Island Silver & Spice vs Islamorada Village of Islands

[luckless pedestrian]

Hey you Flaarida planners down there -

what's up with this case? 56 PEL 164 Florida

I just read the APA abstract from Planning and Environmental Law May 2007 p 17 entitled

Village regulation imposing strict size limitations on national retail chains violate dormant commerce clause

does this case throw out the window any constitutionality for controlling big box chains?

I know there a lot of threads on this already but I wanted to focus on this particular case because it might be a landmark decision that goes beyond Florida..

anyone read it? thoughts?

[Cardinal]

I remember a similar case where the courts ruled that a size limitation applied only to chain retailers was unconstitutional, as there was no connection between the expected impacts of "big box" development and the issue of whether the store was a chain or independent.

[iamnyc]

As luck would have it, I happen to work in Islamorada.

Judge Moore's decision basically was twofold. The first is that the restrictions imposed unreasonable limitations due to the business models of larger, out of state businesses. The second was that although the idea behind the ordinance was to protect the community character of the Village, the Village did not demonstrate that we have any unique community character to protect.

It has caused major community uproar on both sides of the fence, as you would imagine.

[luckless pedestrian]

The second was that although the idea behind the ordinance was to protect the community character of the Village, the Village did not demonstrate that we have any unique community character to protect.

so do you think as long as you have "character" (and aren't we all a bunch of characters, yes) that you can still make an argument for chain store design review?

thanks for responding!

[iamnyc]

I think that the argument is much easier. However, there are also concerns regarding our 'design review'. What it amounted to was a limit on the size of formula retail stores to 2,000 square feet and 50 feet of frontage on US 1. Obviously, that effectively kills any possibility for a new formula retail store. We also don't have any design standards for any development.