Two truckers from Palm Beach County, Florida, are taking legal action against the county over a truck parking ordinance that prohibits them from parking their trucks at their homes in the rural town of The Acreage, despite having done so for nearly two decades.
Jorge Alfaro and Clare Dougal, both residents of The Acreage and professional truck drivers, have been parking their trucks at home since at least 2003. However, this changed a few years ago when they began receiving fines for illegal parking following changes to the county’s Unified Land Development Code. In February, the Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance effectively banning truck parking on residential properties in The Acreage.
Less than two months later, Alfaro and Dougal filed a lawsuit against the county, asserting that the truck parking ban infringes upon their rights as property owners. They argue that the removal of parking ordinance exemptions for The Acreage was part of a targeted effort to gentrify the rural area, displacing blue-collar residents in favor of attracting white-collar residents through zoning changes.
“Amid the housing crisis and expanding population, Palm Beach County began a targeted campaign of rural gentrification for Palm Beach County seeking to retain and attract white-collar residents by slowly changing zoning ordinances to push out blue-collar commercial residents,” the lawsuit states.
The Acreage, a rural section of Palm Beach County, had historically been exempt from parking ordinances for residential zones. Despite the county’s implementation of a Unified Land Development Code in 2003, which stopped commercial vehicles from parking in residential districts, The Acreage remained excluded from this regulation.
However, amendments to the code in the following years began to break down and hurt this exemption.
In 2019, the county removed The Acreage’s exclusion from residential district parking ordinances, focusing instead on excluding only legally established nonresidential uses in agricultural residential districts. A further amendment in 2020 exacerbated the situation, resulting in enforcement actions against truckers who had been parking their trucks at home for nearly two decades.
Despite requests for exceptions, the county clarified truck parking rules in February, ultimately allowing only smaller vehicles at home-based businesses in The Acreage, effective from July 1.
Alfaro and Dougal argue that the truck parking ordinance effectively constitutes an eviction notice for residents of The Acreage and amounts to a regulatory taking of property. They claim that the county’s actions have not only deprived them of the intended use of their property but have also led to a decrease in property value.
“Accordingly, individuals such as plaintiffs now face the lose-lose option to remain on their land and receive continued citations and fines from the county’s rural gentrification efforts or leave their land and livelihoods behind,” the lawsuit states.
As a remedy, they seek a declaratory judgment against the county, asserting that the ordinances and associated citations violate their rights and requesting that the county be prohibited from enforcing the violations.
Palm Beach County has not provided comment.
Source: Land Line
