March 26, 2025] Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), an organization of top attorneys that regularly defend Americans’ constitutional rights, joined a coalition of organizations to file an amici (friend of the court) brief with the Supreme Court in support of a Florida landowner’s property rights in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach.
Florida landowner Fane Lozman’s plans to develop his residentially zoned waterfront property were halted when the City of Riviera Beach rezoned it as a “special preservation” district. The new ordinance imposed a total ban on residential structures, listing as exceptions: “None.” The brief warns that “in many jurisdictions, local officials can destroy the economic or social value of a property through re-zoning and downzoning ordinances.”
SLF’s brief emphasizes that the American Founders “believed that secure property rights are an important constraint on the arbitrary exercise of government power.” The City of Riviera Beach left Lozman with a worthless property that had no value because of his inability to develop anything on it due to the city’s ordinance. The ability to develop one’s land is not just an economic interest but a fundamental liberty: “Liberal land use rules give Americans the freedom to order their private lives: to build churches… and to make land improvements for multigenerational living, a home school, or a home business.”
The brief highlights how Riviera Beach “selectively used ripeness doctrine to bar Lozman from court,” arguing his case was brought too late in district court, only to claim it was too early on appeal. These legal contradictions show that local governments “engage in gamesmanship that profoundly injures many Americans’ property and constitutional rights.”
SLF urges SCOTUS to affirm that clear categorical zoning ordinances are “final decisions” under the law. The brief concludes: “It is implausible that landowners seeking to preserve their property rights must navigate such uncertainty in our constitutional system, where property rights are enumerated and fundamental.”
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