This South Palm Beach dock is the source of a dispute with Lantana, which says it controls the water. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Patrick Sherry and Larry Barszewski
The waters between Lantana’s Hypoluxo Island and the town of South Palm Beach are roiling with a dispute between the two towns that could be heading to court over which town controls dock permitting in the channel.
Lantana officials say they may sue their neighbor, with whom they thought they had good relations, over South Palm Beach’s effort to exert control over the permitting of docks for that town’s condos in the channel that Lantana says it has jurisdiction over.
The South Palm Beach Town Council at its Aug. 11 meeting approved an ordinance that affirms its permitting jurisdiction over docks, sea walls, piers and other waterfront structures within its boundaries.
That led the Lantana Town Council to call a special meeting on Aug. 17 because it says those structures would be built in water it controls, so permits for those structures must be issued by Lantana.
The new Intracoastal Waterway fight — which has its origins in a 70-year-old dispute between the two towns — has been brewing since last September, when Lantana approved a permit for a dock construction at the Concordia West condos in South Palm Beach, only to rescind that permission in November. The construction of the dock there continued and Lantana has been seeking since then to have the new structure demolished.
Lantana Town Attorney Max Lohman argued that the only waters South Palm Beach has jurisdiction over are on the ocean side of the town. He criticized that town’s ordinance as contradictory, claiming the language simultaneously does not establish new permitting requirements while prohibiting the construction of waterfront structures without a permit.
“Honestly, I am dumbfounded, genuinely,” Lohman said. “People rarely surprise me, but this actually surprised me.”
Preparing to sue
Before the town can take South Palm Beach to court, Lantana officials need to initiate a state-required intergovernmental conflict-resolution process, which its council approved on a unanimous vote. The town’s dispute with the Concordia West and East condos, at 3555 and 3560 S. Ocean Blvd., also continues, and officials said there are at least seven others that could construct a dock in what Lantana says is its jurisdiction.
“This is a situation where we have to react to this and deal with it,” Lohman said. “Otherwise, you’re just going to have docks thrown in the water over there, and we’re going to be buying multiple lawsuits.”
But South Palm Beach officials are just as adamant that any permitting of docks or other structures for South Palm Beach condos should come from their town.
“My message to the town of South Palm Beach is that we have no option but to vigorously defend the right of our residents, for those property owners that live by the water to wharf out,” Mayor Rafael Pineiro said. “We have no choice but to take a position that we are a municipality, we will exercise our rights, and I will defend their right to do that. I don’t think we have a choice.”
South Palm Beach says it has zoning control over docks like this one, seen from the roof of Concordia West. The wooden dock, which Lantana says should be demolished, has a floating kayak launch. Hypoluxo Island is visible across the channel.
A channel with a history
South Palm Beach Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said Lantana was not “playing nice” with permitting, so the recent ordinance was an attempt to take back control as he said South Palm had before 1994. He also cited an attempt by both towns in 1994 to settle the dispute, but the effort ended without an agreement.
To make sense of what’s happening now, you have to go back almost a century, as detailed in a 1961 Palm Beach Post story.
Lantana’s original borders extended to the ocean, but in 1931 were pulled back to the eastern edge of the Intracoastal. When South Palm Beach incorporated in 1955, it set its boundary as the middle of the channel between the town and Hypoluxo Island.
Lantana took the issue to the state Legislature, which in 1959 asserted that the borders were as Lantana said.
Is a resolution possible?
Today, South Palm Beach’s situation is similar to one Lantana recently faced with the town of Palm Beach over 15 properties in the northernmost portion of Hypoluxo Island, along North Atlantic Drive.
The water adjacent to those properties is in the town of Palm Beach’s waters. The two towns reached an agreement in June that allows Lantana to process permits for boat docks, piers, pilings, boat lifts, floating docks and related structures.
While Lantana will use its own permitting standards and codes when reviewing applications, the agreement also indemnifies the town of Palm Beach from any claims or liabilities arising from its adherence to the agreement.
Titcomb was asked if something like that would work between South Palm Beach and Lantana.
“Will we get something like that? I don’t know,” Titcomb said. “I’m hoping we don’t get to the point of litigation, but I’ve expressed to their officials and others that I’m quite confident that on the legal issues we will prevail” because Lantana is interfering with the riparian rights of property owners that are protected by the state.
Lantana sent a certified copy of the resolution to South Palm Beach requesting a meeting for the conflict assessment. That meeting will take place at 1 p.m. Sept. 18 at Lantana Town Hall. If the dispute is not resolved, the resolution authorizes town officials to pursue legal action to protect Lantana’s jurisdiction and authority.
“If things degenerate to the point that we would have to sue another municipality, this is a prerequisite that we must complete in order to move forward,” Lohman said.
Council member Jesse Rivero said, “I hope their attorney and their town manager can maybe talk some decency or some sense.”
Robert Haughn and Mary Thurwachter contributed to this story.
Comments
Letter to the Editor — Town of South Palm Beach
For: The Coastal Star
Re: “Towns fight over who controls Intracoastal dock permitting,” Sept. 2, 2026
Your story fairly reports that two neighboring towns are now in Florida’s Chapter 164 process. Two facts did not make the first cut. They change the picture.
First, this is not a new fight that South Palm Beach started in August. South Palm Beach’s 1955 charter runs to the midline of the lagoon. Our own charter still prints an editor’s note that the 1959 Lantana special act created an overlap. In 1968 Lantana, South Palm Beach, and Manalapan signed a joint resolution on the bulkhead and tidal channel that recognized South Palm Beach’s interest in that water. In December 1994 our council adopted Resolution 225 asking the Legislature to delete the overlapping submerged land from Lantana’s charter and reconfirm our 1955 line. On January 13, 1995, Lantana tabled that request after Hypoluxo Island residents objected. The conflict was written into the charters. It was not invented by an ordinance last month.
Second, the immediate harm is not “docks thrown in the water.” It is a completed structure at Concordia — built after state and federal approvals and after Lantana itself issued a permit — that Lantana later revoked and has since demanded be torn down, with a warning that South Palm Beach properties should expect no docks now or in the future. That is what brought us to Chapter 164. Lantana initiated the statute. We will sit at the table on September 18 in good faith. What we will not do is treat our residents’ right to reach navigable water as a courtesy Lantana may withdraw.
The Palm Beach–Lantana agreement you cite is the proof, not the contradiction. When fifteen Hypoluxo docks were found to sit in Palm Beach water, Lantana asked to keep issuing the permits from the upland town. Palm Beach agreed. The same logic applies on our side of the channel: the people who live on the barrier island, pay taxes here, and own the riparian upland should not need a veto from the town across the water to put a lawful dock in front of their own building. Riparian rights run with the upland. They do not disappear because two charters overlap.
Chapter 164 is a process, not a verdict. The boundary question can take years. The enforcement question cannot. While we talk, Concordia should not be under a demolition threat, and South Palm Beach owners should not be told they are forbidden to use the water at their back door. Call off the removal demand. Keep the channel safe and navigable. Let the two towns do what 1968 already contemplated — work the water together — instead of spending public money so that only lawyers win.
We will be at Lantana Town Hall at 1 p.m. on September 18 ready to do that.
Rafael Pineiro
Mayor, Town of South Palm Beach