Recently, in City of Tampa v. Liberty Hospitality Management, LLC, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal, discussed an unusual issue in a rezoning dispute. The question before the court was: whether a circuit court has jurisdiction to review a municipal rezoning decision when a city council acts in a quasi-judicial capacity. The answer, according to the Second District, is a resounding yes for one simple yet well-established reason, Florida’s constitutional separation-of-powers clause does not apply to local governments.[i]
The dispute arose when Liberty Hospitality Management’s attempt to rezone property on Harbour Island in Tampa to allow development of a hotel. Their objective was to increase the island’s hotel entitlements by 150 rooms and 160 parking spaces allocated to the project. After conducting a public hearing, the Tampa City Council denied the rezoning request, which resulted in Liberty seeking review in circuit court via the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari challenging the City Council’s decision.[ii]
Rather than addressing the merits of the rezoning decision, the circuit court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court reasoned that because the Tampa City Council is part of the legislative branch of municipal government, it could not exercise quasi-judicial authority unless the Florida Constitution expressly allowed it. Following that reasoning, the court concluded that Florida’s separation-of-powers clause prevented the City Council from engaging in quasi-judicial decision making and therefore prevented the circuit court from reviewing the decision through certiorari.[iii]
The Second District vehemently disagreed.
Writing for the court, Judge Morris opined that the circuit court’s analysis began with a fundamentally flawed premise. Article II, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution, divides the state government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.[iv] However, Florida courts have long recognized and held that this separation-of-powers pertains to the structure of the state government, not local government entities such as counties and municipalities.
Cities, the court noted, are creatures of the state without independent sovereignty. Because of that status, the constitutional separation-of-powers framework that governs the three branches of state government does not operate at the municipal level in the same way.[v]
Once that flawed premise was removed, the rest of the circuit court’s jurisdictional reasoning collapsed.
The Second District further explained that municipalities derive their authority from Article VIII, Section 2(b) of the Florida Constitution, which grants cities broad home-rule powers to conduct municipal government and exercise of powers for municipal purposes unless otherwise prohibited by law.[vi] Those powers include zoning authority and the ability to conduct hearings when evaluating development and rezoning applications.
Under well-established Florida law, site-specific zoning decisions are considered quasi-judicial rather than purely legislative. When a decision affects identifiable parties, requires a hearing, and involves applying existing policy to specific facts, the action takes on a quasi-judicial character.[vii]
That characterization matters because quasi-judicial decisions are subject to judicial review.
When a local government acts in a quasi-judicial capacity, its decision may be reviewed in circuit court through a petition for writ of certiorari.[viii] Certiorari review allows courts to ensure that local governments provide procedural due process and base their decisions on competent substantial evidence.
Because the Tampa City Council’s rezoning decision fit squarely within the aforementioned parameters, the circuit court had jurisdiction to review Liberty’s petition. By refusing to exercise that jurisdiction, the circuit court committed legal error.
The Second District therefore granted the City’s petition for mandamus and directed the circuit court to consider Liberty’s certiorari petition challenging the rezoning decision.
For practitioners, the case highlights the continuing importance of certiorari review in Florida land use litigation. Developers, property owners, and municipalities frequently litigate zoning disputes through the use of certiorari petitions, which ensures a limited yet critical mechanism for reviewing quasi-judicial local government decisions. Without that avenue of review, parties affected by site-specific zoning determinations would have little recourse to challenge procedural errors or evidentiary deficiencies in local decision making.
More broadly, City of Tampa serves as a reminder that constitutional doctrines designed to structure the branches of state government do not automatically translate to the operations of local government. Municipal power in Florida derives largely from home-rule powers granted by the Florida Constitution and statutes, not from the rigid separation of powers framework that governs the state’s legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
In other words, the separation of powers structure may keep Tallahassee in check, but it does not apply to city hall.
[i] City of Tampa v. Liberty Hospitality Mgmt., LLC, No. 2D2024-2082, 2026 WL 627977, at *6 (Fla. 2d DCA March 6, 2026)
[ii] Id.
[iii] Id.
[iv] Fla. Const. art. II, §3.
[v] Fried v. State, 355 So. 3d 899, 907 (Fla. 2023).
[vi] Fla Const. art. VIII, § 2(b).
[vii] Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Snyder, 627 So. 2d 469, 474 (Fla. 1993).
[viii] Fla. R. App. P. 9.030(c).