Argyle Area Civic Council

Jensen apartment must be Razed.

http://www.ccfj.net/HOAFLrazed.html

Jensen apartment complex must be razed. Buildings are illegal, primarily because they were built too close to neighboring single-family homes in the Pinecrest Lakes development.

06/07/02
By Sarah Eisenhauer, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Article Courtesy of Palm Beach Post

JENSEN BEACH -- Thomas Thomson gambled when he built a $3 million cluster of luxury apartment buildings about four years ago, ignoring a lawsuit filed by nearby homeowners alleging the buildings violated Martin County's growth rules.

The Florida Supreme Court has proven just how risky that gamble was.

The state's highest court sided with a controversial ruling requiring five apartment buildings in the Villas of Pinecrest Lakes to be demolished, according to an order lawyers received Thursday.

By agreeing not to hear the developer's appeal, the court upheld the 4th District Court of Appeal's decision that the buildings are illegal, primarily because they were built too close to neighboring single-family homes in the Pinecrest Lakes development.

''I'm elated,'' said Karen Shidel, the only Pinecrest Lakes resident who kept the lawsuit alive after the homeowners association settled two years ago. ''I'm glad I stuck with it.''

The Supreme Court decision also had growth-management activists celebrating a victory they say could have repercussions for residents throughout the state. Local governments should not dismiss neighbors who show up at meetings and argue a development could have negative effects on their neighborhood, they said.

Thomson argued throughout the seven-year legal fight that his buildings should be allowed to stay because he had permission from the county commission to build.

''This shows residents do have a dog in the fight. The overarching sense I get from this is that growth management issues get so political,'' said attorney Richard Grosso of the Environmental Land Use and Law Center, who represented Shidel. ''The right thing so frequently doesn't get done. It takes a court of law to come in and do justice.''

In Shidel's first victory in the case, Treasure Coast Circuit Judge Larry Schack ruled in 1999 that the buildings violate Martin County's growth-management plan and must come down. He said the apartments weren't compatible with the single-family homes and violated a county policy that calls for ''tiering,'' or gradually increasing densities between neighborhoods.

The Martin County Commission approved the apartments by a 3-2 vote in 1995, prompting a lawsuit from the homeowners association less than a month later. Several residents argued throughout the approval process that the plans didn't comply with the county's rules for growth.

Schack put the demolition on hold until the developer ran out of appeals. The apartments must be razed within 45 days of the final court ruling, he ruled.

Grosso said he expects the state Supreme Court's decision is the final ruling. In order for Thomson to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he must show a federal issue is in question.

''I cannot imagine any legal theory that would show a federal issue,'' he said. ''These are purely state issues. This court case is legally done.''

Officials in Thomson's Wisconsin office referred phone calls to his lawyers in Tallahassee and Stuart but none returned calls for comment.

Builders associations, developers and local governments throughout the state have followed the case closely. Builders worry it will encourage frivolous challenges and governments fear it will remove some of their ability to interpret their own development rules.

Jensen apartment must be Razed.2

The Florida Home Builders Association dedicated part of its Web site to the case, stating that it ''strips local governments of their zoning decisions, and halts development projects, possibly for years, in cases involving citizen challenges until all the legal remedies are exhausted.''

The appellate judges dismissed Thomson's argument that his loss of $3 million from tearing down the buildings is much greater than the nearby homeowners' loss in property value from allowing them to remain standing.

The judges countered that the alleged inequity would have been avoided if the developer had simply waited for all the legal challenges to finish before constructing the apartments.

The Villas' property manager also could not be reached for comment Thursday on how many residents live there. In September, 24 families lived in the buildings ordered to be torn down. A few have since moved out.

Jessie Herrick, a South Fork High School teacher, said she is not happy about having to move.

''Wow, it stinks,'' she said. ''It kind of puts my summer into a pitfall.''

Neighbors Harry and Jeanne Owings, who moved into their apartment a year ago, said they were not surprised by the Supreme Court's decision not to take the case, but they are ''very unhappy'' about it.

''There isn't anywhere around with the square footage of these apartments with an attached garage,'' Jeanne Owings said.

But after 28 years of living in Jensen Beach, the Owings said they moved into Pinecrest Villas knowing the litigation over the buildings remained unresolved.

''It was not a secret,'' Harry Owings said of the lawsuit. ''We moved in knowing about the lawsuit.''

''We kept hoping for a miracle,'' Jeanne Owings added. ''It's been like sitting on a cliff, not knowing if you're going to fall.''

The Villas model office was closed late Thursday when Linda Houston arrived, hoping to rent an apartment in the complex for her daughter.

''There are so few apartments out here and these are the nicest ones I know in the area,'' she said.

Shidel said she believes the renters are also ''innocent victims.'' But after the long legal battle, she hopes her house will soon be out from under the shadow of the two-story apartment building.

''That will be vindication,'' Shidel said.

Supreme Court backs neighbors

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102502/met_10788767.shtml

Friday, October 25, 2002
Supreme Court backs neighbors in growth fight. Ruling against hotel on Intracoastal stands.

By Steve Patterson Times-Union staff writer

The Florida Supreme Court yesterday ended a complex fight over a city's freedom to interpret growth plans by siding with neighbors who sued Jacksonville City Hall.

