The city of Hollywood, Florida, effectively told its home county of Broward to get lost, using newly acquired powers to approve a 30-story beach tower with workforce housing. The county’s next move depends on a judge.
City commissioners voted 6-1 in the wee hours last Thursday, after 12 hours of public input, to approve agreements letting Related Group build Portofino Hollywood. The developer has a 99-year lease on city-owned land at 1301 S. Ocean Dr.
Commissioner Caryl Shuham cast the lone no vote. She has opposed the project throughout, including its use of the community center site, and objected to plans that could give workforce tenants separate entrances and amenities from condo owners.
The vote capped a six-year siege in which environmentalists and owners in a neighboring 1970s condo tower battled to scuttle the plan. The county rejected the project in February, ruling the site was designated only for community use.
Florida’s freshly minted Live Local 4.0 legislation introduced an ironic situation for cities. The law pre-empts local authority over zoning, density and height on private development and creates incentives for workforce housing. But this year, lawmakers gave cities home-rule power over what they can do with government-owned property.
“You’re in a situation where most municipalities frown upon the application of Live Local because of their belief that Live Local took away their ability to govern their own jurisdiction,” Keith Poliakoff, Related’s attorney, told HousingWire TBD. “Then in the end Hollywood used Live Local to retain its home rule.”
Six years in the making
Related struck a ground lease deal in 2022, two years after it submitted an unsolicited proposal for the site. The developer proposed 111 condo units, and Broward County officials rejected them.
Hollywood’s mayor then pivoted to a Live Local project. Related added height and 84 workforce units, priced for renters earning 120% of area median income, to meet the law’s conditions. City commissioners approved the plan in May.
County officials refused to budge, and Live Local 4.0 was moving through the state Legislature. When it passed, Hollywood invoked the law’s authority to revive the plan. Related is also building a new community center as part of the deal.
Broward Commissioner Beam Furr, whose district includes the site, wouldn’t concede. He hoped DeSantis would veto the bill. The governor didn’t.
Furr still didn’t concede. At an August meeting, he asked colleagues to indefinitely defer a public hearing on Hollywood’s rezoning request.
The delay leaves the county in a position to resurface the question if a resident lawsuit succeeds and voids the city’s approval. Shuham will take the reins on the opposition since she’s due to replace term-limited Furr on the county commission.
Residents sued in June, arguing that the lease violates a deed restriction requiring the 4-acre site to stay in public use.
But that lawsuit is now in peril. The lead plaintiff, who lives in the neighboring condo tower, filed for bankruptcy and faces foreclosure over about $55,000 in unpaid assessments and legal fees.
“As a result of the bankruptcy, it sort of stays the litigation unintentionally,” Poliakoff said. “There are some issues that the court needs to decide before it can even look at the matter. It’s crazy.”
He said the plaintiffs’ chances are slim anyway.
“The courts in Florida generally side with the municipality because they believe that the municipality has the right to interpret and to govern itself,” Poliakoff added. “It will get thrown out, and they will lose. But they did it as a mechanism to try to delay the eventual development.”
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