New application could revive Key Club plan

The Longboat Key Club and Resort’s $400 million expansion and renovation project is dead.
At least, the current version of it is.

The Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal affirmed the ruling of 12th Judicial Circuit Judge Charles Roberts, who quashed the town-approved development order in favor of the club, by granting a writ of certiorari to the Islandside Property Owners Coalition and L’Ambiance and Sanctuary condominium associations in their challenge of the ordinance by which the Longboat Key Town Commission approved a development order for the project in June 2010.

“Personally, I’m very disappointed,” said John Patterson, attorney representing the Key Club, Wednesday, Aug. 29, after the ruling came down. “But I’m not going to recommend proceeding” with more legal appeals.
“It means the application that was approved is dead,” Patterson said.

But, although the application itself is dead, a new application could resuscitate plans for a renovated and expanded Islandside resort.

Key Club General Manager Michael Welly said Friday, Aug. 31, that the resort has always had a “Plan B” — i.e. filing a new application.

Since the beginning of the year, the commission has revised the town’s code to directly address many of the issues raised in Roberts’ ruling.

In fact, a new application could be virtually identical to the application that the commission approved, Welly said.

Key Club officials will discuss to directly address many of the issues raised in Roberts’ ruling.

In fact, a new application could be virtually identical to the application that the commission approved, Welly said.

Key Club officials will discuss the next steps with the resort’s London-based investors, many of whom were on vacation at the time of the ruling.

“Until they get back next week, we won’t be able to recommend the next steps,” Welly said. “Doing it by the numbers, we’re pretty much in limbo, if you will.”

IPOC President Bob White said that he is expecting another application of some sort.

“I would hope that a reapplication would be something that would be more consistent with the town code and more in compliance with the tenets of the Islandside PUD (planned unit development) are and have been,” White said.

Meanwhile, a declaratory case, in which IPOC is the sole plaintiff and the town the lone defendant, remains pending in the 12th Judicial Circuit Court before Judge Lee Haworth. The suit initially claimed that the development order through which the Longboat Key Town Commission approved the Key Club’s $400 million redevelopment-and-expansion plan was inconsistent with the town’s Comprehensive Plan.

In July, IPOC filed an amended complaint challenging recent zoning code changes.

IPOC attorney Robert Lincoln said that he believes that the Key Club could encounter problems with the town’s Comprehensive Plan and zoning code if it preceded with an application at the current time. He argued that the ordinance that changed the zoned district and development standards without amending the zoning map.

Lincoln said he believes that the ruling “puts to bed” many of the town’s defenses that he described as predicated around the idea that IPOC was improperly attacking the project’s development order.

“Now, clearly, the development order doesn’t exist any longer and we’re not attacking the development order anymore,” Lincoln said.

Not surprisingly, Welly expressed disappointment following the ruling.

“When we went into this, we obviously understood that the odds were not in our favor,” he said.

But the nearly three months that passed following June 5 oral arguments gave way to optimism among Key Club officials and supporters.

The court could have issued a per curium ruling in which the three-judge panel would have upheld Roberts’ ruling without writing an opinion — a decision that could have come within a few weeks.

But, as the case remained pending, many speculated that the court was writing an opinion, which would be required to overturn the ruling. Instead, the court wrote an opinion upholding the decision.

“ … I think the time it took them to rule maybe misled us all a bit,” Welly said.

White, meanwhile, felt vindicated by the ruling.

“The fact that the court has upheld the ruling shows that the Town Commission has egregiously exercised its power and abused its code in violation of the law,” he said. “Frankly, I think that those commission members who are still sitting, who agreed to this, should resign. I think they owe the residents of Longboat Key, as well as the residents of Islandside, an apology.”

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
In a 12-page opinion, Judge Edward LaRose, who authored the opinion, and Judges Nelly Khouzam and Robert Morris Jr. rejected both of the town’s and Key Club’s arguments. The arguments stated the circuit court improperly reweighed evidence by singling out testimony from former Planning Zoning & Building Director Monica Simpson, in which she stated that she could not recommend approval of the project, and that the court should have applied the town’s interpretation of any ambiguities in its zoning code consistently and in a manner that favors property owners, whenever possible.

The appeals court ruled that the circuit court’s “analysis focused with precision on the specific words in the code and its definitions, only mentioning Ms. Simpson’s testimony to summarize the arguments before making its own decision utilizing statutory interpretation.”

The court rejects the argument that recitation of Simpson’s testimony amounts to reweighing evidence, stating that it could thwart reasoned judicial evidence and encourage a judge to omit meaningful background information.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].