The Palm Beach Post reports that Palm Beach County commissioners will take the “unusual” step of voting again on the controversial $26 million Related Ross hotel transaction, following a lawsuit filed by two West Palm Beach neighborhood associations challenging the County’s initial approval.
The November 5 report details the County’s plan to revisit the agreement on November 10, in an apparent effort to render moot a lawsuit alleging that commissioners violated Florida’s Sunshine Law by approving the transaction without adequate public notice.
The Grandview Heights Neighborhood Association and West Palm Beach Neighborhood Alliance sued Palm Beach County and Related Ross following the September 29 approval of the 18-story, 400-room convention center hotel.
The article notes that Grandview Heights, which has marked the southern edge of downtown West Palm Beach for more than a century and features historic one and two-story homes, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Residents in the historic district, some of whom live within 50 feet of the proposed hotel, fear the massive development will negatively impact their community’s quality of life and exacerbate existing issues with overflow parking.
The lawsuit challenges the County’s use of an emergency agenda procedure to quickly advance the transaction, bypassing standard timelines. Though the proposal appeared on the agenda six days before the vote, the complete 715-page transaction file was not made publicly available until approximately 90 minutes before the meeting.
Under the agreement, the County would purchase the project land for $26 million, acquire the completed hotel and lease it back to a Related Ross affiliate for up to 97 years. County officials project more than $1 billion in revenue over the lease term, while the lawsuit alleges that lease payments will fall substantially below the property taxes the developer would otherwise pay.
"If they think that doing a redo is going to make this lawsuit go away, they are wrong," said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and lead attorney for the neighborhood groups. "What they need to do is engage with our clients and gain their input about what this project will do to them. And it appears they have no interest in doing that."
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