First DCA Puts Another Nail in the Coffin of Due Process- Findings not Required for Denial of Plat

Alachua Land Investors v. City of Gainesville, 15 S.3d 732, 34 Fla. L Weekly D2163 (Fla. 1^st DCA July 17, 2009)

In Alachua Land Investors v. City of Gainesville the 1st DCA held that the City did not violate due process or the essential requirements of the law when it denied a plat without written findings. The Court cited G.B.V. Internat’l and Bd. of County Comm’rs v. Snyder for support. As I have written elsewhere, G.B.V. is improperly cited for this proposition because the language in the decision was purely dicta and the matter was not property before the Court. Similarly, Snyder only dealt with rezoning and did not over-rule other cases holding local quasi-judicial decisions had to have written findings.

The bottom line is that Justice Pariente got it right in her dissent in G.B.V. – as had been consistently determined by the courts previous to Snyder: effective judicial review of a quasi-judicial decision is impossible without written findings. These decisions deny due process to applicants and neighbors alike by allowing local tribunals to make up reasons for denying or approving an application in order to meet the facts in the record.