Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/07/1995

Home

Page 8 N February 1995 z.g. the city failed to show Ohl was using her pig for farming purposes, there were no disputed facts and Ohl was entitled to.judgment without a trial. County of Will v. Village of Rockdale, 589 N.E. 2d I017 (1992). Mobile Home -- Mobile Home Park Owners Claim Legislation Is Unconstitutional Asjpen-Tarpon S]~rings Limited ]>artnership v. Stuart, 635 So. 2d 61 (Florida) ]994 Florida passed a new Mobile Home Act, which applied to parks with at least 10 lots available for rent. One section of the statute allowed courts to help tenants if they found any rental amount or any other part of a rental agreement unreasonable. It also stated "a lot rental amount that is in excess of market rent shall be considered unreasonable." Another section required park owners who wanted to change their land's use to either relocate tenants to a comparable park within 50 miles, or buy the tenants' homes and accessories at a value stated in the statute. A group of park owners sued the state officers whose job was to enforce the statute. The park owners asked the court to declare these sections of the statute unconstitutional and to stop the state from enforcing them. The owners claimed the section involving rent: deprived them of the con- stitutional right to be rewarded for their work; was unc6nstitutionally vague; and created an unfair presumption about what was reasonable. They also said the change of use section violated the due process clauses of the state and federal Constitutions and amounted to a taking of property without compensation. The court upheld the section regarding reasonable rents, but found the sec- tion regarding changes in use unconstitutional. Both parties appealed. DECISION: Affirmed. The section about rent reasonably balanced the interests of park owners with those of the tenants who owned mobile homes. The tenants' bargaining position with the park owners was very unbalanced because the cost of moving a mobile home to another park was extraordinary. Therefore, the regulation did not affect the park owners' rights to the extent that it was unconstitutional. Further, the statute's reasonableness standard was not too vague and did not create an unfair presumption. The section regarding changes in use' was an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation. It went beyond balancing conflicting interests and forced the park owners to surrender indefinitely their rights to hold and occupy their land, and to exclude others. The only way they could stop renting their land to mobile home owners was to buy all the mobile homes or pay to have them moved. These options could cost the park owners from 25 percent to more than 1,000 percent of the land's actual value. This was an unfair bur- den' on the park owners and did not advance a legitimate state interest. Seawall Associates v. City of New York, 542 N.E. 2d 1059 (1989). Agings v. City of Tibtwon, 447 U.S. 255 (1980).