Condo next door sues developer building tallest twin towers on Fort Lauderdale beach

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Can you sue over a view?

Alhambra Place, a condo tower in Fort Lauderdale with a view of the beach, is doing just that — alleging breach of contract and seeking more than $10 million in damages.

For 24 years, residents of the 16-story condo tower at 209 N. Birch Road have enjoyed an unfettered view of the ocean.

Then along came Selene, twin 26-story condo towers going up to the east of Alhambra Place.

The project’s design was substantially altered despite a development agreement the builder made with Alhambra’s condo association in July 2020, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Broward Circuit Court.

The lawsuit lists The Kolter Group and KT Seabreeze Atlantic as defendants, claiming they submitted a slew of plan revisions “aimed at cutting costs and increasing profits” without the knowledge or consent of Alhambra’s condo association. The revisions dramatically altered the exterior design of the project and were “solely made to enhance (the developer’s) bottom line,” according to the suit.

“It’s a totally different project,” said Keith Poliakoff, one of the attorneys representing Alhambra Place. “Alhambra had no idea. Some of those changes affect the view corridor for Alhambra.”

The Kolter Group has not yet filed a formal response to the lawsuit. KT Seabreeze Atlantic is no longer in business, according to the lawsuit as well as state records.

Bob Vail, a high-ranking official at Kolter, referred questions to Stephanie Toothaker, attorney for the developer.

Toothaker told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday: “From its inception, and all throughout the development of the iconic Selene project, Kolter has enjoyed a very positive and collaborative relationship with its neighbors and we look forward to continuing discussions to resolve any issues, particularly as we have a previously scheduled meeting with their counsel next week.”

‘Things didn’t seem right’

Jim Novick lives on the 11th floor of Alhambra Place, where he serves as president of the condo association.

In March, Novick said he noticed the towers going up across the street didn’t quite look like the renderings he and his neighbors had been shown before construction began nearly four years ago.

“It was pretty far along when we noticed things didn’t seem right,” Novick said. “There was equipment in the way. When the cranes came down, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not supposed to be there.’ They took out the glass. They added more stucco to save money. They made the one balcony on the sixth floor bigger.”

Novick says he contacted the developer with his concerns.

“I was telling them to take the balcony down,” he said. “I told them my board’s not going to be happy with this. See what you can do to fix these things. They said they’d get back to me on all these changes. And they never got back to me.”

That’s when the condo board decided to sue, Novick said.

‘The end of our universe’

Selene’s twin towers will be the tallest on the beach, rising 300 feet above sea level at 3000 Alhambra St.

Residential projects built on that part of the beach have a height cap of 200 feet.

But in late 2020, Fort Lauderdale commissioners signed off on special zoning that allowed the builder to go higher.

An earlier design called for a shorter and blockier set of towers that would have stood 200 feet high, with nearly 100 more condos and three times the space for restaurants and shops.

But residents at Alhambra Place preferred the developer build taller, thinner towers to help preserve their views.

“If they build a big giant box in front of us, it’s the end of our universe,” Novick told commissioners at the time. “We had one unit owner say, ‘We’ll never see the sun if they build this.’”

The project won commission approval in October 2020.

Less than two years later, the developer returned to the commission to request approval for what it called an administrative amendment to the approved site plan.

Alarmed by the proposed changes, Novick said he flew down from his second home in Boston to speak at the July 2022 meeting and voice his objection.

During the meeting, Toothaker told the commission her client was requesting changes to the project’s dimensional standards and architecture.

‘Approved behind closed doors’

That night, the developer withdrew the request for changes related to dimensional standards and architecture, the lawsuit states. The only changes requested — and approved — involved a reduction in the number of condo units from 215 to 196; an increase in the restaurant and retail space by 500 square feet; and a corresponding reduction in private parking spaces from 497 to 480.

“I came back on July 4 from Boston, left my family, got on the plane and went down to City Hall to testify,” Novick said. “And they withdrew the proposal. And I thanked them.”

But the developer came back later on to ask city staff to sign off on several modifications identical to those that had been withdrawn at the commission meeting, the lawsuit alleges.

“They submitted changes and got them administratively approved by city staff with no one knowing,” Poliakoff said. “City staff said they were minor modifications. These were not minor modifications.”

On April 23, 2025, Alhambra’s condo association sent the developer a notice accusing them of breach of contract.

The notice claims several design changes were made in violation of the development agreement the developer made with Alhambra Place. Among them:

East tower deviations

1. The elegant, round columns that floated outside of the façade at the L-shaped indented building corners were eliminated and replaced with a 90-degree building corner and integral corner edge column. The elimination of this feature detracts from its appearance and makes the building look wider.

2. The north façade of the east tower, level 5, was constructed with a balcony that extends well beyond the balcony line of the tower to the edge of the amenities deck.

3. West-facing level 4 of the east tower is constructed with large expanses of concrete, inconsistent with renderings that depict all glass and an open, unobstructed balcony.

Amenities deck deviations

1. The one-story spa extending from the west tower was reduced on the second administrative revision, adding about 30 feet more north-south open area.

2. The portion of the dog park west of the stair tower was eliminated and walled off from the reconfigured dog park. This is inconsistent with unit-view renderings.

3. The fourth level of the east tower is only partially glass, inconsistent with unit-view renderings that show an all-glass façade.

West podium façade deviations

1. On the unit-view renderings, glass comprises between 65% and 70% of the west-facing podium façade’s vertical section of levels 1.5, 2 and 3, but only about 47% as constructed.

2. The unit-view renderings show no exposed columns other than at the corners, whereas an exposed middle column was added to the constructed product.

3. The agreement calls for frosted glass on the west face of the parking structure. The actual construction appears to show tinted glass.

The towers are expected to open later this year.

“Plaintiff believes that there are additional violations and defaults of the terms of the agreement and shall, hereafter, seek a complete inspection of the property,” the lawsuit says.

Article Link: Condo next door sues developer building tallest twin towers on Fort Lauderdale beach
Author: Susannah Bryan

Trouble in Florida’s real estate paradise

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The Sunshine State has a grim warning for America’s homebuyers

Zach Janik had all the makings of a Florida lifer. Born and raised in West Palm Beach, he spent most of his adult years in St. Augustine, a small beach town on the state’s northeast coast. In 2018, just shy of 30, he purchased a tidy three-bedroom house for $195,000. Life was good.

A few years into the COVID-19 pandemic, though, he no longer recognized the place he had long called home. The area around St. Augustine was bursting with new arrivals and vast expanses of cookie-cutter homes to meet the growing demand for housing. All those new residents clogged the roads, forcing Janik, who worked in sales, to spend long hours sitting in traffic to visit clients. Even if he wanted to move to another place in Florida, he couldn’t afford it — real estate prices had climbed so much that even a humble starter home like his was most likely out of reach.

Such tales of trouble in paradise are common these days. An undisputed winner of the pandemic relocation boom, the Sunshine State lured millions of movers with its siren song of beaches, balmy weather, and absence of a state income tax. Now it’s nursing a hangover. Residents across the state are experiencing an affordability crisis, hurricane-fueled insurance nightmares, and eye-watering property tax bills. Net migration to Florida has plummeted from the heady days of 2022. Owners of aging condos can’t find willing buyers. Home prices just dropped by their biggest percentage in more than a decade, with economists and analysts projecting a prolonged slide in property values.

It’d be easy to dismiss these challenges as unique to the curious appendage on the continental US, but the state is actually a solid bellwether for the rest of the country. Other markets, like the Southwest and the rest of the Southeast, show similar signs of softening. Climate risks are no longer solely a concern for the coasts. And of course, no place is immune to the broad trends quashing homebuyers’ dreams: mortgage rates that refuse to drop, prices that remain well above their pre-pandemic level, and general hand-wringing over the economy. Florida isn’t some anomaly. In fact, it’s as if all the forces driving the country’s real estate market converged there and got cranked up to max volume.

