Club, town request challenge delay

The Longboat Key Club and Resort and the town of Longboat Key have urged a judge to delay the Islandside Property Owners Coalition’s petition for a writ of certiorari, which challenges the town’s Comprehensive Plan and the Islandside renovation-and-expansion project ordinance the commission adopted in July.

For the petition challenge, a judge relies solely on the record formed during hearings, which were held at Temple Beth Israel, to make a decision.

On Tuesday, March 29, club attorneys and town attorney David Persson urged a Sarasota County Clerk of Court judge to postpone oral argument for the writ of certiorari and postpone the entire petition until the town completes amendments to the comp plan. The amendments are being made to make the plan consistent with code changes, which the Town Commission approved in May, regarding the Islandside project.

The town is working on comp plan amendments to further clarify its position with the state’s Department of Community Affairs (DCA).

“All parties have agreed in the state matter to abate that proceeding while the town finishes the DCA process,” Persson said.

A Tallahassee-based administrative law judge, meanwhile, has also agreed to postpone the scheduling of hearings regarding IPOC’s administrative appeal of the commission’s decision. The appeal will be postponed for at least six months.

But not everyone is on board with the town and the club’s request to postpone the writ of certiorari process.

IPOC attorney Robert Lincoln argued against the postponement and was granted 10 days to file a written argument that will explain to the judge why the process should continue. The town and the club will then be given five days to respond to Lincoln’s argument.

IPOC President Bob White told the Longboat Observer that the coalition disagrees that all three appeals are directly related and should be postponed.

“We believe the writ of certiorari is independent and we should move forward with it,” White said. “The Key Club has been claiming our (IPOC’s) objection was to delay construction, and now it’s the club that is asking for a delay of proceedings. It’s rather hypocritical to say we are trying to delay when these requests are delaying any future construction.”

Another challenge from IPOC still looms.

A request for a de novo hearing, which allows IPOC to ask for a new hearing challenging the Islandside project, still does not have a scheduled date yet in the Sarasota County Clerk of Court.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected]