Municipalities in Florida and throughout the United States are battling dog and cat overpopulation issues that impact local government policy and budgets. Dogs and cats are reproducing at an exponential rate that outstrips the number of people who can provide homes for them. According to some experts’ projections, just one unaltered dog and her progeny can produce an estimated 67,000 puppies in a six-year period. A single fertile cat and her offspring can spawn approximately 420,000 kittens in seven years.

On June 12, 2006, Norris Gaynor was brutally killed by two young men with baseball bats while he slept on a park bench in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Mr. Gaynor was homeless. Two other homeless men were critically injured in this unprovoked predawn attack, which the lawyers concluded was fueled by a desire to “mess with some homeless people.”

In Citrus County v. Halls River Development, Inc., the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled that the mere enactment of a statute, ordinance, or other governmental rule or regulation may satisfy the “as applied” requirement of the Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act if the impact of the statute, ordinance, or other governmental rule or regulation is “readily ascertainable” upon enactment. This ruling effectively negated the plaintiff landowner’s cause of action under the Harris Act by requiring a presuit claim to be asserted within one year from the time the Comprehensive Plan amendment was adopted in 1997, instead of allowing the landowner to assert a presuit claim within one year from the time the applicable Comprehensive Plan amendment was applied to the landowner’s property in 2002.

The court’s ruling contradicts the plain language and intent of the Harris Act, which is to create a separate and distinct cause of action to provide relief (in the form of payment of compensation) when a new law, rule, regulation, or ordinance of the state or a political entity in the state, as applied, inordinately burdens real property.

Florida’s beaches are critical to the State’s economy and pro-vide significant protection for upland property, but erosion from natural forces, coastal development, and construction and maintenance of navigation inlets threatens the beaches’ ability to provide these vital services. Of the 825 miles of sandy beach in the State, over 485 miles (about fifty-nine percent) is eroding, with 387 miles of beach (about forty-seven percent) experiencing “critical erosion.” To protect and manage critically eroding beaches, the Legislature enacted the Beach and Shore Preservation Act (BSPA), specifically directing the State to provide for beach restoration and nourishment projects.