Most people I spoke with for this story were still bullish on Florida in the long run — the state’s natural appeal hasn’t gone anywhere. But the comedown from the pandemic-era highs will be messy, and some may choose to dodge it altogether. That includes Janik, who in 2023 moved out of his home state to Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was happy to trade what he described as the “overdevelopment” of St. Augustine for cheaper real estate and mountain views. Even though he eventually got fed up with Florida, his financial windfall is a testament to the state’s wild arc over the past few years: He sold his property for $345,000, a stunning gain of 77% in less than a five-year span.

“I miss the beach. I miss my friends,” Janik tells me. But at the end of the day, he says, “It just doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

The recent turn in Florida’s housing market may sound complex, but it boils down to principles straight out of Econ 101: supply and demand.

First came the demand. With white-collar workers liberated from their office desks, baby boomers cruising into retirement, and a general desire for easy living sweeping over the country, Florida made for an obvious destination. Plus, it was pretty cheap, especially for city slickers tired of their shoebox apartments or cramped homes sitting on million-dollar lots. Between April 2020 and July 2024, Florida saw a net gain of roughly 1.8 million residents, according to Census Bureau estimates, consistently jockeying for the title of fastest-growing US state. Florida continued to welcome plenty of snowbirds, sure, but it also lured venture capitalists, crypto speculators, and pretty much anyone who was sick of COVID restrictions or was just chasing that “vacation” feel. As one Business Insider headline read in late 2023: “Young people are flocking to Florida.”

All those transplants needed places to live. The lower half of the US, otherwise known as the Sun Belt, has traditionally been a hotbed of home construction, helping keep prices in check despite the region’s population growth. But even by the Sun Belt’s development-friendly standards, builders in Florida were busy. They completed more than 760,000 new homes between April 2020 and July 2024, the census estimates, a nearly 8% increase in the state’s housing stock. Only five states saw bigger building booms on a percentage basis, though with the exception of Texas, all have far fewer residents than Florida. The Sunshine State is home to about 6.8% of the nation’s population, but it accounted for nearly 12% of new home construction permits issued last year, an analysis by Realtor.com found. In both Texas and Florida, homebuilding activity “got close to or exceeded subprime, crazy construction days,” Rick Palacios Jr., the director of research at John Burns Research and Consulting, tells me, referring to the heady times just before the 2008 collapse. But even the most ambitious builders couldn’t keep up with the influx of transplants, investors, and vacation-home buyers in Florida. As more people angled for homes, prices soared. According to data from the real estate search portal Redfin, the median home price in Florida peaked at $423,000 in April 2024, up 61% from the onset of the pandemic.Many of those fresh arrivals eventually soured on paradise, though: too hot, too expensive, or just not home. Even a vacation, it turns out, can get a little old. And when lots of new housing supply hits just as buyer demand is waning, the stage is set for prices to drop — just ask builders in Texas. Last year, I wrote about the cooling of the Austin market, where home prices are now down about 14% from their peak, per Redfin. In many ways, the story there is repeating itself in Florida: A bunch of people moved in, home prices shot up, and builders responded by putting tons of shovels in the ground. Then interest rates jumped, home loans got more expensive, and buyer demand hit the skids. Cue the price cuts.

“It just doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Zach Janik, former Florida resident

There are, of course, some more Florida-specific factors at play. Back-to-back hurricanes tore through its western coast late last year, adding to the existing home insurance quagmire. Premiums have skyrocketed in the past few years, and multiple home insurers have abandoned the state entirely. The average cost of home insurance in Florida climbed 45% from 2017 to 2022, according to an analysis by the Florida Policy Project. Steep HOA fees, along with the hefty insurance outlays, have made it difficult for owners of aging condo units to offload their properties. Florida has also lost some of its luster among US movers. Four of its biggest metros — Tampa, Miami, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale — were among the 10 areas around the country that saw the steepest dropoff in net domestic migration from 2023 to 2024, Redfin found.

So far, the about-face in Florida’s housing market has put only a small dent in headline property values. Sales prices in Florida are down roughly 3% from their high point in spring 2024, per Redfin — hardly even “correction” territory, let alone a bust. But Florida could still have a ways to fall. Builders and agents in Texas — where the pandemic frenzy has cooled off considerably — seem to have found an equilibrium, Cara Lavender, a senior research manager at John Burns, tells me. Sure, they’re selling fewer homes each month, but they’ve slashed prices enough that they’re able to keep things moving.

“It doesn’t feel like we’ve hit that point in Florida,” Lavender tells me. “They haven’t found the bottom.”

Parcl Labs, a real estate analytics firm, recently looked at the supply and demand dynamics in 42 metros around the country to deliver a “bullish” or “bearish” rating for each one — basically, whether they think prices will rise or fall over the next year. Miami and Jacksonville got positive ratings, but Orlando, Tampa, Lakeland, Deltona, North Port, and Cape Coral all got slapped with the bearish tag. The key in those places, Parcl’s CEO, Trevor Bacon, tells me, is the number of homes sitting on the market.

“There is a ton of supply,” Bacon tells me. “Like, a ridiculous amount of supply.”

Homebuilders are an optimistic bunch by nature, but even the ones in Florida are now saying they expect to end the year down slightly on their prices. “For a builder to even report in a survey that they’re going to be negative year over year on pricing is incredibly meaningful,” Lavender says. During a call with analysts in late March, Jon Jaffe, the president and co-CEO of Lennar, one of the country’s largest builders, said buyers in Florida and Texas generally needed more help than those in most other places around the country. Builders in the state are dropping prices, lending a hand on closing costs, and chipping in thousands of dollars to help buyers get lower mortgage rates, all in an effort to keep sales moving. Even then, Jaffe said, the company didn’t see the typical pickup in nationwide sales that usually comes with the start of the spring selling season.

I’ve found that real estate agents, like builders, tend to see the sunny side of things — after all, it’s pretty much their job to preach the gospel of homeownership even when the market is less than accommodating. But when I talked to Laurie Rose, a real estate agent and longtime resident of Naples, in southwest Florida, she was clear-eyed about the challenges facing buyers in her chosen state. Rose and her husband moved down from New Jersey in 2003, mostly for the weather. For a while, it felt like the move was paying off: Gas was cheaper, and groceries didn’t stretch their budget. The lack of a state income tax kept more dollars in their pockets. Now everything is more expensive, she says, including everyday items like food and clothing. On the plus side, home values are way up since she and her husband bought their place. But even if they sold, she says, there’s no way she could buy back into the area in which she’s now living. Rose still says Florida is a “great place to live,” but the state’s natural draws aren’t always enough to keep people there. She tells me several of her friends have recently moved to Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas in search of the cheaper living that Florida once promised.

Sellers have been caught up in this thing of, ‘I can put whatever price I want on my home, and someone’s going to buy it. Now all of a sudden they’re going: ‘Oh, crap.’

Rose’s work as a real estate agent has also given her a front-row seat to the mounting challenges for both sellers and buyers in Florida. Buyers are leery of all the costs that come with homeownership — not just the higher mortgage rates and steep sticker prices that have eaten into affordability, but also the insurance premiums, property taxes, and HOA fees. With more homes sitting on the market and prices starting to drop from last year, there’s no rush among buyers to get in on the action. Sellers, meanwhile, will have to come to grips with this new state of play if they want to get their properties sold.

“Sellers have been caught up in this thing of, ‘I can put whatever price I want on my home, and someone’s going to buy it,'” Rose said, “Now all of a sudden they’re going: ‘Oh, crap. People aren’t buying, and people aren’t even looking.'”

his isn’t just a Florida story. Large-scale housing trends often obscure the quirks that make each local market unique, Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com, tells me, but Florida offers a neat microcosm of the national numbers. Around the country, supply is back up to levels we haven’t seen since the start of the pandemic, handing more power to buyers who now have the luxury of choice (provided they can afford it). Homes are sitting on the market longer, and sellers are coming around to the fact that they’ll have to cut asking prices if they want to see some offers. The softness in Florida’s market appears to be spreading to the rest of the Southeast and Southwest, where metros such as Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, and Raleigh now show negative prices year over year in John Burns’ data.

