Facts
- Volusia County adopted an ordinance imposing countywide public school impact fees on new dwelling units to fund expansion of school capacity.
- Aberdeen at Ormond Beach, L.P. owned a manufactured housing community restricted to residents age 55 and older.
- A recorded supplemental declaration barred persons under 18 from permanently residing in any dwelling unit; the minors’ prohibition was not subject to exception or waiver and was binding for a defined term.
- A separate primary declaration contained a general reservation of amendment authority, but it was not recorded as required and therefore was not effective to alter the recorded age restriction.
- The county assessed and collected school impact fees from Aberdeen for new mobile homes, totaling approximately $86,984.07 for 84 homes.
- Aberdeen challenged the impact fees as unconstitutional as applied, alleging the community generated no public school students and received no benefit from added school facilities.
Issues
- Whether a public school impact fee is unconstitutional as applied to a deed-restricted age-55-and-older community that bars minors from permanent residency.
- Whether the unrecorded primary declaration’s general amendment authority could defeat the recorded supplemental declaration’s nonwaivable ban on minors.
- Whether exempting such an age-restricted community would convert the charge into an impermissible user fee inconsistent with Florida’s constitutional requirement of free public schools.
Decision
- The Florida Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Aberdeen.
- The court held the school impact fee ordinance unconstitutional as applied because the required connections between (a) the fee and the need for additional school facilities and (b) the fee’s expenditure and benefits to the payor were absent for this development.
- The court treated the recorded supplemental declaration as controlling because the unrecorded primary declaration was ineffective; Aberdeen was legally restricted in a way that prevented school-age residency.
- The court rejected the argument that exempting such communities would make the fee an unconstitutional user fee or violate the constitutional mandate of free public schools.
Legal Principles
- Development impact fees must satisfy a dual rational nexus test: (1) a reasonable connection between the development and the need for additional public facilities, and (2) a reasonable connection between the fee’s use and benefits received by the development charged.
- An as-applied challenge can succeed even when an impact-fee ordinance is generally valid, if the required nexus fails for the particular development.
- Enforceable, recorded deed restrictions may be determinative in assessing whether a development generates the impacts that justify an impact fee.
- Exempting a development that demonstrably creates no demand for the public facility funded by the fee does not, by itself, transform an impact fee into an impermissible user fee.
Conclusion
Florida’s Supreme Court held that school impact fees could not be imposed on a deed-restricted 55+ community with a recorded, nonwaivable ban on minors because the development neither created a need for new school facilities nor received a benefit from them, rendering the ordinance unconstitutional as applied to that property.