Key Club, town take appeal to the 2nd District court

The Longboat Key Club and Resort and town filed their petitions for second-tier certiorari review Jan. 30, in the 2nd District Court of Appeals. The petitions ask the court to determine whether the 12th Judicial Circuit Court departed from the essential requirements of the law when it ruled in favor of the Islandside Property Owners’ Coalition (IPOC) and L’Ambiance and Sanctuary condominium associations and quashed the Town Commission’s ordinance that approved the Longboat Key Club and Resort’s proposed $400 million redevelopment project.

The town’s 33-page petition spells out the legal arguments, while the Key Club’s five-page petition states:

“The Club adopts the facts, statement of relief sought and argument set forth in the Town’s petition.”

Key Club Associates attorney John Patterson said that the arguments were made in a single petition to avoid redundancy and that the parties will file a motion to consolidate the petitions. The Key Club continues to pay the town’s legal costs associated with the case.

The petition alleges that the court didn’t follow the proper standard for reviewing the evidence in the record of the proceedings before commissioners that led up to the June 30, 2010, approval of the project.

The town’s petition states that the court’s duty was to review the record for evidence that supports the agency’s decision, rather than rebut it, and that the court departed from the essential requirements of the law by reweighing evidence.

In the petition, the town argues that the court gave improper weight to a May 2010 staff report from Monica Simpson, who was Planning Zoning & Building director at the time, in which she indicated that she could not recommend approval of the revised plan.

However, according to the town’s and Key Club’s arguments, the court isolated those arguments without considering testimony from Simpson and other planning professionals who supported approval of the application.

The petition also alleges that the court failed to recognize that the town’s Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code are subject to more than one reasonable interpretation and that Florida law requires the court to give great weight to a local agency’s interpretation of its own statutes.

“Here, the circuit court failed to defer to the Town’s interpretation of language in its Zoning Code that is, at the very least, ambiguous and does not clearly and unambiguously preclude approval of the Application,” the petition states. “The Court thereby created an inconsistency in the application of the code that disfavors the property owners’ right to use their property as they desire and ignores the Town’s stated intent to allow such uses.”

Town attorney David Persson told the Longboat Key Town Commission at its Feb. 6 meeting that IPOC and the associations received an order to produce a response and would have 20 days to do so. Lincoln said before the order was issued that he did not believe the Key Club had shown a basis for the challenge.

“We will have to wait to determine whether the 2nd District has even established a valid basis for a challenge,” Lincoln said. “I think they (the Key Club and town) are resting their challenge on an attempt to misrepresent what the judge said.”

Lincoln estimates that if the appeal moves forward, it could take as little as four to five months or as long as a year.

As the appeals process moves forward, the town will likely review its Zoning Code and Comprehensive Plan to clarify what many see as ambiguities in the regulations.

Patterson said that the review is “totally independent” of the appeal. If changes are made to town regulations, the Key Club could file a new application with the town while the appeal remains pending.

Lincoln said that the town could benefit from a review of its codes and Comprehensive Plan but that it shouldn’t be done to accommodate the Key Club.

“The real problem is that if it’s being done because they want to be able to approve certain things, it won’t be a solid foundation for the future,” he said.