“The Southeast and the Southwest aren’t as weak as Texas and Florida right now, but they could very well be on their way there if supply continues to increase and buyer demand stays where it is,” Lavender tells me.

I want to be clear that the sky isn’t falling here. The pandemic-era frenzy couldn’t last forever, and a pullback in demand was to be expected given just how many people bought and sold homes before rates went up in 2022. If builders hadn’t delivered all that supply to Florida over the past few years, the affordability picture there would be all the more dire. Just look at the Midwest and the Northeast, where fewer homes were built and the supply remains tight. They may not be seeing a drop in prices now, but that means buyers aren’t getting any relief, either.

Florida’s growth during the pandemic was “unsustainable,” Nelson Stabile, a principal and cofounder of the Miami-based development firm Integra Investments, tells me. But he’s still a staunch believer in the state’s future.

“I think we’re at a healthy pace now, and I think the whole country has woken up to the fact that Florida is not just a retirement destination,” Stabile tells me. “It’s a place where folks can raise their families, where they can have an incredible quality of life. Is it perfect? No. But is it better than most areas? Probably, yes.”Keith Poliakoff, a real estate attorney in Florida, is similarly bullish on his state. But he also says other states should learn lessons from Florida’s saga — to cut red tape that gets in the way of building affordable housing, as the state legislature recently did through the Live Local Act, and strengthen building codes to withstand climate disasters.

“Florida generally hits the wave before the rest of the country,” Poliakoff tells me. “It’s a good indicator of what’s to come.”

Article Link: Trouble in Florida’s real estate paradise
Author: James Rodriguez

Live Local developers eye outcome of civil lawsuits and latest bill

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Florida Legislature unanimously passed developer-friendly amendments to the workforce housing law

Florida lawmakers recently strengthened the Live Local Act’s state control over municipalities, aiming to crack down on cities and counties that try to block applications filed under the workforce housing law.

The amendments, unanimously approved by the House and Senate, which now await Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature, are geared toward encouraging more Live Local Act projects. While significant, some experts say that developers are waiting for the pending outcome of civil litigation with cities that have denied or held up applications. How the judges in these cases interpret the law will likely set precedents that developers and cities will rely on.

Among the cases is Whitman Family Development’s ongoing suit against Bal Harbour, filed in early 2024.

Attorney Keith Poliakoff of the Fort Lauderdale-based Government Law Group said he believes “there will be an immediate onslaught” in applications submitted if the owner of Bal Harbour Shops is successful in its lawsuit against the village. Poliakoff is not involved in the litigation.

“A lot of developers are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if the test cases are successful before taking that risk and shelling out a million dollars,” Poliakoff said, referring to the cost of putting together and submitting an application that meets all the requirements.

Poliakoff represents Condra Property Group, a developer that’s suing the city of Hollywood over what it alleges is an illegal denial of its application for a 17-story tower with workforce housing.

Live Local, enacted in 2023, incentivizes developers that set aside at least 40 percent of their residential units for workforce housing. It provides developers with major tax breaks, density and height bonuses, and reductions or eliminations of parking requirements. It mandates that local municipalities may not restrict the height of a proposed project below the tallest currently allowed commercial or residential building within 1 mile of the project.

The latest bill Poliakoff said, “still does not resolve issues municipalities are using to their advantage.”

Live Local 3.0

Live Local requires cities and counties to administratively approve applications for such projects, in some cases bypassing city and county boards and stripping them of their authority.

The amendments are geared toward helping developers get their applications approved faster to ultimately create more workforce housing.

The latest tweaks direct the courts to prioritize Live Local lawsuits over others, and cap attorneys fees at $250,000. They also reduce parking requirements by 15 percent, up from 10 percent, require local municipalities to approve Live Local projects on land owned by religious institutions, and allow developers to include adjacent land in their projects. In a blow to preservationists, lawmakers also approved changes that will require only administrative approval of demolitions in historic districts. That creates a threat to areas like Miami Beach’s Art Deco district and weakens the city’s historic preservation board.

The state is also looking to track Live Local projects and related lawsuits. Beginning Nov. 1, 2026, local governments will be required to provide annual reports to the state with summaries of Live Local-related litigation and the status of those lawsuits, and a list of projects proposed and approved with details about the projects, including the number of workforce housing units and the targeted household incomes.

City vs. state

Dozens of applications for Live Local projects have been submitted across South Florida since 2023, and many cities are processing applications. Some developers are now getting their projects approved and listing their sites for sale with the added values, while others, like the Related Group, are expanding affordable housing developments with Live Local.

Only a few municipalities have engaged in a public battle over their interpretations of the law and local zoning codes. In its lawsuit filed in January against the city of Hollywood, Condra alleges that the city delayed approving the project at 2115 North Ocean Drive as Hollywood tried to change the law’s height provisions. The project, planned to include 282 condos and apartments, would set aside 40 percent of the units for tenants earning at or below 120 percent of the area median income. In Broward, the AMI is $89,100; 120 percent of that is $106,920.

Condra used the similar height of nearby Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort. The city said that Margaritaville is not an allowable height benchmark because the building is in a governmental use zone, and projects in these zones are approved “through a specialized process,” according to its rejection letter. The city, in its counterclaim, also said that Condra’s application did not meet Live Local’s requirements.

The lawsuit is pending, and the first deposition is scheduled for Wednesday.

In Bal Harbour, Whitman Family Development sued the village early last year over Bal Harbour failing to process its application — and then, in an amended complaint —  over the village denying its application, according to the lawsuit, filed by attorney John Shubin of Miami-based Shubin Law Group.

Whitman submitted plans under Live Local to build up to 275-foot-tall towers at the 18-acre Bal Harbour Shops property. The project would include 528 condos and apartments, with 40 percent set aside for workforce rental housing. The tax credits, additional height and density are all “meaningful,” said Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president and CEO of Whitman Family Development.

Lazenby said the latest round of amendments “improves the language” of the law, but noted the “enforceability gap” if cities don’t comply. He said the village’s recent construction noise ordinance is an example of the retaliatory efforts Bal Harbour has taken, causing up to a year’s delay in construction that will cost Whitman more money in the long run.

“The impact to us is astronomical,” he said. “Most would-be litigants frankly don’t have the capacity to spend millions of dollars to get the government to do what they should have done from the beginning.”

Article Link: Live Local developers eye outcome of civil lawsuits and latest bill

Florida Escalates Fight For Workforce Housing Authority

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The Sunshine State’s latest Live Local Act update strengthens zoning preemptions and adds legal muscle, at odds with city governments that invoke home rule protections to resist affordable housing mandates.

After rents and home prices surged during the pandemic, Florida responded in 2023 by passing a law dubbed the Live Local Act to boost affordable workforce housing development with a state funding pipeline of over $700 million.

Although some development projects secured access to the funds, local governments have thwarted efforts when they have been able, peeved that the state overrode local zoning to allow affordable multifamily in areas zoned for other uses.

Obstructionist local municipal efforts have been buoyed by a “not in my backyard” crowd opposed to denser housing.

This tension — pitting state-level initiatives against local forces of resistance — is playing out nationwide as communities grapple with how to provide affordable housing for essential workers while balancing local preferences and planning priorities.

Meanwhile, would-be urban and infill developers don’t have much say in the outcomes of these power struggles. They can either wait on the sidelines – with significant entitlement costs at risk – or step into the fray, where they can get caught in the crossfire.

