By Rich Pollack
The clearing of an almost-acre lot bordering the Intracoastal Waterway has once again sparked concerns of nearby residents who wonder what the future holds for one of the last vacant parcels in Highland Beach.
Late last year, residents of nearby condominiums noticed that trees — mostly federally protected mangroves on the 0.8-acre parcel in the middle of town owned by Miami-based Golden City Highland Beach LLC — had been taken down.
That sparked a flood of calls to town officials who, after doing some ground work, discovered that the property owner had obtained permits from the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clear the land.
No approvals from the town were required to clear the property, Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.
“The town was preempted from stopping clearing of the land,” he said.
What happens next to the property, on the west side of State Road A1A south of the Toscana community, most likely will require the town to sign off.
“He has no authorization from the town to develop the property,” Labadie said. “He can’t just fill it and he can’t just put in a sea wall without permits.”
The clearing of the land without a permit, while permissible, is unusual, according to the town manager.
“Traditionally you get all the permits first before your clear the land,” Labadie said.
What will become of the parcel is still up in the air, but the developer appears to have proposed a nine-unit townhome community to the state in his request to take down mangroves, Labadie said.
That is a significant reduction from the 38-unit multi-family community proposed to the federal government in 2019.
That same year, leaders of Golden City and the town butted heads over clearing the parcel of trees that had fallen during Hurricane Irma in 2017.
It wasn’t the clearing of the downed trees that caused a problem, according to town officials, but what followed.
“He took it a step further and cleared the land and began filling it without permits,” Labadie said.
Lawyers for the developer argued at the time that no permit was needed because the town knew what was being done with downed trees and had no problem with the removal of trees and the addition of fill.
In the end, work on filling the property stopped.
Labadie said the town has not received any requests for permits on the Golden City property since the most recent clearing work began.
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