The court withdrew from the case, upholding an earlier verdict that Planning and Development Director Jeannie Fewell wrongly approved construction of a hotel on Intracoastal Waterway property intended for other uses.

City lawyers argued it was the planning director's job to interpret the intent of the local growth management plan.

The case had implications for growth planning statewide and drew broad legal attention. The Florida League of Cities, the Florida Home Builders Association, a section of the Florida Bar and 1,000 Friends of Florida, a growth-management advocacy group, all filed briefs with the court.

The suit also evolved into a test of wills between City Hall and the proposed development's neighbors, a family who spent an estimated $150,000 contesting the city's decisions.

''It put a big hole in my pocket,'' said Charles Dixon Jr., a building-materials company owner and retired Army colonel who lives at the southern end of San Pablo Road. ''The city fought me from one end to the other with my tax payments. At one time they had five lawyers arrayed against me.''

City officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Dixon said he sued because city lawyers said he could not pursue an out-of-court appeals process described in city growth plans. ''The fact that they didn't allow me to appeal made me mad,'' he said.

The dispute dates back more than five years, to before developer Duke Steinemann received city approval to build the 15-acre San Pablo Place complex. It was to include a nine-story hotel, 150,000 square feet of offices and space for small retailers.

Dixon and his neighbors said Jacksonville's growth plan didn't allow a hotel zoning there. To have a hotel there, they said, the city had to change its growth plan with approval from the state Department of Community Affairs. The state would decide whether the changed plan met Florida's growth-management laws.

Instead, Fewell wrote an administrative opinion that a hotel met a general tone of development the plan foresaw. No plan change was needed and no state approval, the city said.

A Jacksonville circuit judge agreed with the city, but the 1st District Court of Appeal said Fewell was wrong. The city appealed to the Supreme Court.

After deciding to hear the case, the Supreme Court reversed itself yesterday and said it had no reason to get involved.

Steinemann had already dropped out of the lawsuit. He agreed to limit the hotel's size, build buffers around it and get state approval for the project if the Dixons would agree not to oppose the project. The hotel hasn't been built yet.

The Dixon family's attorney, Paul Harden, said he would try to get City Hall to repay the family's legal bills.

Staff writer Steve Patterson can be reached at (904) 359-4263 or at spatterson@jacksonville.com.

Bad Planning & Spot Zoning

This is an unpublished letter to the editor that was sent to the
Times Union Editor on Tuesday, January 21, 2003

This time I have to agree with Ron Littlepage. AT&T Broadband and Shands HealthCare have definitely set the bar for the Worst Public Relations Move of the Century Award. But, there is another corporate citizen trying to earn this infamous award.

Walgreens has been on an aggressive store building campaign to ''put a store on every corner''; a modern version of President Herbert Hoover's campaign promise of ''a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage''. The only problem with this corporate slogan is that they are running out of usable corners of commercial real estate.

So what do you do if there is a corner at Argyle Forest Blvd and Rampart Road that is designated as Residential in the 2010 comprehensive land use plan and you want to build a Walgreens on that corner? Well, first you have to forget that area residents fought hard against a Food Lion on that same site in 1987. Then you have to ignore the fact that there are six other available corners for commercial real estate development along Argyle Forest Blvd. You also have to overlook the fact that this development will drastically change the character of the neighborhood since the other three corners are residential. Then you hire former City Council President Joe Forshee and his employer's company, Sleiman Enterprises, to help get the Jacksonville Planning and Development Department to approve the change in the zoning from residential to commercial.

However, in Sleiman Enterprises haste to get this pushed through the City Council, the Planning Commission, and the Land Use and Zoning Committee, they forgot to check with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and the Better Jacksonville Plan. It is common knowledge that Argyle Forest Blvd is going to be widened and that Rampart Road will need to be 6-laned by 2025 in the same place that the Walgreens parking lot would be located. Now the application for rezoning has been deferred so that the Jacksonville Planning and Development Department, Jacksonville Transportation Authority, Better Jacksonville Plan officials, and Civil Services, Inc. can help Walgreens and Sleiman Enterprises correct the application and re-do the site plan for the new Walgreens.

Spot Zoning is when a zoning change is approved without following the current land use plan. Spot Zoning has not been done in Duval County for 20 years. This is clear example of Spot Zoning and an example of the Jacksonville Planning and Development Department not checking the application thoroughly before signing off on it for approval to go before the City Council, the Planning Commission, and the Land Use and Zoning Committee. Also, a majority of the Argyle Forest residents do not want this Walgreens because of the increased traffic congestion, the poor site accessibility planning, and the drastic changes to the character of the neighborhood.

The very people Walgreens purports to serve can only get to this proposed store by making u-turns on Argyle Forest Blvd or in one of three neighborhoods close-by. Access from Rampart Road will come from the turn lanes waiting to turn west onto AFB. North bound traffic on Rampart will be in the u-turn parade. No wonder the neighbors are up in arms. No wonder the Argyle Area Civic Council is up in arms.

Bill Lewis
Consultant
Chimney Lakes resident in Argyle Forest