Florida lawmakers just passed a third update to their Live Local Act. The latest version of the law adopts a more aggressive approach than changes made the prior year, aimed at removing roadblocks. This year’s version closes loopholes that local governments exploited to deny projects and expanded tax exemptions, particularly those on missing-middle housing projects.

Keith Poliakoff, an attorney with Fort Lauderdale law firm Government Law Group, called the legislation Live Local 3.0.

It’s not the final version of Live Local, because it’s still going to be met with major resistance, where municipalities are going to still say, ‘I don’t know what this law means,’” Poliakoff said. The new law, however, is “another attempt to tell municipalities this is a state mandate that you must follow.”

The law clarified provisions in the existing law.

They also added some additional locations where you can build workforce housing as of right,” Poliakoff said. “And they finally put in a term requiring expediting lawsuits. It allows the winner to get up to $250,000 back in attorney fees.”

Live Local Act’s Intent

Rents and home prices had risen rapidly during the pandemic because of a flood of new residents who had moved into the state. Rent growth in some cities frequently had the highest rent growth in the country.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law in March 2023 to increase workforce rental housing and help workers buy homes.

“We want people to live in the community where they are working,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time. And he was particularly focused on teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and service workers.

He noted that the state’s cities and counties need those workers, but it’s difficult to attract them if they must drive an hour or more to work daily.

Local governments were required to allow multifamily and mixed-use residential projects on sites zoned for residential, commercial, or industrial use if at least 40% of the residential units are affordable for 30 years to those earning up to 120% of the area median income.

For mixed-use projects, at least 65% of the total square footage must be used for residential purposes, and the 40% affordable component must be rental units.

Meanwhile, rent growth has slowed considerably because of record-high development. Housing prices have come down, too, because of supply, but also because of higher interest rates putting a chill on buyer interest. Hot markets have turned cold.

Still, the need for affordable housing persists and some projects have managed to get funded. In December, commercial real estate media site Bisnow found that 45 projects across the state received funding since that law first passed. However, 30 of them were existing and received rescue capital to keep them going.

Battling Local Governments

After Live Local’s initial rollout, local governments found ways to kill projects.

“We believe this needs to go to a public hearing,” Poliakoff said of local government thinking. “We don’t understand in the legislation what the word density means. That’s a confusing term. The word height, I’ve never heard that term before. What is FAR (floor area ratio)? That’s a new one.”

In 2024, amendments sought to close loopholes and strengthen the law’s preemption of local zoning, density, and height restrictions for qualifying affordable and mixed-use housing developments.

Changes also included permitting units in a mixed-use project to be for-sale, market-rate units, opening the door to mixed-income developments with condominiums and workforce rental products, and clarifying density bonuses.

Under the original law, qualifying projects with at least 40% of units set aside as affordable for 30 years were permitted at the highest currently allowed density for residential use anywhere in the municipality or county, as defined by local land development regulations.

The 2024 changes explicitly state that the Live Local Act does not preclude projects from also receiving local development bonuses for density, height, or floor area ratio if they qualify under local rules. If a Live Local project qualifies for a local bonus (for example, it provides additional affordable units or donates land), the bonus must be approved administratively, and no further action by local boards or commissions is required.

Those changes still didn’t deter local governments. “We don’t know what a bonus is,” Poliakoff. “We don’t know what a variance is. We don’t know what a special exception is, and it’s now led to more and more litigation concerning what the Act requires.”

Before the 2024 revisions, Whitman Family Development, owner of Bel Harbour Shops in ritzy Bel Harbour village, sued last January, claiming the village isn’t complying with the Live Local Act.

The developer alleged that the village was attempting to scuttle a plan to override local zoning and build 600 luxury residential units, 70 hotel rooms, and more than 45,000 square feet of retail space. To qualify for Live Local, 40% of the units would be workforce housing. It would be five times higher than Bal Harbour’s current height restrictions if built.

Bal Harbour is fighting the lawsuit but lost a bid last September to have the lawsuit dismissed. In November, the village denied the developer’s application based on a technical review. The conclusion was that the village’s height and use prohibitions were unaffected by the Live Local Act.

Poliakoff sued the city of Hollywood in January on behalf of Condra Property Group after the denial of its proposed beachfront 17-story mixed-use tower that included affordable housing. The city said it would be too tall.

The developer argues it should be allowed because the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, opened in 2015, rises 18 stories, and that set the benchmark. Both sides argue that the other has misinterpreted the provisions of the Live Local Act.

Poliakoff said the “reality is, these municipalities are not going to win their cases.”

The fights will continue, however. Fort Lauderdale may be typical of the angst among neighborhood advocates and politicians over the Live Local Act mandates.

Community meetings earlier this year reportedly were testy, with anger-filled comments. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Deal Trantalis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the Live Local law doesn’t work for Fort Lauderdale or any city.

(State legislators) have violated our home rule by taking away our ability to enforce our local zoning laws,” Trantalis said.

That comment mirrors what local government officials, from California to North Carolina, have said when states have passed laws to preempt local zoning.

Battles will continue to rage as state governments try staunching NIMBYism to make housing development easier and more plentiful, leading to more affordable housing that addresses a national – and local – shortage.

Much of it will play out in courts. That, of course, will take time and impede urgently needed progress toward developing new workforce housing in the Sunshine State.

Article Link: Florida Escalates Fight For Workforce Housing Authority
Author: Richard Lawson

Pinnacle advances 196-unit Live Local affordable housing project in Fort Lauderdale

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Developer plans 96 workforce units at Pinnacle at Cypress, along with 100 units for seniors

Pinnacle Housing Group and its partners advanced its plan to build a 196-unit Live Local Act affordable housing complex with separate buildings for seniors and workforce tenants in Fort Lauderdale’s Cypress Creek area.

The Fort Lauderdale City Commission last week approved a $640,000 loan commitment to help the Miami-based developer finance construction of 96 rent-controlled, workforce housing units for the second phase of its Pinnacle at Cypress project.

The city’s loan is contingent on Pinnacle qualifying for an allocation of 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Florida Housing Finance Corp. which the company would provide to institutional investors in phase two of the Pinnacle at Cypress development.

Last year, the city commission approved a contingent $640,000 loan for phase one of Pinnacle at Cypress, which will be 100 apartments for seniors. But Pinnacle subsequently failed to qualify for a 2024 allocation of 9 percent tax credits. Last week, the commission reassigned the $640,000 loan commitment to phase two of the affordable housing development.

Though Pinnacle did not obtain 9 percent low-income housing tax credits last year, the developer landed other types of financing for phase one of Pinnacle at Cypress, including a State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL). In addition, “We’ve gotten a bond inducement from the Broward County Housing Finance Authority, and we’re in the process of applying now for some additional Broward County gap financing,” Timothy Wheat, a partner of Pinnacle, told The Real Deal.

The developer will break ground in the first quarter of 2026 for construction of 100 affordable apartments for seniors in phase one, Wheat said. Pinnacle will complete construction of the two-phased development in June 2028, according to a conceptual timeline the developer submitted to the city.

The total cost of the development is nearly $90 million, he said.

Eligibility to become a tenant of Pinnacle at Cypress is based on area median income. On average, tenants of the senior and workforce housing units will earn 60 percent of AMI. AMI is $81,900, according to the Broward Housing Council.

Pinnacle is led by partners Louis Wolfson III, David Deutch, Wheat and Coraly Rodriguez and Hugo Pacanins.

The 1.8-acre site of Pinnacle at Cypress at 6250 North Andrews Avenue is owned by Poliakoff Becker & Strietfeld LLP, led by Fort Lauderdale attorney Keith M. Poliakoff. He said that he and other owners of the site entered a partnership with Pinnacle to develop the affordable housing complex.

Poliakoff also said the development at Cypress Creek will qualify for streamlined city approval by city staff under the state’s Live Local Act, which encourages commercial-industrial multifamily developments with an affordable housing component in areas not zoned for residential property.

