By Steve Plunkett
Federal appeals judges in Atlanta have handed Boca Raton an early holiday gift: The city will not have to pay more than $1 million in legal fees to the owner of a vacant beachfront parcel who has spent years trying to secure a building permit.
At the same time, they have taken away the “right” to build on 2500 N. Ocean Blvd. that property owner Natural Lands LLC had won from U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith.
Smith had ruled in March 2024 that Natural Lands “has the right to build a single-family, detached dwelling” on the site “subject to satisfying the city’s CCCL variance criteria.”
But, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided last month, “under our precedent, Natural Lands does not have a viable (federal) claim because it did not use the available and adequate State remedy to address its alleged injury.”
“Accordingly, the district court erred in granting relief on Natural Lands’s procedural due process claim. We reverse and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss the claim,” the appeals court said Nov. 17.
Because the due process claim was not properly before the district court, that court “abused its discretion in awarding Natural Lands attorney’s fees and costs related to that claim. Thus, we reverse the district court’s fee award as well,” the ruling concluded.
The case began in 2011 when the landowner first applied for a building permit.
In December 2015 the City Council caused a public outcry when it approved a zoning variance to allow something to be built at 2500 N. Ocean, an 88.5-foot-wide lot. City rules normally require lots at least 100 feet wide.
Natural Lands planned to build a 48-foot-tall, 8,666-square-foot single-family home at the site and obtained a Notice to Proceed from the state Department of Environmental Protection in October 2016.
But the council on July 23, 2019, denied a variance to its Coastal Construction Control Line, which limits building east of State Road A1A.
Natural Lands filed its federal lawsuit in October 2019 alleging bias among City Council decision-makers, suggesting a potential procedural due process claim.
At the trial, Smith found that Mayor Scott Singer’s “bias was clear” and he would have to recuse himself from any future decisions on whether to give Natural Lands a CCCL variance.
Also ordered to recuse themselves were Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte, who were similarly found to be unfairly biased. But both have been term-limited out of office, as Singer will be next March.
On appeal, the city argued that Smith erred in granting judicial relief based on the procedural due process claim because an adequate state remedy, certiorari review of the council decision by the Palm Beach County Circuit Court, was available.
“We agree,” the federal appeals court said.
Its decision has not made its way to Smith’s calendar yet.
Lawyers for Natural Lands had filed documents with Smith seeking $1,034,253.50 plus interest for attorney’s fees and $28,841 in costs. The court denied the requests while the appeal was pending.
Natural Lands and the city met for a “planning advisory review” of its site plans on July 22. But the landowner has not applied for a building permit.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Smith’s ruling, the city and Azure Development LLC paused two contentious lawsuits in August 2024 and the City Council two months later granted a CCCL variance for a home on the beachfront at nearby 2600 N. Ocean Blvd. Azure had already won rulings in state court saying council members’ previous decisions were biased.
Azure applied for a permit last April to build a four-story, single-family home approximately 38 feet tall with 6,931 square feet of enclosed space, down from the originally proposed nearly 49-foot height and 14,270 square feet. The city is reviewing the application.
As part of the deal, Azure agreed to pay its own attorney’s fees, estimated to be in the $1 million range.
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