the Sixth District Court of Appeal deferred to Lee County’s efforts to increase density on South Seas notwithstanding the contract between CCA and the County limiting density to 912 units, and the terms of the County’s Comprehensive Plan requiring the County to “maintain the historic low-density residential development pattern of Captiva, to “continue . . . existing land use patterns” and to “limit development to that which is in keeping with the historic development pattern on Captiva.”