Land-use battle rages in Florida

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — It's across the inlet from Palm Beach, but this town — mostly black, blue-collar and with a large industrial and warehouse district — could be a continent away from the Fortune 500 and Rolls-Royce set.

But Riviera Beach's fortunes may soon change.

In what has been called the largest eminent-domain case in the nation, the mayor and other elected leaders want to move about 6,000 residents, tear down their homes and use the emptied 400-acre site to build a waterfront yachting and residential complex for the well-to-do.

The goal, Mayor Michael Brown said during a public meeting in September, is to "forever change the landscape" in this municipality of about 32,500. The $1 billion plan, local leaders have said, should generate jobs and haul Riviera Beach's economy out of the doldrums.

Opponents, however, call the plan a government-sanctioned land grab that benefits private developers and the wealthy.

"What they mean is that the view I have is too good for me, and should go to some millionaire," said Martha Babson, 60, a house painter who lives near the Intracoastal Waterway.

"This is a reverse Robin Hood," said state Rep. Ronald Greenstein, meaning the poor in Riviera Beach would be robbed to benefit the rich. Greenstein, a Coconut Creek Democrat, serves on a state legislative committee making recommendations on how to strengthen safeguards on private property.

With many Americans sensitized to eminent-domain cases after a much-discussed ruling by the Supreme Court in June, property-rights organizations have been pointing to redevelopment plans in this Palm Beach County town as proof that laws must be changed to protect homeowners and businesses from the schemes of politicians.

"You have people going in, essentially playing God, and saying something better than these people's homes should be built on this property," said Carol Saviak, executive director of the Coalition for Property Rights, based in Orlando. "That's inherently wrong."

"Unfortunately, taking poorer folks' homes and turning them into higher-end development projects is all too routine in Florida and throughout the country," said Scott Bullock, a senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, based in Washington, D.C. "What distinguishes Riviera Beach is the sheer scope of the project, and the number of people it displaces."

In June, a divided U.S. Supreme Court approved a plan by New London, Conn., to force some homeowners to sell their properties for a private development that was supposed to generate more jobs and tax revenue. That ruling has led to moves in Congress and at least 35 states, including Florida, to restrict the use of eminent-domain seizures of private property.

In Florida, the law allows local officials to take private land for redevelopment if they deem it "blighted." In May 2001, a study conducted for the city found that "slum and blighted conditions" existed in about a third of Riviera Beach, and that redevelopment was necessary "in the interest of public health, safety, morals and welfare."

A skeptical Babson, who lives in a single-story, concrete-block home painted aqua that she shares with parrots and a dog, did her own survey. For three months, she walked the streets of Riviera Beach photographing houses classified as "dilapidated" or "deteriorated" by specialists hired by the city.

The official study, she said, was riddled with errors and misclassifications. Lots inventoried as "vacant" (one of 14 criteria that allow Florida cities or counties to declare a neighborhood blighted) actually had homes on them built in 1997, she said. One house deemed "dilapidated," she found, was two years old.

Mayor Brown and Floyd Johnson, executive director of the Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

The redevelopment agency's Web site says the plan will "create a city respected for its community pride and purpose and reshape it into a most desirable urban (place) to live, work, shop, and relax for its residents, business and visitors."

In past media interviews, Brown has said that his city was in dire need of jobs, and that if officials weren't allowed to resort to eminent domain to spur growth, Riviera Beach could perish.

The redevelopment project designed to bootstrap Riviera Beach to prosperity is supposed to take 15 years. It involves moving U.S. Highway 1 and digging an artificial lagoon to serve as a yacht basin.

In September, the City Council chose a joint venture between a New Jersey-based yacht company and a builder of condominiums in Australia to serve as master developer. The developer, Viking Inlet Harbor Properties, and the city now must agree on a contract.

Residents affected by the plan are supposed to be eligible for new homes elsewhere in Riviera Beach and compensation for business damages. But the uncertainties have been maddening for some.

For 25 years, Bill Mars has sold and serviced luxury sportfishing boats in Riviera Beach. He hasn't been told yet, he said, whether a place in the redevelopment zone has been kept for him.

Under the plan, his sales and service center is supposed to make way for an aquarium.

"If you look at our business, we're one of the shining stars of Riviera Beach," Mars said. "Yet no one has come to us to say, 'We're going to take care of you and relocate you.' " That despite the plan's incorporation of a "working waterfront," including boat sales and repair.

Babson said she was counting on the Florida Legislature, as well as public interest kindled by the recent Supreme Court case, to halt the developers.

"We're definitely in Tiananmen Square: one little guy in front of all of those tanks," Babson said. "We've slowed them down, but we haven't stopped them."