“This development will move much quicker than other affordable deals, because it generally does not require board approvals,” Poliakoff said.

Article Link: Pinnacle advances 196-unit Live Local affordable housing project in Fort Lauderdale
Author: Mike Seemuth

Top Palm Beach County professionals, business people on the move for the week of Feb. 9

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In our weekly list of business people on the move, we highlight Palm Beach County professionals who are making a difference. These are people from across the spectrum of public and private endeavors, those working in charities, court houses, private practices and beyond. They are moving up within their industry, advancing their careers and standing out for their services within our community.

Here are this week’s professional standouts:

Delray housing groups announce commission leaders

Ivan Gomez
Provided By The Delray Beach Housing Authority

The Delray Beach Housing Authority recently announced the re-appointment of Ivan Gomez as chairman and newly appointed Robert Cantwell as vice chairman of the board of directors. The authority is governed by seven commissioners, each appointed by the city commission for a term of four years. The organization is dedicated to improving the quality of life for low- and moderate-income families, and providing the opportunity for self-sufficiency by offering safe, quality housing. Additionally, The Delray Housing Group, Inc. has announced the appointment of Cantwell as chairman and Noah Hale as vice chairman of its board of directors. The group’s mission is to provide affordable housing opportunities, promote economic development and be a catalyst for community revitalization.

Robert Cantwell
Provided By The Delray Beach Housing Authority

Noah Hale
Provided By Delray Beach Housing Authority

Palm Beach Opera director named to prestigious post

Joanna Latini
Provided By Palm Beach Opera

Palm Beach Opera’s director of resident artist programs, Joanna Latini, has been selected for the prestigious 2025 Opera America Leadership Intensive, a program that identifies and develops emerging leaders in the opera industry. Latini, a champion of young artist development and an advocate for creating transformative, inclusive spaces in opera, is one of 18 participants selected from around the world. In its 10th year, the program exemplifies Opera America’s long-standing commitment to identify and support the professional growth of leaders who will help move opera forward for years to come.

Palm Beach Gardens attorney elevated to principal at firm

Matthew N. Turko
Provided By Cummings & Lockwood

Cummings & Lockwood has announced that Matthew N. Turko, an attorney in the firm’s private clients group and based in their Palm Beach Gardens office, has been elected to principal, effective Jan. 1. Turko focuses his practice on sophisticated estate planning. He also advises clients on federal income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax issues.

Community Foundation adds five members to philanthropy council

The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, a nonprofit organization that leads partnerships with donors, nonprofit organizations, and community members to solve the region’s chronic and emerging issues, recently announced five new philanthropy advisory council members. The council is a collaborative group of trusted advisors providing Community Foundation with leadership and guidance to best serve their clients and the community. The new members are: Matthew Cohen, principal of Prodos Capital Management LLC in West Palm Beach; Elizabeth Marshman, associate vice president, trusts, estates and private clients at Freeman’s/Hindman in Palm Beach; Robert D’Angelo, CFA, director, wealth advisor at Cresset in West Palm Beach; Genevieve George, senior financial advisor at Hamilton Capital in Palm Beach Gardens; Samantha Vassallo, managing director and Wealth Advisor at Truist Bank in Boca Raton.

Matthew Cohen
Provided By Community Foundation For Palm Beach And Martin Counties

Elizabeth Marshman
Provided By Community Foundation For Palm Beach And Martin Counties

Robert D’Angelo
Provided By Community Foundation For Palm Beach And Martin Counties

Genevieve George
Provided By Community Foundation For Palm Beach And Martin Counties

Samantha Vassallo
Provided By Community Foundation For Palm Beach And Martin Counties

Builders group COO named to county audit committee

Associated Builders and Contractors Florida East Coast is proud to announce that the Palm Beach County Commission has unanimously appointed chief operating officer Sonny Maken to the Palm Beach County Internal Audit Committee. The Internal Audit Committee plays a crucial role in providing oversight and ensuring transparency in the financial operations and compliance of Palm Beach County. The committee assists the board of county commissioners and county administration in maintaining accountability through effective performance audits, reviews, and recommendations.

Sonny Maken
Provided By Associated Builders And Contractors Florida East Coast

Former Delray Beach vice mayor joins law group

Jordana L. Jarjura
Provided By Government Law Group

Government Law Group recently announced the addition of veteran land use and government relations attorney Jordana L. Jarjura as Of Counsel. With more than two decades of experience representing developers, navigating complex government contracts, and holding leadership positions in both private and public sectors, Jarjura brings a unique depth of insight and expertise to the firm. GLG is a leading South Florida firm specializing in solutions for government relations, municipal law, land use and zoning, development, code enforcement, government contracts, bid protests, boutique complex litigation, and other issues specific to Florida government. Jarjura’s background includes roles as vice mayor of the Delray Beach.

If you are looking for more insight into the movers and shakers operating in the Palm Beaches, subscribe to our real estate newsletter, The Dirt, keep an eye out for stories and perspective from veteran reporters Kimberly Miller and Alexandra Clough. If you have an announcement for Business People on the Move, please send it to Pbbusiness@pbpost.com.

Eddie Ritz is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at eritz@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

Article Link: Top Palm Beach County professionals, business people on the move for the week of Feb. 9
Author: Eddie Ritz

Developer’s plans for high-rise on Hollywood Beach were rejected. Now they are suing

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New York-based Condra Property Group wants to build an 18-story tower along Hollywood Beach. Courtesy of Condra Property Group

A lawsuit filed recently against the City of Hollywood could determine how developers and municipalities handle Florida’s Live Local Act, a controversial law meant to spur more affordable housing.

New York-based developers Condra Property Group sued the city Jan. 10 after it denied the group’s request to build a 17-story mixed-use project, with affordable housing units, restaurants and a parking garage, under the Live Local Act. If approved, the property would be the second tallest building north of Hollywood Boulevard after the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort.

Condra says its proposal was designed in accordance to the Live Local Act, a 2023 law which offers tax breaks to developers to build supersize projects with apartments dedicated to affordable housing. Under the law, developers can override local building controls, like zoning, density and height limits, so long as their projects deliver a certain amount of affordable housing units. While the proposed Condra building would be eight inches shorter than Margaritaville, the City of Hollywood denied the request, claiming that Margaritaville cannot be used as a height benchmark because the resort was built under special circumstances.

“The denial was based on the applicant’s interpretation of the legislation, specifically regarding the applicability of height requirements to the site. The City did receive the suit and is reviewing accordingly,” city spokesperson Joann Hussey said in a statement to the Herald.

New York-based Condra Property Group wants to build an 18-story tower along Hollywood Beach. Courtesy of Condra Property Group

The lawsuit has greater implications beyond Hollywood, said Keith Poliakoff, an attorney representing Condra. This is the first time a Live Local Act-related lawsuit involving height restrictions has been filed.

“There are numerous developers who are waiting in the wings, waiting to confirm that the court is going to support Live Local and agree with the position of the developer here that the height of the Margaritaville is the benchmark that the city has set itself and that it can be matched by others,” Poliakoff said. “To get a project to the point where we’re at cost over a million dollars, so there are a lot of developers who are waiting to see the outcome here before making that same expenditure.”

Keith Poliakoff is an attorney representing New York-based developers Condra Property Group. His client is suing the City of Hollywood over a denied Live Local Act request to build a mixed-use development. Courtesy of Government Law Group

Considered to be a “historic” piece of housing legislation meant to help ease the housing crisis for low-income Floridians, the Live Local Act led to disputes between developers, residents and local governments within its first year. Outraged local officials complained of losing control over planning. Reports showed that the law allowed developers to avoid paying millions in local taxes without providing much affordable housing. And communities argued that the law’s definition of “affordable” is far-fetched and out of touch.

