May 14, 2019
The Honorable Ron
DeSantis
Plaza Level, The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Plaza Level, The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
RE: House Bill 7103
Dear Governor DeSantis:
Sierra Club Florida urges you to veto HB
7103, titled “Community Development and Housing.”
HB 7103 threatens
Florida with a proliferation of sprawl by effectively eliminating the only means
of enforcing comprehensive plans, and is unnecessary in light of statutory
sanctions for improper or baseless legal actions.
Specifically the
bill would:
1) Threaten Florida with a proliferation of sprawl by
making challenges to development orders a potential financial catastrophe for
the citizens the law relies on for enforcement.
HB 7103 requires the court to award costs
and fees to the prevailing party. Since
the parties in such a proceeding are necessarily a local government and an
“aggrieved or adversely affected party,” there is a clear imbalance in the resources available to each. As noted in the legislative findings in
57.111(2) F.S.:
The
Legislature finds that certain persons may be deterred from seeking review of,
or defending against, unreasonable governmental action because of the expense
of civil actions and administrative proceedings. Because of the greater
resources of the state, the standard for an award of attorney’s fees and costs
against the state should be different from the standard for an award against a
private litigant. The purpose of this section is to diminish the deterrent
effect of seeking review of, or defending against, governmental action by
providing in certain situations an award of attorney’s fees and costs against
the state.
HB 7103 makes no such
accommodation for the differences between citizens and local governments
because its purpose is to intimidate citizen action against development orders
inconsistent with local comprehensive plans.
The only bulwark against
violations of an adopted comprehensive plan is citizen action; Florida Statutes
provide no other mechanism. The fees and
costs provision makes the choice to challenge the approval of a development
order equivalent to deliberately choosing to risk bankruptcy.
Accordingly, it is clear
that few, if any, such challenges will be mounted if this bill becomes
law. The result will be the end of
growth management in Florida. Land use will become a race to the bottom, and
residents will be doomed to increased costs due to inefficient design and
planning that only increase with time. Pollution from runoff and unnecessary
automobile use will increase, and Floridians will see a decreased quality of
life. Florida has seen this before. It
is why the Growth Management Act was adopted in the first place.
2) The punitive fees and costs provision of HB 7103 is unnecessary
to prevent improper or baseless legal actions or those designed only to cause
delay. There
are already numerous provisions in statute that deal with awards of costs and
fees, and in many cases these awards are sanctions for wasting the time of the
court or for using the courts to harass another party. Chapter 57 of the
Florida Statutes is devoted to costs and fees. 57.105 F.S. provides that costs
and fees are to be awarded if a claim or defense is made that is not supported
by material facts or would not be supported by the application of then-existing
law to those material facts. Costs and fees also are awarded if a legal action
is shown to be designed to cause unreasonable delay. And subsection (6) of
163.3215, the very section of law amended in HB 7103, provides:
The signature of an attorney or
party constitutes a certificate that he or she has read the pleading, motion,
or other paper and that, to the best of his or her knowledge, information, and
belief formed after reasonable inquiry, it is not interposed for any improper
purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or for economic
advantage, competitive reasons or frivolous purposes or needless increase in
the cost of litigation. If a pleading, motion, or other paper is signed in
violation of these requirements, the court, upon motion or its own initiative,
shall impose upon the person who signed it, a represented party, or both, an
appropriate sanction, which may include an order to pay to the other party or
parties the amount of reasonable expenses incurred because of the filing of the
pleading, motion, or other paper, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.
There can be no reason to
institute the fees and costs provision of HB 7103 other than to intimidate by
the threat of penury aggrieved or adversely affected citizens who would
otherwise come forward to challenge a development order that is inconsistent
with a local comprehensive plan.
We urge you to recognize
that unenforceable laws protect no one, to protect the viability of growth
management in Florida for the State’s residents and the communities where they
choose to live, and to defend the right of citizens to go to court to call
their government to account without having to literally ‘bet the farm’ on the
outcome. We strongly urge you to veto HB 7103.
Sincerely,
Deborah L. Foote
