Agenda Item Name:
Title
City of Newberry Annexations: Request for Board Direction on Initiation of Appeal Process
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Presenter:
Ben Chumley, Senior Planner
Description:
On April 27, 2020, the Newberry City Commission adopted eleven ordinances annexing various areas into the City of Newberry. As described in the County’s letter to the City dated April 8, 2020, four of these eleven annexations do not appear to meet all the statutory requirements for annexation under Chapter 171, Florida Statutes. The purpose of this agenda item is to request the Board’s direction on whether to initiate the annexation appeal process as provided in Chapter 171.081 Florida Statutes.
If the County Commission wishes to initiate the appeal process, it must first initiate and proceed through the local government conflict resolution procedures of Chapter 164, Florida Statutes. The Board may initiate this process by adopting the resolution which is attached to the agenda item.
Recommended Action:
Recommended Action
If the County Commission wishes to initiate the appeal process on the annexations adopted by City Ordinances 2020-04, 2020-06, 2020-09, and 2020-10, then the Board should approve the attached resolution to initiate the conflict resolution procedures of Chapter 164, Florida Statutes, the "Florida Governmental Conflict Resolution Act".
If the County Commission does not want to appeal the annexations, then no action is required.
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Prior Board Motions:
N/A
Fiscal Consideration:
Fiscal Consideration
If the Board chooses to appeal the City’s annexations, the County will potentially incur costs for litigation, and may incur costs and attorney's fees if not successful. Additional costs will be incurred if the County is not the prevailing party in the annexation appeal, and the County would owe reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
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Background:
The County received notice of this group of eleven proposed voluntary annexations from the City on March 3, 2020. County staff reviewed the proposed annexations in coordination with the County Attorney’s Office in accordance with the County’s regular process for review and comment on municipal annexations. There were issues identified with four of the eleven proposed annexations (Ordinances 2020-04, 2020-06, 2020-09, and 2020-10) because they did not meet all the requirements of Chapter 171, Florida Statutes. A letter dated April 8, 2020 from the County Manager to the Newberry City Manager described the statutory and practical issues with these four proposed annexations in detail (see letter attached to agenda item which provides County staff comments and maps).
Two of the four annexations that staff identified as having statutory issues (Ordinances 2020-04 and 2020-06) were due to the creation of new enclaves which is prohibited under Florida Statutes. As noted in the April 8, 2020 letter to the City, both of these two annexations also filled-in portions of existing large enclaves within the City. The County’s letter recommended that the City attempt to annex the newly created enclave parcels in order to avoid the creation of these new enclaves.
Annexation Ordinances 2020-09 and 2020-10 annexed much larger areas and potentially raise more significant issues. As described in the County’s April 8th letter, neither of these two annexations appear to meet the statutory requirements for contiguity or compactness. Also, the irregular configuration of the City boundary that has resulted from these two annexations could result in potential land use conflicts between County and City areas, as well as difficulties with service delivery in the future, if or when those areas become developed.
Alachua County has a potential basis for challenging the City’s actions. If the Board chooses to challenge the City’s actions, the Board must take steps to preserve its right to pursue a challenge. Section 171.081, Florida Statutes, governs challenges to annexations. Annexation challenges are in the form of a record appeal to the circuit court. To bring an annexation appeal, a party must show that it will suffer material injury by reason of the municipality's failure to comply with the procedures for annexation in Chapter 171, Florida Statutes. The statute provides that, if the challenger is a governmental entity, the challenging governmental entity must first initiate the conflict resolution procedures of Chapter 164, the "Florida Governmental Conflict Resolution Act," by passage of a resolution within 30 days following the passage of an annexation ordinance.
Upon conclusion of the Chapter 164 process without a mutually-acceptable resolution, the challenging government entity may file a petition in circuit court for certiorari review. The challenge may be based on any or all of the following: 1) the municipality failed to follow the correct law (i.e., the "essential requirements of law"); 2) there was no competent substantial evidence to support the municipality's decision; and 3) the municipality failed to provide the plaintiff with due process. In this case, a likely basis would be that the City failed to follow the correct law when it adopted annexations that created enclaves or were not reasonably compact or contiguous as defined in the Statute. It is important to note that the prevailing governmental party in an annexation challenge will be awarded reasonable costs and attorney's fees from the non-prevailing governmental party.