MONROE COUNTY, FLORIDA, ETC.

v.

SUNSET GARDENS ESTATE LAND TRUST 2/10/2014, ETC., ET AL.

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed March 12, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D23-1368 Lower Tribunal No. 19-0460-P ________________

Monroe County, Florida, etc., Appellant,

vs.

Sunset Gardens Estate Land Trust 2/10/2014, etc., et al., Appellees.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Monroe County, Timothy J. Koenig, Judge.

Peter H. Morris, Assistant County Attorney, for appellant.

Hershoff, Lupino & Yagel, LLP, and Matthew O. Hutchinson, for appellees.

Before FERNANDEZ, LINDSEY, and MILLER, JJ.

LINDSEY, J.

Appellant Monroe County appeals from a Final Declaratory Judgment entered in favor of Appellee Sunset Gardens Estate Land Trust, following

I.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are undisputed. In February 2014, Sunset acquired the subject property, which the County had designated as Tier I environmentally sensitive land.¹ At this time, the property was classified as “residential vacant.” In January 2018, Sunset filed an Application for Agricultural Classification with the Property Appraiser. This Application was approved in April 2018. In October 2018, the County issued Sunset a Notice of Violation for failure to obtain permits for beekeeping and land clearing. The Violation required Sunset to obtain a permit to restore the property in a manner approved by the County Biologist. In January 2019, the parties entered into

1 Under the County’s tier system, Tier I is the most environmentally sensitive and the highest protected category.

According to Jonathan Simpson, Sunset’s Trustee, Sunset complied with the Restoration Plan before the deadline and contacted the County for reinspection. However, the County refused to complete the inspection because Sunset failed to obtain a permit before following the Restoration Plan. In July 2019, after the deadline for compliance had passed, the County sent Sunset a letter informing it that unspecified violations remained on the property and that fines of $200 per day would be imposed until the property comes into compliance. In September 2019, Sunset filed the underlying declaratory judgment action. In its operative two-count Complaint, Sunset sought a declaration as to the County’s ability to regulate the agricultural uses of the farm— regulations Sunset contends are preempted by State law. More specifically,

II.

ANALYSIS

The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment below and agreed that the issues raised present pure issues of law. Our standard of review is de novo. See, e.g., Am. Auto. Ins. Co. v. FDH Infrastructure Servs., LLC, 364 So. 3d 1082, 1083 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023). The County raises numerous arguments on appeal. The County’s first argument is that the appeal is moot. The County’s remaining arguments concern Sunset’s 2017 development and Sunset’s proposed future development of the subject property. We address these arguments in turn. a. Mootness The parties do not dispute that the Property Appraiser classified a portion of the subject land as agricultural for the 2022 tax year and completely denied agricultural classification for the 2023 tax year. Because the property is no longer classified as agricultural, the County contends this appeal is moot. We disagree. “An issue is moot when the controversy has been so fully resolved that a judicial determination can have no actual effect.” Godwin v. State, 593 So. 2d 211, 212 (Fla. 1992). Here, there has not been full resolution of the controversy for at least two reasons. First, according to Sunset, it has

2 Pursuant to § 193.461(3)(e), “land that has received an agricultural classification from the value adjustment board or a court of competent jurisdiction pursuant to this section is entitled to receive such classification in any subsequent year until such agricultural use of the land is abandoned or discontinued, the land is diverted to a nonagricultural use, or the land is reclassified as nonagricultural pursuant to subsection (4).” Subsection (4) requires the property appraiser to reclassify the following as nonagricultural: (a) Land diverted from an agricultural to a nonagricultural use and (b) Land no longer being utilized for agricultural purposes.

3 “The term ‘bona fide agricultural purposes’ means good faith commercial agricultural use of the land.” § 193.461(3)(b).

4 The County argues that Sunset is bound by the local regulations set forth in the Letter of Understanding. We disagree. The Letter, by its own terms, simply reviews local regulations that would generally apply and expressly does not determine whether the County’s growth management laws are preempted by State law.

