Facts
- Palm Beach County adopted a comprehensive plan under Florida’s Growth Management Act that included a traffic circulation element and a “Thoroughfare Right-of-Way Protection Map.”
- The map identified transportation corridors for existing and future roadways in unincorporated areas of the county.
- Implementing land development regulations limited or barred development within mapped corridors when it would encroach on, or impede, future right-of-way needs; approvals could require dedication or setbacks to preserve the corridor.
- Landowners whose property lay within designated corridors challenged the map and regulations as a facially unconstitutional taking and as invalid under Joint Ventures, Inc. v. Department of Transportation.
- The district court held the map unconstitutional and certified to the Florida Supreme Court whether such a corridor map, adopted as part of a chapter 163 comprehensive plan and restricting interfering land uses, is facially unconstitutional under Joint Ventures.
Issues
- Whether a county thoroughfare map and right-of-way protection regulations adopted as part of a comprehensive plan are facially unconstitutional as a taking under the Florida and federal constitutions.
- Whether Joint Ventures renders such comprehensive-plan corridor protections facially invalid as an unlawful “reservation” of private land for future public use without compensation.
Decision
- The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative.
- The Court quashed the district court decision and upheld the thoroughfare map and implementing regulations against a facial constitutional challenge.
- The Court held that Joint Ventures did not compel facial invalidation because the county’s comprehensive-plan corridor protections differed from the statutory “map of reservation” mechanism struck down in Joint Ventures.
- The Court left open the possibility of as-applied takings challenges based on how the regulations affect a specific parcel.
Legal Principles
- A comprehensive-plan thoroughfare map that protects future transportation corridors through land-use regulation is not facially unconstitutional merely because it restricts development within mapped corridors.
- Joint Ventures invalidated a specific state “map of reservation” scheme that functioned as a renewable development freeze without prompt compensation; it did not categorically prohibit advance corridor mapping or right-of-way protection in comprehensive planning.
- A facial takings challenge fails absent a showing that the regulatory scheme is unconstitutional in all or nearly all applications; parcel-specific impacts generally are addressed through as-applied claims.
Conclusion
The Florida Supreme Court upheld Palm Beach County’s comprehensive-plan-based thoroughfare corridor protections against a facial takings attack, distinguishing prior precedent that invalidated a different reservation device, and directing that any takings concerns ordinarily be litigated as applied to particular properties.