07 Sep Don’t OK building on LW Lagoon

Courtesy of the Palm Beach Post

Last we heard, the chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Rodney Barreto, backed down from developing submerged acres he owns in the Lake Worth Lagoon off Singer Island.

The gubernatorial appointee and uber-lobbyist based in Coral Gables planned to sell the land right away, he said in March. He insisted he didn’t intend to build the 15 mansions, 330 condos and marina that public filings indicated he did.

Never mind that he was part of a group that had just sued to reopen a decades-closed court case, hoping to allow such construction on the site, whose clear waters and abundant sea grass form part of a nursery and migratory spot for manatees and endangered green sea turtles and other wildlife, unlike any other section of the lagoon. Word emerged that he was negotiating to sell the site to the county for preservation.

But that was then and this is now. A group of landowners including Barreto has been back in court, suing Riviera Beach to pave the way for development. They contend the city’s zoning law that designates the area for preservation was improperly adopted.

So, once again, the head of Florida’s most prominent wildlife protection agency is working to make a buck either by destroying wildlife habitat or bumping up its resale value to soak taxpayers anxious to preserve it. A county official says Baretto et al. dropped out of the sale talks a couple of months ago. The county is always looking for opportunities to buy out owners of submerged land, especially near Singer Island, the official said, but requires a willing buyer.

Barreto invested $425,000 in his 19-acre site, just south of John D. MacArthur Beach State Park, in 2016 and filed a plan in 2018 with the South Florida Water Management District to build mansions, a marina, private docks. After the district said the project would not win approval without extensive measures to mitigate environmental damage, his firm, Government Lot 1, moved in Palm Beach Circuit Court to eliminate the need for approvals from any state agency.

The Everglades Law Center intervened in that re-opened 1990 case, on behalf of nonprofit Lake Worth Waterkeeper, to block the project. That case has fallen silent in recent months.

But in a separate action last August, Barreto’s Government Lot 1 and landowners Fane Lozman and Daniel Taylor, joined to fight the area’s protective zoning. Lozman and Taylor have long maintained they have the right to develop the land, which stretches out into the lagoon from the western shoulder of A1A.

Barreto could not be reached for comment but last March dismissed criticism of his legal moves as ‘much ado about nothing.’

He had no current development plans or shovel-ready projects and ‘no plans before any governmental body for approval,’ he said, after two dozen opponents blasted him at a meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Barreto told The Post at the time that he, Lozman and Taylor should be allowed to develop their sites, though.

‘This approach would improve the likelihood that the taxpayers do not become saddled with an enormous financial obligation, the owners develop a portion of the property in a manner that allows their financial expectations to be realized and some of the property being dedicated to conservation.’

Lozman, reached Friday, said the submerged land along that strip of A1A was zoned for housing but that the city improperly downzoned it. If the city wants to turn that land into a park, he said, ‘they are welcome to inverse-condemn the property and take away the zoning, they just have to pay for it.’

Lisa Interlandi, executive director of the Everglades Law Center, disputed that the issue has anything to do with preservation of property rights. The area has been designated for natural preservation since long before Barreto, Lozman and others owned their sites, she said. That land-use designation trumps city zoning, she said.

‘There’s no other lagoon area with better seagrass than this and we’re going to build on that? I don’t think so,’ she said.

The Lake Worth Waterkeeper, Everglades Law Center, Sierra Club, Audubon and others who have spoken up to preserve this expanse of the lagoon should be heeded by all regulatory agencies with authority over these waters, and Barreto, the chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, should resign.