The State of the States in Environmental Dispute Resolution:
FLORIDA










 

Status:
The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) uses EDR with the assistance of the Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium (FCRC) in cases which have already been filed and in some permitting cases. The Governor’s Office, the Department of Community Affairs, and the Department of Transportation also make use of EDR. Some nonstate entities also make use of EDR in environmental conflicts that do not involve the state directly.

Legal Authority:
FLA. STAT. ANN. § 70.51 (West Supp. 1999) (codifying the Florida Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act, which establishes a procedure whereby land owners adversely impacted by a development order may challenge the order by initiating an informal, public special master hearing in which the special master acts as a "facilitator or mediator between the parties" with a "first responsibility . . . to facilitate a resolution of the conflict between the owner and governmental entities").

Contact Information:
     Robert M. Jones, Director, or Thomas A. Taylor, Assistant Director
     Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium
     Florida State University
     2031 East Paul Dirac Dr.
     Shaw Bldg., Suite 132
     Tallahassee, FL 32310-4161
     Phone: (850) 644-6320
     Fax: (850) 644-4968
     Website: http://consensus.fsu.edu
     E-mail: flacrc@mailer.fsu.edu

Program Summary

Nonstate Agency ADR Programs:
The FCRC is designated by statute as responsible for promoting the use of ADR for state land-use, environmental, and other policy issues. The FCRC seeks to be a catalyst, stimulating the interest in ADR and enhancing the ability of parties and practitioners to resolve disputes. The Mediation Institute at the University of Southern Florida also deals with some health-oriented environmental disputes. "American assemblies" have been used by the Joint Center for Sustainable Communities. The Tallahassee Neighborhood Justice Center provides EDR services in cases involving land-use disputes. Individual agencies use facilitators. Much of the enforcement affairs personnel are trained in the use of dispute resolution.

Department of Environmental Protection:
Mediation has been used successfully to solve disputes through the FCRC, in circuit court enforcement cases and in some permitting disputes. The DEP started on the EDR pilot program in 1990. An evaluative empirical study of nineteen environmental enforcement cases showed that "mediation is an effective method of settling environmental enforcement disputes" with more than seventy percent of cases being resolved.9  Participants in the study also indicated a high degree of satisfaction with EDR procedures. Following the agency’s pilot program, the DEP institutes mediation in approximately thirty to fifty enforcement actions annually.

Lessons Learned

  • Given limited resources, focusing on high profile cases involving important policy issues has helped big stakeholders understand the use of EDR and has helped expand the use of EDR.
  • Training programs educate participants, EDR practitioners, and decisionmakers.
  • A secure funding base is necessary for the program’s implementation.
  • Interagency cooperation improves the quality of EDR processes.
  • Supporting private practitioners is important.
  • There is some resistance to collaborative dispute resolution efforts, and some parties still want to litigate. These attitudes have decreased over the past few years.

Further Information

People

Chris Pedersen, Regional Director, and Rafael Montalvo, CRC Associate Director, Central Florida Regional Office, University of Central Florida, HPB Room 202, Orlando, FL 32816-0001, Phone: (407) 823-5174, Fax (407) 823-5651

Janice Fleischer, Regional Director, South Florida Regional Office, Florida Atlantic University, Social Science Bldg. Room 386, 777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991, Phone: (561) 367-3185 or (305) 442-6946, Fax: (561) 367-2626.

Publications

Neil G. Sipe & Bruce Stiftel, Mediating Environmental Enforcement Disputes: How Well Does It Work?, 15 ENVTL. IMPACT ASSESSMENT REV. 139 (1995).

Carol A. Forthman, Resolving Administrative Disputes, FLA. B.J., Mar. 1997, at 77.

David Spohr, Florida’s Takings Law: A Bark Worse than Its Bite, 16 VA. ENVTL. L.J. 313 (1997).

9   Neil G. Sipe & Bruce Stiftel, Mediating Environmental Enforcement Disputes: How Well Does It Work?, 15 Envtl. Impact Assessment Rev. 139, 139 (1995).

Indiana Conflict Resolution Institute
Last updated: June 1999
Comments: ICRI Administrator
Copyright 1999 - Indiana University, Bloomington