Boca Del Mar homeowners fighting for their investment in their PUD Master Plan that includes their former Mizner Trail golf greens, were dealt a legal setback Tuesday, February 17, when the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court in Palm Beach County denied the homeowners’ appeal of the county commission’s vote to re-zone the course from recreational space to residential housing. The three-judge appeal panel also denied a motion by development company Mizner Trail Golf Club, Ltd., to impose sanctions on the petitioners. The judges offered no explanation for their denials.
The Boca Del Mar Improvement Association (BDMIA), along with individual homeowners, appealed the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners’ (BCC) 5-2 vote for a re-zoning application handed down June 26, 2014. The BCC hearing, as with all the other BCC hearings on Mizner Trail in the past nine-plus years, was packed with protesting Boca Del Mar homeowners. In addition, supporters of environmental and homeowner rights, including grassroots groups fighting the commission on overdevelopment in other communities in Palm Beach County, spoke against the developer’s re-zoning application.
The Uniform Land Development Code of Palm Beach County (“ULDC”) allows appeals of votes from BCC’s quasi-judicial hearings. Such appeals for “judicial relief” can be made by filing a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit within 30 calendar days of the date that the commission’s resolution is filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court.
Peter Sachs, attorney for the BDMIA, told the Sun-Sentinel, “We are disappointed, but we feel we are right in what we are trying to accomplish…They are in the fight to maintain their homes and lifestyle.”
While the appeal was still pending, the developer had publicly escalated its amount for a settlement offer to $500,000 in exchange for permanently dropping the appeal and opposition. Letters, one penned by a former longtime BDMIA board officer, and one anonymous, were circulated among Boca Del Mar’s community associations, warning residents that harsh and burdensome legal sanctions for legal fees would be pressed if the legal appeal of its development project were not dropped.
The court’s denial echoed a similar denial with no explanation that a three-judge panel from the 15th Judicial Circuit Court handed down in December to Century Village residents in central Palm Beach County who are also fighting to keep their golf course from development.