A similar height issue unfolded in Miami Beach when the owners of the iconic Clevelander Hotel and Bar announced in September 2023 they wanted to replace the property with a 30-story tower, with 40% of units under the higher range of what the law considers to be “affordable.” The mayor called it “worst idea ever.” The owners amended the proposal to 18 stories.

But this new lawsuit may give developers the upper hand if the court rules in Condra’s favor.

Will this suit change Hollywood’s skyline?

A towering structure that dwarfs the quaint, squat retro hotels of Hollywood, Margaritaville was opened in 2015 after it was built on city-owned land under a 99-year lease. The buildings surrounding Margaritaville and what would be Condra’s project are zoned to be maximum five stories tall, according to the Hollywood Zoning Map.

The developers own 11 buildings between Oklahoma and Nebraska streets between Ocean Drive and the Broadwalk. Initially, the plan was to build luxury hotels, but backlash from residents squashed that idea, Mark Drachman, one of the Condra co-owners, told the Herald last year. The Live Local Act encouraged the developers to change course.

Condra proposed a 17-story mixed-use development with 282 residential units, including 114 units set aside for affordable housing. The project would include three buildings: a 183-foot mixed-use residential tower, a 6-story parking structure and 2-story commercial beach club. According to the lawsuit complaint, the finished product would be valued at $80,000,000. Condra has spent $1 million in fees hiring architects and other professionals to design the project to be in accordance with the Live Local Act, the complaint says.

South view from the public parking building located at North Ocean Drive and Nebraska Street of the blocks in Hollywood Beach, on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. This is where an 18-story building could potentially be built along Hollywood Beach under the Live Local Act. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com

In June 17, 2024, the developers submitted for the project’s final approval, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges that the city hired a law firm to lobby state lawmakers to change the language of the law, specifically when it comes to height matching.

“Instead, the City continued to delay final approval, while working unsuccessfully behind the scenes to change state law,” the lawsuit says.

The Live Local Act says that a municipality may not restrict the height of a proposed development below the highest currently allowed height for a commercial or residential development within one mile of the proposed development. But the law also says that existing buildings that have “received any bonus, variance or other special exception for height” cannot be used as a height benchmark for proposed Live Local Act developments.

On Aug. 24, 2024 the city denied the developers’ request, arguing that Margaritaville is located within a “specialized zone” that allows the City Commission to determine building height “on a case-by-case basis”

The lawsuit argues that the city misinterpreted the law and that Margaritaville was built “without receiving any bonus, variance, or special exception from the City.”

A view of Margaritaville Hollywood Beach from the Broadwalk. Shannon Kaestle Miami Herald

“The city will do everything in its power to prevent height on the ocean,” Poliakoff said. “Although they failed at the Florida Legislature level, they are forcing the developer to take this to court to tell the city, ‘What’s good for you has to be good for everyone.’ If you’re approving the height of the Margaritaville hotel, you have to approve it for others.”

Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy has been ready for this fight since last summer, when he told the Herald that the law clearly prevents developers from using Margaritaville as a height standard and that he was prepared to prove it in court, if necessary.

“We have no doubt that the courts would agree with the plain meaning of the law and our code and uphold Hollywood’s height limits for Hollywood Beach,” he said.

Article Link: Developer’s plans for high-rise on Hollywood Beach were rejected. Now they are suing
Author: Amanda Rosa

Condra sues city of Hollywood over denial of Live Local project

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Developer proposed 17-story tower on Hollywood Beach, citing height of nearby Margaritaville

Rendering of Live Local project, Condra’s Allen Konstam and Mark Drachman (Linkedin, Getty)

The developer of a planned mixed-use project in Hollywood Beach is alleging the city illegally denied its Live Local Act application, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The complaint marks another example of local governments clashing with developers over the state’s new workforce housing legislation, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 and amended last year. The law incentivizes developers with additional density and height, tax breaks and other sweeteners if they set aside a portion of their residential units to be designated workforce housing for a period of at least 30 years.

Affiliates of New York and Miami Beach-based Condra Property Group, led by Allen Konstam and Mark Drachman, sued the city this week in Broward County Circuit Court, alleging that the city delayed approving the project as it was “working unsuccessfully behind the scenes to change state law,” the lawsuit states.

Condra submitted an application for a 17-story, mixed-use project with 282 condos and apartments and about 35,000 square feet of commercial space. The $80 million project is planned for an assemblage at 2115 North Ocean Drive, on Oklahoma, McKinley and Nebraska streets. It calls for a 183-foot tower, a two-story beach club and a six-story parking garage.

Forty percent, or 114 units, would be set aside for tenants earning at or below 120 percent of the area median income. The AMI in Broward County is $88,500.

According to the lawsuit, Condra said the city knew the project met all the requirements of the Live Local Act, but it hired the law firm Gray Robinson to lobby state legislators regarding a section of the law that discusses project height, so that the height of a nearby resort couldn’t be used as a benchmark.

Hollywood approved every other aspect of the project except for the height. A city spokesperson said the city received the lawsuit on Wednesday and “will be reviewing [it] accordingly.”

Attorney Keith Poliakoff, who represents Condra in the complaint, said the only remedy left for Condra was to sue. The developer spent more than $1 million to plan and design the Hollywood Beach project to fit the Live Local Act’s guidelines, Poliakoff said.

Attorney Keith Poliakoff (The Government Law Group)

Live Local mandates that the local municipality may not restrict the height of a proposed project below the tallest currently allowed commercial or residential building within 1 mile of the project. That doesn’t include buildings that have been granted variances, bonuses or other special exceptions.

Condra’s proposed height is based on Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, which is eight inches taller and 17 stories high. In the city’s rejection letter provided in August, city staff said Margaritaville “is not an allowable height benchmark” because the building is in a governmental use zone, and projects located in these zones are approved “through a specialized process.”

How a judge interprets the law will set a precedent for how these projects are approved in Hollywood, Poliakoff said. He said the city hasn’t explained its defense.

“The state of Florida has preempted them and has told them you must approve this project,” Poliakoff said. “We’re not trying to harm the city. We’re just trying to say ‘approve what’s allowed under the law.’”

Article Link: Condra sues city of Hollywood over denial of Live Local project
Author: Katherine Kallergis

Developer Sues Hollywood To Force Approval Of Beachside Tower Under Live Local Act

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A New York-based developer is testing the reach of Florida’s Live Local Act, suing the city of Hollywood to advance its planned 18-story mixed-use complex.

Hollywood Technical Advisory Committee Condra Property Group’s plans include 137 condos and 91 rent-restricted apartments.

Condra Property Group filed a lawsuit this week in Broward County circuit court against the beachside city outside Fort Lauderdale after it denied Condra’s proposal to build a 183-foot-tall tower. The project is above the height maximum for the site’s zoning, but under the provisions of Live Local, the city must approve the project if it offers at least 40% of its units as affordable or workforce housing.

The suit asks the court to overturn the project’s rejection and allow the development by right, potentially setting an early precedent for project approval under the Live Local Act’s provisions.

“We feel very confident that a circuit court judge will review this matter quickly and see it for what it is, which is a desperate attempt from the city to prevent height on the barrier island,” said Keith Poliakoff, an attorney at Government Law Group representing Condra in the suit.

The case hinges on the relaxation of height restrictions for developments built under Live Local Act, which allows developers to tie the maximum height of their project to the tallest allowed height for a commercial or residential development within a mile of the project site.

Condra is seeking to use the 183-foot-tall Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort to build to nearly the same height at its 2.4-acre assemblage located a few blocks away at 2007 N. Ocean Drive. Condra assembled the site for a combined $13M in January 2022, property records indicate.

The proposed $80M development would include 137 condos, a parking garage and ground-level retail space. To qualify for the height bonus under the Live Local Act, the proposal sets aside 91 apartments priced for tenants making no more than 120% of area median income, which would cap rents for a studio unit at around $2,200 per month.

A spokesperson for the city of Hollywood acknowledged that it had been served with the suit Wednesday but declined to comment further.

