Lakeland Commons v Town of Lakeland

Lakeland Commons v Town of Lakeland is a fairly routine denial of a planned unit development. The case does illustrate that it is hard to appeal a PUD denial in the face of a recommendation against the project by the Planning Commission. My feeling has always been that the Planning Commission reviews the objective requirements and at least tries to rule on those. Unfortunately, political considerations often appear in the deliberations of the legislative body. If the Planning Commission recommends against, the politics become irrelevant. The town council may simply base the denial on the Planning Commission recommendation against. Essentially, that is what happened in this case.