Jack and Gail Snyder owned a half-acre parcel on Merritt Island in unincorporated Brevard County. It was zoned GU, allowing a single-family residence. They sought rezoning to RU-2-15, a classification allowing up to fifteen residential units per acre. Both classifications were among twenty-nine classifications potentially consistent with the residential designation on the County's 1988 comprehensive-plan future-land-use map.
County staff initially recommended denial because the parcel lay in a one-hundred-year floodplain, where the plan permitted no more than two units per acre. At the planning-and-zoning-board hearing, however, the planning director explained that the site would be elevated during development and that the floodplain restriction would no longer apply. Staff withdrew its opposition, and the planning and zoning board recommended approval.
Before the County Commission, Snyder said he planned to build only five or six units. Neighbors objected chiefly on traffic grounds. The Commission denied the application without stating reasons. The circuit court, sitting en banc, denied the Snyders' certiorari petition by a two-to-one vote.
The Fifth District granted certiorari. Treating this parcel-specific rezoning as quasi-judicial, it held that the County had to make findings and state reasons supported by facts. It further held that, once an owner proved plan consistency, the owner was presumptively entitled to the requested use unless the government proved by clear and convincing evidence that a public necessity required a more restrictive use. The Supreme Court quashed that decision while establishing a different burden-shifting rule.
Issue #1
Whether the County Commission's decision on a rezoning application for a single, identified parcel was legislative or quasi-judicial.
Holding
It was quasi-judicial and therefore reviewable by certiorari, rather than a legislative decision insulated by the fairly debatable standard.
Reasoning
The character of the governmental action—not simply the fact that it is labeled a zoning decision—determines whether it is legislative or quasi-judicial. Legislative action formulates a general policy rule; quasi-judicial action applies an existing general rule or policy to particular facts, parties, and property.
Original zoning enactments and comprehensive rezonings affecting a large segment of the public remain legislative. But a rezoning affecting a limited number of identifiable persons and interests, decided from factual alternatives presented at a hearing, is functionally an application of policy rather than the creation of new policy.
The Snyders' application concerned one half-acre parcel and required the Commission to apply the County's existing comprehensive plan and zoning regulations to that parcel. The Commission therefore acted in a quasi-judicial capacity.
Issue #2
What judicial-review standard governs a quasi-judicial rezoning denial.
Holding
The decision is subject to certiorari review and must be supported by competent substantial evidence; in land-use cases, the Court's reference to strict scrutiny means strict compliance with the comprehensive plan, not constitutional strict scrutiny.
Reasoning
When a local board acts quasi-judicially, its decision is not reviewed under the highly deferential fairly debatable rule that applies to legislative policymaking. Instead, certiorari review asks whether the decision rests on competent substantial evidence and complies with the essential requirements of law.
The Court agreed that review should be described as strict scrutiny in the land-use sense. But that phrase does not invoke the constitutional test used for restrictions on fundamental rights. Practically, it means that the reviewing court must ensure strict compliance with the governing comprehensive plan and the requirements applicable to quasi-judicial decisions.
Issue #3
Whether a landowner's showing that a proposed rezoning is consistent with the comprehensive plan creates a presumptive entitlement to rezoning unless the government proves a public necessity by clear and convincing evidence.
Holding
No. Consistency with the comprehensive plan is necessary but does not itself entitle the owner to the requested zoning classification; after the owner shows plan consistency and procedural compliance, the government must show that retaining the existing classification serves a legitimate public purpose.
Reasoning
The Fifth District treated the comprehensive plan as if it required immediate approval of every proposed zoning classification consistent with the plan. The Supreme Court rejected that premise because a comprehensive plan ordinarily establishes the long-range maximum intensity of potential land use, not an immediate minimum intensity that local government must allow at once.
The Growth Management Act seeks orderly development, not automatic development to the plan's maximum permitted density. Thus, even if the requested rezoning is consistent with the plan, a local government may maintain a more restrictive existing classification when its decision is itself consistent with the plan, allows some plan-consistent development, and is supported by competent substantial evidence.
The Court adopted a burden-shifting framework. The landowner first must prove that the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan and satisfies the zoning ordinance's procedural requirements. The burden then shifts to the governmental board to demonstrate that maintaining the existing zoning classification accomplishes a legitimate public purpose.
This framework incorporates the traditional protections against arbitrary, discriminatory, and unreasonable zoning decisions. If the board carries its burden with competent substantial evidence, the rezoning application should be denied; plan consistency alone does not establish a property-based right to the requested classification.
Issue #4
Whether a local government must make formal findings of fact and state reasons whenever it denies a parcel-specific rezoning application.
Holding
No. Formal findings of fact are not required, although the record must contain competent substantial evidence supporting the denial on certiorari review.
Reasoning
The Supreme Court rejected the Fifth District's categorical requirement that the Commission state reasons and make findings of fact. The Court concluded that such findings may be useful but are not indispensable to a valid quasi-judicial rezoning decision.
The absence of mandatory formal findings does not eliminate meaningful review. To sustain the Commission's action, the certiorari record must still show competent substantial evidence supporting its ruling and must permit review for compliance with the applicable legal standards.
Issue #5
What disposition was appropriate after the Court rejected the Fifth District's legal framework.
Holding
The Court quashed the Fifth District's decision but allowed the Snyders to submit a new rezoning application under the rule announced in this case.
Reasoning
The Court disapproved earlier district-court decisions to the extent they treated all specific rezoning applications as legislative. At the same time, it quashed the Fifth District's decision because that court had imposed an incorrect entitlement rule and an unwarranted mandatory-findings requirement.
Because substantial time had passed since the original application and conditions may have changed, the Court declined to foreclose all relief. It permitted the Snyders to begin the rezoning process again, without prejudice, under the newly articulated burden-shifting procedure.