City of Sweetwater v. Dade County
This text of 343 So. 2d 953 (City of Sweetwater v. Dade County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
In. August of 1973 the appellant City of Sweetwater, a municipality in Dade County, by ordinance enacted by the governing body of the city, annexed five acres of land lying in the county, contiguous to that city. In so doing, the city employed a method of annexation prescribed in section 171,16 Florida Statutes 1973. That general act provided that on petition of owners of property so situated in a county the governing body of the municipality by ordinance could annex such property and redefine the boundary lines of the municipality to include said property.
On September 26, 1975, the City of ’Sweetwater filed an action against Dade .County for a declaratory judgment as to the validity of such annexation. In its answer thereto Dade County admitted the action taken by the city,- and presented the contentions that, the general act under [954]*954which the city made the annexation was not applicable to Dade County; that the method of annexation used was not that which was provided for by Dade County; that the latter was controlling; and that the annexation which had been made by the City of Sweetwater was invalid. With consent of the parties, the court determined the matter by judgment on the pleadings.
In a full and well reasoned opinion and judgment the trial court sustained the contentions of the defendant Dade County. In the concluding paragraphs of the judgment the court held as follows:
“1. The purported annexation by the City of Sweetwater of the five (5) acres of real property involved in this cause is hereby held invalid.
“2. The method of municipal annexation set forth in Section 5.04 of the Dade County Charter presently constitutes the exclusive method of modifying municipal boundaries in Dade County.
“3. Subsections 1(a) through (i) of the Home Rule Amendment constitute those organic areas of autonomy and authority in local affairs conferred upon Dade County by the Florida Constitution and may not be diminished and curtailed by general laws of the State enacted after 1956.”
In so holding, the trial court was eminently correct. By Article VIII, section 6(e) Florida Constitution as revised in 1968, it was provided that section 11 of Article VIII of the Florida Constitution of 1885 (the Dade County Home Rule amendment) remained in full force and effect. In the latter it was expressly stated that the Dade County Home Rule Charter adopted by the electors could provide a method for changing the boundaries of all municipal corporations whose jurisdiction lies wholly within Dade County.1
The method provided by the Home Rule Charter was for changes of boundaries of a municipality (which would include an annexation) to be made by the Board of County Commissioners, and that no municipal boundaries should be altered except as thus provided for.2
The matter of changing boundaries of municipalities is one of the areas of autonomy conferred on Dade County by the Home Rule Amendment, with the result that the method provided therefor by the Home Rule Charter, pursuant to authorization by the Home Rule Amendment, is effective and exclusive, notwithstanding the existence from time to time of a general state law which makes provision for some other method. Gray v. Golden, 89 So.2d 785, 791 (Fla.1956); Dade County v. Young Democratic Club of Dade County, 104 So.2d 636, 639 (Fla.1958).
Affirmed.
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343 So. 2d 953, 1977 Fla. App. LEXIS 15532, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-sweetwater-v-dade-county-fladistctapp-1977.