## Facts

- Crane Island is a 207-acre privately owned site treated in Nassau County’s comprehensive plan primarily as wetlands.
- The comprehensive plan limited development on designated wetlands to one dwelling unit per five acres.
- The plan also allowed areas determined not to be wetlands—based on input from the St. Johns River Water Management District—to be developed at the least intense adjacent land-use density.
- In 2006, the Water Management District determined that 71.58 acres previously treated as wetlands were uplands.
- Nassau County relied on that determination to treat the 71.58 acres as non-wetlands, reclassified them as low-density residential, and approved development at two dwelling units per acre.
- Nearby landowners and residents challenged the development approval, asserting the County effectively increased density without a formal comprehensive plan amendment and after prior failed amendment efforts.

## Issues

1. Whether nearby residents and landowners had standing under Fla. Stat. § 163.3215 based on recreational and environmental use of, and interests in, the affected area.
2. Whether the County’s interpretation and application of its comprehensive plan, using the “least intense adjacent use” policy after the Water Management District’s uplands determination, conflicted with the plan or produced an impermissible “absurd result.”

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the challengers had standing under Fla. Stat. § 163.3215.
- The appellate court reversed the trial court’s merits ruling that had invalidated the development approval.
- The court held the County’s interpretation was not clearly erroneous, did not conflict with the plan, and did not produce an “absurd result.”
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the appellate decision.

## Legal Principles

- Under Fla. Stat. § 163.3215, an “aggrieved or adversely affected party” may establish standing by showing a direct interest in protecting the affected area’s natural resources, including demonstrated recreational and environmental use, without owning the subject property.
- A local government’s interpretation of its own comprehensive plan receives substantial judicial deference and will be upheld unless clearly erroneous, contrary to the plan’s intent, or producing an “absurd result” inconsistent with what the plan can reasonably authorize.
- When a comprehensive plan contemplates reliance on external technical determinations (such as a water management district’s wetlands delineation), a local government may apply plan policies based on updated determinations in development approvals without necessarily adopting a formal plan amendment, so long as the action fits the plan’s text and objectives.

## Conclusion

The court held that nearby residents had statutory standing to challenge the development approval, but it upheld Nassau County’s plan-based approval of higher-density development on the portion of Crane Island reclassified by the Water Management District as uplands, reversing the trial court’s order that had invalidated the County’s action.


Nassau County v. Willis, 41 So. 3d 270 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1st Dist. 2010)