In an Aug. 29 letter denying the application, city officials disputed Condra’s interpretation of the Live Local Act. Officials argued that the Margaritaville resort was not a valid building to benchmark the maximum allowable height for a development because it was built on a site zoned for government use.

Development plans for parcels with government use zoning are approved on an ad hoc basis and therefore cannot be used to set the maximum height for a Live Local project, the denial letter said.

“The approval of any development in the GU zone is done through a specialized process to set site-specific zoning and land use controls that would not otherwise apply to other parcels,” the letter states. “To date, the applicant has not provided a compelling argument for the legitimacy of height.”

Circuit Court Judge David Haimes is being asked to overturn the denial and allow the Margaritaville to serve as the allowable maximum height despite its zoning status.

Condra first proposed a 10-story luxury hotel at the property site in 2022. But it was denied by the city because of that project’s size. After the Live Local Act became law in July 2023, the developer instead opted to incorporate the law’s workforce housing requirements to allow it to build even taller.

Under the law’s provisions, projects that set aside at least 40% of units for residents making no more than 120% of area median income are granted height, density and other zoning bonuses for their projects.

Condra Group’s proposal relies on the Live Local Act to secure its maximum height. Other developers across South Florida have been butting heads with municipalities over not only the height rules but also overall project density.

Jesta Group and Miami Beach are locked in a battle over the redevelopment of the Clevelander South Beach hotel and bar into an 18-story tower along a historic portion of beachfront art deco properties, many of which fall under historic preservation rules.

A few miles north, the owner of the Bal Harbour Shops is suing its namesake village in an effort to force the approval of more than 500 apartments across four towers at the property.

The Bal Harbour suit, filed by Whitman Family Development, was the first major test of Live Local to be filed, but Poliakoff said its broader scope meant it’s unlikely to be settled before the Condra suit.

“We expect this to be a fairly simple and quick case, and one that the judge will determine by simply looking at the law and realizing that the law does not allow the city to prevent the height on this development,” Poliakoff said.

Contact Matt Wasielewski at matthew.wasielewski@bisnow.com

Article Link: Some millennials are moving into neighborhoods with built-in golf and yoga that let them live like carefree retirees
Author: Matt Wasielewski, National

Cost Concerns Keep Real Estate Atop Florida Policy Agenda

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A New York developer has hit Hollywood, Florida, with a state court suit accusing the city of improperly interpreting the state’s Live Local Act to block the developer’s proposed 17-story beachfront project after falling short in efforts to get the affordable housing law changed.

The 2023 law, which offers developers entitlements to build bigger and with limited local control in exchange for including a percentage of affordable housing units in projects, has generated considerable buzz, but also a number of disputes over local governments’ implementation. The current controversy landed on Friday in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, brought by developer Condra Property Group, which sued Hollywood over the denial of its site plan approval for a mixed-use project on Hollywood Beach over height concerns.

Here, Law360 Real Estate Authority looks at ways Florida public policy may shape real estate in 2025.

Affordable Housing

The entire nation has been grappling with a housing affordability crisis over the past few years, but for Florida, the situation has been magnified by an influx of people to the state and a crisis over property insurance rates and availability.

The Legislature in 2023 passed the Live Local Act in an attempt to address that reality. In addition to pouring more money into affordable housing funds, the law also aimed to incentivize development of affordable housing units through tax breaks and zoning entitlements that expanded the eligible location and size of projects while preempting some local review.

The law, which received significant adjustments in 2024 regarding building density and parking requirements for properties near transit, has caught the attention of even market-rate developers, who say the available incentives can make the difference in projects making financial sense.

“They’ve embraced the Live Local Act,” said Iris Escarra, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP in Miami and co-chair of the firm’s land use practice, noting that she and her colleagues were in the midst of doing modeling on eight or nine projects to gauge its applicability and have seen developers choose to pursue its benefits over other incentive programs.

But uneven application across different local jurisdictions, including strong resistance in some places, has others questioning its usefulness.

“I think every developer is interested. It’s just, how real is it?” said Vivian de las Cuevas-Diaz, a Miami-based partner and the deputy section leader of the real estate practice at Holland & Knight LLP. She noted that while some local governments have publicly voiced support for the law, in practice, they have made it very difficult for applicants to advance projects.

Government Law Group co-founder Keith Poliakoff said that while there have been applications filed to apply the Live Local Act throughout the state — and there is litigation pending on some of those — it is hard to find any developments built based on the statute because of the local pushback.

“Although everyone would like to utilize it to expand and to increase the amount of workforce housing throughout the state, the local governments have worked in so many ways to water down the bill and to prevent its applicability that the current utilization of Live Local is somewhat useless,” he said.

Developer Henry Torres, president of Miami-based Astor Cos., told Law360 Real Estate Authority that because of shifting promises and unexpected hurdles, such as the city of Miami requiring developers to present residents’ income tax returns to qualify for tax breaks, he expects to drop plans to pursue Live Local Act benefits for his next multifamily project, Havana Enclave in the Little Havana neighborhood.

“I’m going to go out and do this building market, because they have not finished figuring out how they want to run this thing. The state mandates one thing, the cities do another, and we’re in the middle,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable. The businessman who’s making the concession to the people is put in a position where he thought he was going to make X and now he’s making Y, and we’re behind the eight ball.”

It is common for such a far-reaching, complex piece of legislation to require some tweaking, and more could come to the Live Local Act in 2025. Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, one of Live Local’s major proponents, told Law360 in an interview earlier in the fall that some revisions may be needed for how local jurisdictions are grouped to measure whether they have a deficit of affordable housing and must offer the law’s tax breaks. And de las Cuevas-Diaz said a clearer process that everybody can follow is needed, including to move the needle on lenders feeling comfortable to finance these projects.

Bill Sklar, a partner at Carlton Fields, said he expects the Legislature to consider acting to limit local governments from imposing moratoria on development, a step some have taken to counter the preemptions in the Live Local Act.

The design of the Live Local Act also has proved more conducive to adding units at the higher end of the affordable range, what is typically called “workforce housing.” Lopez said that she expects to explore pursuing additional affordable housing legislation outside the Live Local paradigm in an effort to target lower income residents and to get projects to market more quickly, possibly through incentives for building renovations and rehab as opposed to ground-up development. Among the first bills filed for 2025 was Senate Bill 84, from Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, which would entitle construction of housing on farms for legally verified agricultural workers. The Legislature unanimously approved a similar measure last year, but DeSantis vetoed it, saying he had concerns it lacked sufficient language to prevent housing of undocumented immigrants.

Condominium Reforms

Affordability has also become a major focal point regarding recent reforms to laws governing the state’s more than 27,000 condominiums developments, which saw a key deadline arrive at the end of 2024.

Acting in response to building safety concerns after the deadly June 2021 partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium tower in Surfside that killed 98 inhabitants, the Legislature passed a series of laws requiring that condos over three stories and at least 25 to 3 years old, depending on proximity to the coastline, obtain structural inspections and reserve studies and start collecting reserves for certain structural components’ eventual repair or replacement.

The recent legislation set a deadline of Dec. 31, 2024, for buildings to obtain those reviews and required the collection of reserves to start in any budget approved after that date.

Concerns soared in 2024 as stories spread about buildings receiving reports calling for costly repairs or large reserves that would require their associations to hike up monthly maintenance fees and impose special assessments ranging into six figures.

With condos traditionally a popular choice among retirees on fixed incomes or younger residents before they might start a family and move to a roomier house, condos had become one of the more affordable housing options on the market, but these events turned that notion on its head. Fears over how residents will be able to cope with these new financial burdens prompted calls — including from DeSantis — for the state to take action.

Outgoing legislative leadership declined to call a special session, and the incoming leaders said they preferred to take the time to look closely at the data during the annual two-month session.

