| Monroe County settles property
lawsuit: Developers' heirs to get $5.9 million
February 23, 2003 By Jennifer Babson The Miami Herald One Herald Plaza Miami, Florida 33132 305-350-2111 or 1-800-HERALD5 To submit a Letter to the Editor: HeraldEd@herald.com Key West, Florida - Monroe County commissioners have voted to pay $5.9 million to two families for thwarting development of their oceanfront property in North Key Largo for eight years. The settlement comes after a Monroe circuit judge ruled in 2001 that the county violated the rights of the property owners by denying them use of their 145-acre parcel from 1982 until the state bought their land for about $6 million in 1990 for conservation purposes. The developers, Arthur Shadek and Joseph Harrison II, bought the land in 1969. Their intentions: turn the property into a 175-unit luxury resort called Ocean Forest. The two men, now deceased, spent $1.6 million dredging canals and making other preparations in an effort to ready their property for transformation into a resort similar to the nearby Ocean Reef Club, an exclusive gated community at the tip of Key Largo. Monroe County, however, stopped issuing routine permits for large developments in 1982. In 1986, a moratorium was issued for North Key Largo, which is near Biscayne and Everglades national parks. The families sued to recoup money they claim they would have made from the proceeds if the land had been sold in 1982, lawyer Douglas Halsey said. Halsey estimates that the sale price, before the restrictions were imposed, would have exceeded $40 million. Two years ago, Monroe Circuit Judge Luis Garcia agreed that the property's previous owners deserved compensation, although he didn't specify a dollar amount. Monroe's restrictions unfairly required the property's owners ''to bear the burdens that should have been imposed on society as a whole,'' Garcia wrote. Moreover, he noted, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court have held that a property owner is entitled to damages when government regulations effect a temporary ''taking'' of property in violation of the Constitution. At the time that Florida bought the 145 acres, state officials neglected to get a liability waiver that would have protected Monroe County from being sued, according to County Administrator Jim Roberts. Unique Circumstances ''These were unique circumstances where the state bought the property and didn't get a general release,'' Roberts said. "That's why these people were free to file a lawsuit.'' The county is scheduled to make its first payment within three weeks and is slated to make two more over two years. It may also seek assistance from the state to help pay the settlement, Roberts said. In the end, county commissioners feared they might have to shell out even more money if a jury were left to decide compensation. ''We put everything on the scales and decided that if we could get an agreement, this would not be setting a precedent and could not be used in the future in other takings cases,'' Monroe Commissioner George Neugent said. "We cut our losses.'' The settlement concludes a saga that began two decades ago, when the county and the state contended with an onslaught of big-ticket Key Largo development projects that sparked a revolt among environmentalists who feared the projects would pave over paradise. Many New Projects The projects ''seemed to suddenly spring up everywhere. There was a concern that development on that scale would do irreparable harm to the hammocks, to the environment, to the reef and to the ocean,'' said Tom Pelham, an attorney who represented a group of Key Largo residents in their 1980s battle against Port Bougainville -- a massive Mediterranean-style condominium project that was slated for North Key Largo but later fizzled. The standoff between developers and environmentalists was so fierce at the time that then-Gov. Bob Graham in 1984 appointed seven people to a committee that he said was supposed to help reconcile those conflicts. During the time that Shadek and Harrison were prevented from moving forward with their resort, the county also barred the developers from taking any action until county commissioners considered and initiated procedures for a ''Habitat Conservation Plan'' for North Key Largo. A plan was not adopted while they owned the Key Largo property. Last week, Halsey said, his clients finally prevailed. 'They got paid for it,'' he said. "But they got tortured for it for 8-½ years.'' Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks III contributed to this report, which was supplemented by material from Herald wire services. © 2003 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. |