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Home My WebLink AboutM-94-0681TO : Cesar Odio City Manager CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA INTER -OFFICE MEMORANDUM • DATE : August 30, 1994 FILE : SUBJECT : Discussion Item: BISCAYNE PANIC *Per TERRACE FROM : REFERENCES ENCLOSURES City Commission Agenda: September 8, 1994 On the City Commisison agenda of September 8, 1994, please enter a discussion of a homeowner's proposal to amend the Zoning Ordinance to establish a 20,000 square foot minimum lot size in BISCAYNE PARK TERRACE, which is generally bounded by Secoffee Street, SW 22nd Avenue, S. Bayshore Drive and Natoma Street (extended). Homeowners in this subdivision petitioned for this zoning amendment in March, 1994; a legal opinion dated August 9, 1994, (attached) has now been rendered by the Law Department, and it is now appropriate to discuss the Commission's policy so that direction can be given to the Administration. Attachment cc: Honorable Stephen P. Clark Mayor Honorable Miller J. Dawkins Vice Mayor Honorable Victor De Yurre Commissioner Honorable Wifredo Gort Commissioner CITY OF MIAMI. FLORIDA INTER -OFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: Commissioner J.L. Plummer, Jr. DATE August 10, 1994 FILE: A-94C SUBJECT : Legal Opinion Exclusionary Zoning FROM A. Q inn J nes, III Your Correspondence Dated Cit At ne REFERENCES Y Y August 5, 1994 ENCLOSURES: Y Please see legal opinion on referenced matter. Please let me know if this office can provide you with any additional information. ,�M M902/AQJ/ms 7o Cesar Odio City Manager A. u nn J nes, III FRO cityt ney CITY OF MIAMI. FLORIDA INTER -OFFICE MEMORANDUM DATE August 9, 1994 FILE M A94Q000 SUBJECT Legal Opinion Exclusionary Zoning - Coconut Grove REFERENCES ENCLOSURES You have requested a legal opinion on the following issue: WHETHER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MINIMUM LOT SIZE OF 20,000 SQUARE FEET FOR A PROPOSED ZONING DISTRICT IN THE COCONUT GROVE AREA OF THE CITY OF MIAMI CONSTITUTES EXCLUSIONARY ZONING. The answer to your question is in the negative. Assuming all required procedures are observed in the enactment of the ordinance, including but not limited to Article 22 of Ordinance No. 11000, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Miami, as amended, zoning an area within Coconut Grove for a 20,000 square foot minimum zoning district does not constitute exclusionary zoning. The size of lots is a proper subject for exercise of the police power to protect the public welfare, health, safety and morals of the residents of the City. Garvin v. Baker, 59 So.2d 360 .(Fla. 1952). You have provided us with the following facts: In general, lots throughout the City are required to be a minimum of 5,000 square feet in size. In the area proposed for the 20,000 square feet minimum zoning district, the current zoning is R-1 with an SD-18 overlay district which establishes a 10,000 square foot minimum lot size. You advised us that Metropolitan Dade County has a zoning district - EU-1, which is a one -acre estate residential district that has a minimum lot size requirement of one acre, including right-of-way (a minimum lot size requirement of 42,560 square feet). You have correctly indicated that zoning which tends to exclude specific businesses from a particular district or motivated by fear of and prejudices economic, and racial groups. As Justice concurring opinion in the leading case South'Burlington County_v_. Township of Mc (N.J. 1975), analysis of the excluc widespread use of minimum lot size is exclusionary, zoning is classes of persons or area. Such zoning is against other social, Pashman indicated in his on exclusionary zoning, untLaurel, 336 A.2d 713 ;ionary impact of the a complex task. The 94- 681 W Justice also stated that the following zoning devices are inherently exclusionary in effect, or lend themselves especially readily to abuse: 1) minimum house size requirements; 2) minimum lot size and minimum frontage requirements; 3) prohibition of multifamily housing; 4) bedroom restrictions; 5) prohibition of mobile homes; 6) overzoning for non-residential uses. Thus, exclusionary zoning assumes a wide variety of forms and ultimately the existence of such practices must be measured by exclusionary intent and actual or potential exclusionary effect. Hawkins v. Shaw, 437 F.2d 1286 (5th Cir. 1971); Hobson v. Hansen, 269 F.Supp. 401 (D.D.C. 1967); Smuck v. Hobson, 408 F.2d 175 (D.C. Cir. 1969). The Mount Laurel decision is a well -reasoned and thorough analysis of the widespread use of exclusionary zoning in New Jersey in the 1970's. The township examined in that case, Mt. Laurel, was a developing municipality. The Supreme Court of New Jersey found that the record substantiated the findings of the trial court that Mount Laurel "has acted affirmatively to control development and to attract a selective type of growth" and that "through its zoning ordinances it has exhibited economic discrimination in that the poor have been deprived of adequate housing and the opportunity to secure the construction of subsidized housing and has used federal, state, county and local finances and resources solely for the betterment of middle and upper income persons." 336 A.2d at 723. The Court pointed out that in many developing municipalities this pattern of land use regulation has been adopted and there has been no effective area planning or regional planning to provide low and moderate income housing in the municipality. Thus, the legal question before the Court in the Mount Laurel case was whether a developing municipality like Mount Laurel may, by a system of land use regulation, make it physically and economically impossible to provide low and moderate income housing in the municipality for the various categories of persons who need and want it and thereby may exclude such people from living within its ,boundaries because of the limited extent of their income and resources. In answering that legal issue in the negative, the Court held that every developing municipality must, through its land use regulations, make realistically possible an appropriate variety and choice of housing. Further, the developing municipality cannot foreclose the opportunity of the classes of persons mentioned for low and moderate income housing,. and must affirmatively afford that opportunity through its regulations. It should exclusionary s developing, but did not explore applicable to developed ones be noted that the Mount Laurel decision concerns ;oning practices in municipalities which are are still not completely developed. The Court or opine the degree to which these principles are largely developed municipalities, or completely such as the City of Miami. 2 94- 681 The City of Miami, unlike the Township of Mount Laurel, is a developed community which has provided areas within its boundaries for affordable housing for persons of low and moderate income. It is assumed for the purpose of this opinion that the area in question, should it not be rezoned to the proposed 20,000 square foot minimum lot size, would nevertheless not be considered as a location for such housing given its present 10,000 square foot minimum lot size zoning designation. Land use regulation is encompassed within the state's police power. Of course, all police power enactments, no matter at what level of government, must conform to the basic state constitutional requirements of substantive due process and equal protection. A zoning regulation, like any police power enactment, must promote public health, safety, morals or the general welfare. Although excessive mapping for large lots, absent extraordinary environmental factors, is presumptively invalid, Steel Hill Development, Inc. v. Sanbornton, 469 F.2d 956 (1st Cir. 1972), a municipality has a legitimate interest in insuring that exceptional environmental and historical features are not simply concreted over. Golden v. Ramapo Planning Board, 285 NE 2d 291 (N.Y. 1972), appeal dismissed, 409 U.S. 1003 (1972); Construction Industry Association of Sonoma County v. Petaluma, 375 F.Supp. 574 (N.D. Cal. 1974). Such regulations must be reasonable, and substantially related to the purpose which they seek to achieve. In general, the courts have held that an ordinance which requires a minimum lot size is valid on its face- under the due process provisions of Federal and State Constitutions as bearing a reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest - that is, the furtherance of the public health, safety, morals, or welfare. The leading Florida case, Garvin v. Baker, 59 So.2d 360 (Fla. 1951), held that the size of lots upon which a one -family, two-family, or four -family building may be erected is a subject for police regulation and when not unreasonable, such regulations do not deprive a person of his property without due process of law. In that case, property owners brought a mandamus action against the City of Lake Worth to compel the approval of certain plats in which the requirements of existing City ordinances were not met. The Court pointed out that in addition to the powers vested in the City of Lake Worth by general law, its city charter provided the power to zone the city and specified therein that the city had the power to provide regulations and restrictions governing height, number of stories, size of buildings .and other structures, the percentage and portion of lot that may be occupied, the size of yards, courts, and other open spaces. Section 3(y) and Section 3(mm) of the Charter of the City of Miami, Florida, similarly provide the City with the power to "do all things necessary or expedient for promoting or maintaining the general welfare, comfort, education, morals, peace, government, health, trade, commerce, or industry of the city or 3 94 �� its inhabitants, [Section 3(y)] and to zone the City of Miami and to provide by ordinance building, planning and zoning regulations and restrictions [Section 3(mm)]. You have not provided in your request any reasons for expanding the minimum lot size from 10,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet. Presumably, the reasons for so doing lie within the general purview of the police power and as such are a reasonable regulation and restriction on the use and development of private property. A AftAT Tl P. T ^%v Provided all requirenants applicable to amending the City's zoning ordinance are me`. the establishment of a 20,000 square feet minimum lot size zoning district in the City of Miami does not, in and of itself, constitute exclusionary zoning. PREPARED BY: G. IRIAM MAER Chief Assistant City Attorney M296/GMM/jn` 4 REVIEWED BY: eLE. MAXWELCity Attorney 94- 681