Opinion ID: 1695578
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the severance of i-95 connections to s.r. 84

Text: Initially, the petitioners candidly concede, and we now find, that DOT's severance of the I-95 connections to S.R. 84 did not sufficiently diminish the petitioners' easements of access so as to constitute a taking. Rather, as we have recently concluded in a similar case, the severance effectuated a diversion of traffic which Florida courts have consistently held not to be compensable. Department of Transp. v. Gefen, 636 So.2d 1345, 1346 (Fla. 1994). In Gefen, this Court was also confronted with a factual scenario involving a loss of access to I-95. The district court had approved a finding of a taking through loss of access based on Tessler. We reversed, and described the facts as follows: L.I. Gefen brought an inverse condemnation suit against the Department of Transportation (DOT) alleging that closure of the Interstate 95 (I-95) entrance and exit ramps at McCoy Creek Boulevard destroyed her property's access to I-95, thereby rendering the property valueless and resulting in a taking without compensation. Gefen presented evidence that the property was prime commercial real estate and the closure of the I-95 ramps destroyed it as a profitable business site. The trial judge held that the closure of the ramps constituted a taking without compensation and entered a final judgment requiring DOT to institute an eminent domain proceeding so that damages could be determined. The district court affirmed on the authority of Palm Beach County v. Tessler, 538 So.2d 846 (Fla. 1989). Id. Our analysis in Gefen is dispositive of the issue here: Here, the question is simply whether landowners who enjoy convenient access to and from limited access state highways such as I-95 have a compensable vested right to that access. This Court has ruled that they do not. No person has a vested right in the maintenance of a public highway in any particular place because the state owes no person a duty to send traffic past his door. Jahoda v. State Road Dep't, 106 So.2d 870, 872 (Fla. 2d DCA 1958), disapproved on other grounds, Department of Transp. v. Stubbs, 285 So.2d 1 (Fla. 1973). Access, as a property interest, does not include a right to traffic flow even though commercial property might very well suffer adverse economic effects as a result of reduced traffic. Stubbs, 285 So.2d at 4. The commercial impact of traffic changes was more recently addressed in Department of Transportation v. Capital Plaza, 397 So.2d 682 (Fla. 1981), in which a median, installed as part of a road widening project, channeled traffic away from and limited turns into a service station. The court ruled that there was no deprivation of access but rather a redirection of traffic, for which no recovery was available. Id. at 683. Id. For the same reasons expressed in Gefen, we find that no compensable taking occurred when DOT severed the I-95 connections to S.R. 84 and, hence, to petitioners' properties.