Navigation Charlotte County property owner challenges development fee of nearly $120,000 to protect endangered Florida bird
A Florida man is suing Charlotte County and several federal officials over a nearly $120,000 fee he is required to pay as part of a county Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) designed to protect the endangered Florida scrub-jay.
Michael Colosi, a tech entrepreneur, is the plaintiff in the federal lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Florida on Oct. 29. Colosi, who is represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, argues that the fee he would be required to pay in order to use about one-fifth of his 5-acre property to develop a single-family home is “enormous and arbitrary.”
Colosi would like to leave the remainder of his land in Punta Gorda, near Fort Myers, in its natural state, but the county’s HCP fees are based on the overall size of a property, not just the portion where the home would be constructed, according to the lawsuit. The fees are not pegged to actual impacts the development may have on the Florida scrub-jay’s habitat, the complaint says.