“The question shouldn’t be, ‘When?’ The question should be, ‘What?” Perez told the press after his introductory speech. “What is the solution that people are offering to the issue before condos?’ It’s an issue we’ll be discussing during session.”

On Monday, the governor pushed back on his fellow Republicans’ approach and called on lawmakers to come up with some relief for unit owners at a special session opening Jan. 27 that he said will be focused primarily on readying the state to support what are expected to b dramatic immigration initiatives coming down from Washington when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

“The Legislature should not be doing anything that’s going to cause someone to flee because of an artificial mandate,” DeSantis said of the need for swift action on condos.

The governor said he did not think there were any agreements yet on what that should be, however, and the speaker and Senate president said it is a complex issue that should be addressed during the regular session.

One idea could be for the state to issue or back low-interest or no-interest loans, similar to a smaller-scale Condominium Special Assessment Program implemented by Miami-Dade County in response to the new reforms. Carlton Fields’ Sklar noted that a Florida Bar task force on condo safety policy that he led in the wake of the Champlain Towers South collapse had supported allowing a longer phase-in period for building up recommended reserves. He also said there are questions about the potential for pooling reserves saved for other purposes.

For some condominiums, especially those built 40 or 50 years ago, it may prove financially unfeasible to make the necessary repairs and collect reserves needed to come into compliance, Government Law Group’s Poliakoff said. In that case, terminating the association and selling the property to a developer may be the only or best option.

“I think that if the law stays as is, you will see multiple condo associations throughout the state seek disbandment and to sell off their properties to enable their owners to cash out,” he said. But a March 2024 ruling from the state’s Third District Court of Appeal cast a chilling effect on terminations by temporarily blocking Two Roads Development’s efforts to redevelop the Biscayne 21 Condominium in Miami via what had been considered an acceptable practice of developers acquiring enough units in a building to amend the rules and then voting for a termination. Developers, condo owners and lawyers are waiting to see how the court rules on Two Roads’ motion for a rehearing.

Property Insurance

Florida’s long-troubled property insurance market showed some encouraging signs in the past year, with national carriers Progressive and State Farm committing to staying in the state, a number of carriers filing stable or decreased rates, decreases in reinsurance costs, and Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, getting its policy count below 1 million through “takeouts” by private carriers.

“Things are looking up, actually,” Fred Karlinsky, a shareholder and chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Global Insurance Regulatory and Transactions Practice Group, said in December. “The legislation that the Legislature and the governor put in place at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 regarding litigation reform have really made differences. Last year for the first year in the better part of a decade, insurers in Florida made money. Last year and again this year, we’re seeing rates either stabilizing or actually lowering.”

But high rates and tight availability remain major concerns for owners on both the residential and commercial sides, as well as for developers. While the state dodged worst-case scenarios in terms of the impact from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, experts have told Law360 that policy costs are likely to go up as a result of these two major storms, and Karlinsky noted that other global catastrophic events, such as the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area, could exacerbate the situation in Florida. And the perennial threat posed by hurricanes only looks likely to worsen with climate change.

“Florida cannot continue to excel unless this issue is taken care of,” Poliakoff said. “There are too many individuals, too many companies that can no longer afford to be in the state and can no longer afford to build because the property insurance rates have gone out of hand.”

High rates have pushed a number of homeowners and even owners of larger properties in South Florida to “go bare” and self-insure for wind, Poliakoff added, setting up what he called a potentially “disastrous” scenario for the state if South Florida takes a significant hit from a storm.

Critics have also complained that while the reforms the state enacted to reduce insurance litigation in response to fraud and frivolous claims have led to a reduction in cases, the new laws swung the pendulum too far in favor of the insurance industry.

It is possible that the Legislature continues to wait to see how those reforms play out, Karlinsky said, but the incoming speaker did include a line in his opening speech about Floridians not wanting their insurance laws to be written by insurance companies.

A solution must come from the government working with the private sector, because the private sector does not have enough money to do it by itself and the government could provide some financial backing to help Floridians buy more reasonably priced polices than they could otherwise, Oscar Seikaly, CEO of NSI Insurance Group, suggested.

“They can help with the funding, they can come up with the financial engineering so it’s not all the private sector. So it’s a joint effort. That’s what’s going to resolve it or help it,” he said. “Nobody is going to force anyone to remain in the state.”

Poliakoff and others said it will be up to the state, not the federal government, to address the issue.

H.B. 13, filed by Broward County Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel, proposes to remake Citizens by requiring it to offer hurricane coverage to all residential properties while having private carriers handle other, less catastrophic risks. A similar proposal failed to gain traction last year, but this version has attracted bipartisan support and been referred to two committees.

Further tweaks to building requirements in parts of the state or programs to incentivize hardening or building more resilient buildings could also help. A pilot My Safe Florida Condo program that will provide free inspections and grant funding for wind mitigation improvements reached capacity in a few days, and $200 million appropriated last year to the existing My Safe Florida Home program was quickly exhausted.

Among the early bill filings, Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, R-Doral, has proposed a new tax credit for owners of “resilient buildings” in S.B. 62.

Also Worth Watching

In addition to these three areas, there are several other topics where public policy and Florida’s real estate landscape overlap and that should be interesting to watch in 2025.

In addition to its actions on building safety reforms for condominiums, the Legislature moved in recent sessions to crack down on fraud and misconduct in homeowners and condominium associations, spurred in large part by criminal charges being brought over an alleged multimillion-dollar fraud ring involving board members of a large homeowners association in the Miami suburbs.

Lauren Fallick, a partner at Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine PL, said she expects some immediate impacts on financial transparency from the new law, which took effect July 1, but also some chilling effects on residents’ willingness to serve. She also pointed out that the recent legislation did not include requirements regarding law enforcement’s response to claims.

She expressed doubt that lawmakers will move quickly to address that issue in 2025 but added, “It’s going to be interesting to see the fallout of all of this when you’re seeing people getting arrested on television, and other homeowners associations or condo association owners have made similar reports with backup and nothing happened.”

The Legislature sparked significant controversy in 2023 with its passage of S.B. 264, a bill that restricted property ownership in the state for people “domiciled” in seven foreign countries, including more extensive restrictions regarding China. There is still a lot of interest in the topic, Holland & Knight’s de las Cuevas-Diaz said, including the impact on investment funds that may include members from the restricted countries. But with two lawsuits pending, including one currently on appeal before the federal Eleventh Circuit, lawmakers may wait for the outcome in court.

The controversial trend of investors buying up large numbers of homes to rent has not been addressed yet by the Florida Legislature, but the incoming speaker also commented in his introductory speech that Floridians “want to own their own homes, not be tenants to private equity firms.” When asked about the topic, however, Senate President Albritton said this sounds like a free market issue to him.

Lawmakers may also look to address a number of issues related to land management and development, according to Carlton Fields’ Sklar. He pointed to concerns over municipalities’ liberal invoking of an “extraordinary circumstances” provision to exceed a statutory cap on impact fees for development projects, a desire to reduce inconsistencies between counties’ comprehensive land-use plans and local land development regulations, and development challenges arising from shortages of wetland mitigation credits that developers can purchase to allow building and protect environmentally sensitive lands in certain parts of the state.

The governor’s call for a special session provided a clear indication that federal policy under the incoming Trump administration could also affect Florida through changes on various topics including immigration, labor and the environment, as well as funding made available for areas like transportation. Sources said they expect the state to benefit from the incoming president tapping multiple Floridians, including Sen. Mario Rubio, Rep. Michael Waltz and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for important roles in Washington.

“I think it confirms kind of where Florida sits,” de las Cuevas-Diaz said. “I think it could be in the long run a good opportunity for us. … Even with hurricanes, we still seem to be a state where people want to come. We’ve just got to work through our issues.”

–Editing by Rich Mills

Article Link: Cost Concerns Keep Real Estate Atop Florida Policy Agenda
Author: Nathan Hale