Appeal Court Stands by Ruling Against Orange Rent-cap Vote, Will Not Rehear Arguments

An appeals court in Daytona Beach on Wednesday decided against rehearing arguments from lawyers for Orange County government who hoped to persuade the three-judge panel to let voters decide a proposed rent-cap ordinance on the Nov. 8 ballot. In a 2-1 decision last week, the panel had reversed a lower court’s ruling keeping the disputed measure on the ballot. The county didn’t immediately say whether it would appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. The case now heads back to Orlando where Circuit Judge Jeff Ashton has scheduled a conference Friday with county lawyers and lawyers from Shutts & Bowen, who argued against the rent cap on behalf of landlord groups the Florida Realtors and Florida Apartment Association.

By nixing a rehearing, the panel also affirmed its decision ordering the county to foot the legal bill for the landlords’ challenge. Commissioner Emily Bonilla, who proposed the rent cap and headlined a rally for it this week, declined to discuss the decision by the Fifth District Court of Appeal or the ruling saddling county taxpayers with the opponents’ as-yet-undisclosed attorney fees. “Because everything is kind of an open case right now, I just really want to be careful not to comment on it,” she said. Unless the county appeals to the Florida Supreme Court, Ashton will decide how to proceed in wake of the appeals court opinion that he erred when he allowed the rent-cap ordinance to remain on the ballot despite the measure’s “misleading ballot summary.”

Early voting began Oct. 24 and ends Sunday so it’s far too late to take the issue off the ballot or to reconfigure tabulation software to prevent machines from counting votes in favor and against, said attorney Nick Shannin, representing Elections Supervisor Bill Cowles. “It also wouldn’t make sense to tell a group of voters this question is off the ballot if there’s a chance it’s not,” Shannin said. Ashton could order election officials to not certify the results of the rent-cap issue, nullifying its intended effect. In an interview earlier this week, Cowles offered advice to county voters bewildered by the continuing legal saga over the rent-cap measure, which a realtors’ political action group has decried as “socialism” in $700,000 worth of direct-mail political postcards. “My message is real simple,” Cowles said. “Voters, just keep voting your ballot. We will continue to monitor the court process.”

Both the county’s legal team and lawyers for landlord groups filed written arguments as directed by the appeals court. In a 26-page brief, lawyers Carly Schrader and Dylan Schott, representing the county, argued the appellate panel’s decision had “overlooked or misapprehended points of fact and law.”

They also disputed the panel’s conclusion that the county failed to prove the existence of “a housing emergency so grave as to constitute a serious menace to the general public,” as state law requires. They noted the county commission found “existing and widespread community distress” over spiking rents. Among the reasons commissioners cited for the emergency were an increasing county population; a housing inventory below demand; displacement of tenants unable to pay higher rents; and “hardships on senior citizens, persons on fixed incomes, and low and moderate income households.” The county also asked the appellate panel to reconsider awarding legal fees to the landlord groups. Breaking News Breaking News As it happens Be the first to know with email alerts on important breaking stories from the Orlando Sentinel newsroom.

The latter finding would put taxpayers on the hook to pay for lawyers who represented Realtors and apartment owners. Those lawyers, Scott Glass, Daniel Nordby and Erik Szabo of Shutts & Bowen, urged the panel to disregard the county’s latest “re-argument.” They said the county “improperly reasserts arguments previously addressed in its merits briefs and correctly rejected by the court.” In a nine-page brief, the lawyers for the landlord groups said a rehearing is not a forum to ask the appellate court to “change its mind as to a matter which has already received the careful attention of the judges, or to further delay the termination of litigation.” Orange County commissioners decided 4-3 in August to put the measure on the ballot Nov. 8.

The measure would cap rent increases at 9.8% for potentially 104,000 apartments in Orange County. The percentage is equal to the increase of the Consumer Price Index over a span of 12 months. If it survived legal challenges and was approved by voters, the measure would be in effect for a year — unless residents voted to extend it in a second election.

*Story sourced from Orlando Sentinel