County appeals land-use law decision

Pasco County officials will fight a federal judge's ruling that essentially called a local ordinance an end-run around eminent domain laws.

U.S. District Court Judge Steven Merryday, in an April 12 decision, calls Pasco County's right-of-way ordinance “a most uncommon regulatory regime.” The county requires property owners to donate land if it's in what officials say will be a high-traffic area, in return for permits to develop the property. (See Business Observer, April 26)

But Merryday, in a case that pitted developers Mike Kass and George Karpay against the county, wrote the “ordinance is an unmistakable, abusive, and coercive misapplication of governmental power, perpetrated to cynically evade the Constitution.”