Administrative Challenge to Third BUD Ordinance

Even though Monroe County was arguing, in the Collins case, that the BUD process was not a "ripening" of a regulatory taking claim, it was busily attempting to prevent landowners from ripening via the BUD process. When the County adopted its third version of the BUD ordinance, we had 25 BUD petitions in the queue for hearings by a Special Master. So we filed an administrative challenge to the 2007 BUD ordinance. The challenge was unsuccessful, as the DOAH Administrative Law Judge did not have the ability to consider Constitutional issues. But the ordinance was delayed for nearly a year, and we "exhausted" our administrative remedies. Now we are in a position to challenge the ordinance on Constitutional grounds.

As to the County's "position" on the role of the BUD process in "ripening" a regulatory taking claim (and, of course, starting the four-year statute of limitation), that argument died on New Years' Eve 2008, when the 3rd District Court of Appeal sided with the landowners in Collins v. Monroe County & the State, and in Shands v City of Marathon.

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