Gardens annexation faces court challenge

A 70-home gated community at the eastern edge of Palm Beach Gardens’ massive proposed annexation area sued Friday to block the March 19 vote that seeks to add thousands of residents to the city.

The city’s failures at public hearings in November and December are so great as to make a mockery of state laws designed to limit annexations to compact and contiguous areas, four homeowners from Hidden Key say in the suit that aims to block the annexation of Zone 1, the largest of five areas sought by the city.

“This annexation is unwelcome and unwarranted,” Hidden Key resident and petitioner Kenneth Glueck said in a statement. “Hidden Key is no more a fit for Palm Beach Gardens than it is for Miami.”

The lawsuit seeks to throw out the City Council’s annexation approvals, which would eliminate the March referendum, at least for Zone 1.

Glueck is joined by Hidden Key residents Richard Augustyn, Madge Shafmaster and Joseph Berardo in the suit represented by Stuart attorney Nicholas Gieseler. 

City officials say squaring off the city’s boundaries by taking in older neighborhoods north and south of PGA Boulevard and east of Interstate 95 would allow those residents to take advantage of city services, such as police and fire, while getting priority treatment for city recreation programs. 

They emphasize that residents of the five annexation zones get the final say at the voting booth.

The lawsuit claims opposition to the annexation is unanimous throughout Hidden Key, which is east of U.S. 1 and north of Jack Nicklaus Drive. But Hidden Key residents are worried that they would still be annexed if a majority of voters in other neighborhoods within Zone 1 vote for it.

All registered voters living in the annexation areas are eligible to vote. Zone 1 has 7,670 residents in 3,600 homes across 1,244 acres, city figures show.

It would add $1.5 billion to the city’s $18 billion tax base. 

While the taxable value of Hidden Key alone is $107 million it also holds the key to Lost Tree Village, whose 618 homes are valued for tax purposes at a combined $2.5 billion. 

The city did not include Lost Tree in its annexation attempt but controlling Hidden Key immediately west of the exclusive oceanfront community would position Gardens to one day annex Lost Tree.

North Palm Beach, viewing the Gardens’ annexation effort as a threat, voted to put its own annexation of Hidden Key on the March 19 ballot. 

That creates competing referendums that could end up with Hidden Key added to two cities, which the Hidden Key lawsuit warns “will surely end up back before this court in a very complicated, expensive and seemingly unprecedented lawsuit.”

Added Glueck in his statement: “Despite the city’s marketing mantra, ‘It’s your choice,’ the city actually prefers chaos over comity in its quest to expand to the Atlantic Ocean.”

‘Daisy-chained’ contiguity

While many of the lawsuit’s arguments are specific to Hidden Key, one argument would encompass many other Zone 1 neighborhoods.

Like Hidden Key, these neighborhoods are not contiguous with the city, as required under state law, the lawsuit says.

Among areas that don’t directly abut the city, the lawsuit lists: Flamingo Road, Frenchman’s Cove, Lane Park, Windsor Estates, Schaffler Subdivision, Hope Acres, Old Gate, Casa De Marbella, Cardinal Lane Neighborhood, Intracoastal Park Neighborhood, Shore Road, Maheu Estates, Bay Village Harbor and Pleasant Ridge.

“The City’s apparent position … is that contiguity can be daisy-chained across multiple unincorporated areas, none of which, on its own, is contiguous to Palm Beach Gardens, but all of which are ultimately contiguous with one another. 

“If this method is permissible, then as long as a municipal annexation zone does not cross into another municipality, a city would be allowed to dispense with the remainder of the Florida Statutes’ requirements and, from this point forward, conduct single-zone annexation referendums. 

“Such a method comports with neither the spirit nor the letter of Chapter 171; it violates the law, and this court should quash the city’s attempt to circumvent the statute.”

‘An egregious misstatement’

The city failed to provide evidence that Zone 1 is compact, the lawsuit says.

“The extent of the city attorney’s comments on the central question of compactness were as follows: ‘Compactness as defined under the Florida Statutes doesn’t mean small,” City Attorney Max Lohman said at the Dec. 6 hearing. “It means that you cannot annex in such a fashion such as to create enclaves, pockets or serpentine patterns — yes, I know — or fingers. And you cannot annex to create them. And it does not. This area does not create fingers.”

“That was an egregious misstatement” of state law, the suit says. “It conflates a two-part test into a single prohibition and leaves out entirely the concept that ‘compactness’ requires ‘the concentration of a piece of property in a single area’ and that a zone must be ‘designed in such a manner as to ensure that the area will be reasonably compact.’”

Zone 1 is not a single area, the lawsuit contends, as it “stretches miles, crosses highways, includes major bodies of water and touches the boundaries of several adjacent municipalities.”

It includes “over 70 distinct ‘areas’ akin to Hidden Key, which include wildly disparate residential neighborhoods, commercial zones, schools and churches,” with at least eight zoning designations.

The insistence of city officials that Zone 1 is compact and contiguous, however, is not enough, the lawsuit says.

“Other than reciting these definitions and declaring that they were met, the city never made an attempt to show its work and explain how Zone 1 satisfies either of these controlling standards,” Gieseler wrote. 

“Petitioners aren’t alleging that the city’s explanation is wrong, they’re alleging it does not exist.”

No chance to cross-examine

The lawsuit argues that Palm Beach Gardens failed to give opponents due process under the law at public hearings in November and December. 

Mayor Chelsea Reed opened the Dec. 6 hearing by saying the city would be “required by law to allow cross-examination of any witnesses who testify tonight” but Hidden Key argues the city did not grant that right. 

In a Dec. 5 email, Gieseler said he had been denied the right to intervene before the City Council in November and reiterated his request to do so the next day. 

The court file contains no response from the city. During the hearings, no witnesses were cross-examined.

Hidden Key argued that the failure to allow them to fully present their case amounted to a denial of due process, enough reason alone for the judge to block the city’s actions. 

“The process undertaken by the council was a process that more closely resembled a public comment period over the design of a new park … where citizens are always permitted three-minute, timed comments to make their views known,” the suit says. “It cannot be that citizens’ property rights and taxation levels are afforded the exact same time and process as might be afforded to what kind of outdoor recreational equipment is installed at a park.”

Joel@OnGardens.org

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