John Fumero, Partner at Nason Yeager Gerson Harris and Fumero P.A. was recently quoted in the Sun Sentinel about a legal dispute over a multimillion-dollar planned community in Hillsboro Beach.
Rosewood Residences Hillsboro Beach is planned to be a collection of 92 ultra-luxury, waterfront condominium homes and villas in Hillsboro Beach, with buildings on both sides of State Road A1A.
A group of Hillsboro Beach residents had challenged the development in court, suing the town itself, saying the developer’s claims that it needed to rise higher than the rules allowed to see over the sand dunes wasn’t a good enough reason to be permitted to build.
Broward circuit court judges this spring overruled the city of Hillsboro Beach’s approval of the 10-story oceanfront project at 1174 to 1185 Hillsboro Mile, where the town’s zoning code generally caps buildings at three stories.
John Fumero said the permitting process can take years and so “developers, like any businessperson, sometimes make a judgment call” whether to continue sales and have to return deposits later if court appeals fail.
“In most cases, the developer is going to be cautious and not actually build the buildings. In this case, it’s merely a sales center, not actually constructing the buildings themselves,” he said. A developer would not typically “spend tens of millions of dollars” to begin construction only to have to reverse course.