By DOTTY NIST

During the month of October, the two parties in a well-known lawsuit each received a favorable order from Walton County Circuit Judge W. Howard LaPorte, with litigation to continue.
The lawsuit is Jolly Bay, L.L.C. vs. Walton County, filed in Walton County Circuit Court in October 2008, soon after the Walton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) denied approval for the Jolly Bay planned unit development (PUD). The PUD had been proposed for a 60-acre site off Jolly Bay Road near Freeport. The proposal had included an RV park, a camp store, a laundry/shower building, a restaurant, a bakery/coffee shop, a bed and breakfast, office and retail space, a 49-slip boat dock, and a 73-unit, 147-foot-tall bayfront condominium, with the condo height being the main “sticking point” for the application. The proposed development was in a Rural Village land use district.
Another lawsuit, filed by the owners of the development property, a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, had sought reversal of the BCC decision, based on, among other arguments, an alleged violation of due process in connection with the decision. Walton County prevailed in that litigation, and an appeal of that case is underway in the First District Court of Appeal.
Walton County’s Final Order denying the development proposal stated as the cause for the action the determination that the application failed to meet the criteria of the county’s growth management documents, the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code.
Jolly Bay has alleged that “(t)he County Commission improperly applied an un-adopted, ad hoc building height standard to deny Jolly Bay’s PUD.”
Asserting that the BCC denial violated Jolly Bay, L.L.C.’s constitutional rights, the pending circuit court case seeks millions of dollars in monetary damages and other costs from the county.
The property owners are requesting that the court “(d)eclare that Jolly Bay is entitled to payment of full compensation of its property including, without limitation, the value of the lands taken, the damages caused to the remainder, together with any special damages which may hereafter become apparent.” The plaintiffs are also seeking a court order compelling Walton County to “immediately approve the PUD and the phase I development order.” In addition, Jolly Bay, L.L.C., has requested a declaration from the court that the county denial violated the applicants’ “due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution….”
Read the full story in the Oct. 29, 2009 edition of the Herald Breeze.