5 “A declaratory judgment is a statutorily created remedy.” Martinez v. Scanlan, 582 So. 2d 1167, 1170 (Fla. 1991); see also Chapter 86, Fla. Stat. (2024).

Martinez v. Scanlan, 582 So. 2d 1167, 1170 (Fla. 1991) (quoting May v. Holley, 59 So. 2d 636, 639 (Fla.1952)). “These elements are necessary in order to maintain the status of the proceeding as being judicial in nature and therefore within the constitutional powers of the courts.” Id. “There is a line between an acceptable claim for declaratory judgment and an unacceptable request for a court to provide an ‘advisory opinion.’” Guttenberg v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 357 So. 3d 690, 691–92 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023). In short, there “must exist some justiciable controversy between adverse parties that needs to be resolved for a court to exercise its jurisdiction.” Martinez, 582 So. 2d at 1171.

Here, there is not a sufficient justiciable controversy to warrant declaratory relief.⁶ As an initial matter, there has not been a final resolution of the subject property’s zoning classification. As set forth above, the Property Appraiser removed Sunset’s agricultural classification, and this dispute remains pending in the trial court.

6 We note that the 2018 Notice of Violation did include a violation for beekeeping pursuant to section 110-140(a) of the Monroe County Code. However, this violation was dismissed pursuant to the parties’ Settlement. We therefore do not decide whether local regulation of beekeeping is preempted by State law.

12

Moreover, the preemption issues before us are too abstract to be justiciable. In its request for a Letter of Understanding from the County, Sunset did not set forth specific development plans. Instead, it explained that it intended to use the property for “a variety of agricultural and agritourism uses, including beekeeping, growing pineapples and other nursery plants, raising goats for milk production, chickens for egg production, processing goat milk soap, operating a farm market, hosting farm tours, farm winery, and hosting weddings and other events.” Similarly, the County has listed over 35 local regulations⁷ that might be applicable to Sunset’s proposed development plans. Such generalities involving potential development and potentially applicable local regulations are simply insufficient to create a justiciable controversy. See, e.g., Santa Rosa County v. Admin. Comm’n, Div. of Admin. Hearings, 661 So. 2d 1190, 1193 (Fla. 1995) (“Florida courts will not render, in the form of a declaratory judgment, what amounts to an advisory opinion at the instance of parties who show merely the possibility of legal injury on the basis of a hypothetical ‘state of facts which have not arisen’ and are only ‘contingent, uncertain, [and] rest in

7 These regulations cover a host of subjects, including permitting, building and fence height requirements, stormwater mitigation, parking, open space requirements, and maximum illumination. Until there is an actual controversy between the parties over the regulated subject matter, there is no jurisdiction to render declaratory relief. See, e.g., Aaronson v. White, 324 So. 3d 1024 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021).

13 the future.’” (quoting LaBella v. Food Fair, Inc., 406 So. 2d 1216, 1217 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981))).

Indeed, the trial court properly declined to determine whether the more than 35 local regulations were preempted by State law because this requires a “use-by-use, ordinance-by-ordinance analysis.” As the court further explained: The County is not entitled to a broad, wholesale, declaratory finding that its land development regulations or even the numerous ordinances cited in its Counterclaim are not preempted to the State because Monroe County has not shown how the enumerated ordinances in its Counterclaim do not impact farming operations, generally, and specifically as to Sunset Gardens.

To the extent the order on appeal concludes that local regulation of Sunset’s current agricultural uses is preempted, we are compelled to reverse because this implicates the same justiciability concerns. It remains uncertain whether the subject property is currently classified as agricultural. Moreover, the County has not issued any additional notices of violation or otherwise set forth the exact local regulations that apply to Sunset’s current agricultural uses. Similarly, the trial court’s Final Declaratory Judgment does not identify which local regulations are applicable to Sunset’s current agricultural uses nor does the Judgment identify the local regulations that are preempted.

III.

CONCLUSION