Three lawsuits, one filed in each of the past three years — all by Long Bar Pointe’s developers — continue a slow march through the court as several plans for the 529-acre coastal property linger in Manatee County’s planning department.
Renamed Aqua By The Bay, the development is proposed southeast of Tidy Island and the historic village of Cortez on the shore of Sarasota Bay, recognized as a protected Outstanding Florida Waterway and estuary of national significance. Roughly a quarter of the property is submerged lands.
Long Bar Pointe LLLP and Cargo Partners VIII, controlled by Carlos Beruff and Larry Lieberman, purchased the property from SBC Developments in June 2012.
Of the three lawsuits, two are against Manatee County.
Filed in 2013, the first LBP suit seeks relief from a $2.35 million fee related to the construction of El Conquistador Parkway, a road abutting the perimeter of the project.
A 2014 suit challenges the constitutionality of four Manatee County Comprehensive Plan coastal policies and seeks to set in motion an eminent domain “takings” proceeding. Suncoast Waterkeeper and Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage intervened in November to support the county’s position.
The most recent lawsuit, filed in July, seeks unspecified damages against Florida Power & Light for a trespass, ejectment and inverse condemnation of a “buried high voltage cable,” according to court records. Developers allege the utility cable stretches across their submerged property outside a permitted easement.
Despite the litigation, the developers in August submitted a new plan for 3,200 homes and 78,000 square feet of commercial space. The county considers the application “pending.”
Over the years, Manatee County approved a final site plan and construction of 258 multi-family homes in 2004 and, 10 years later, a preliminary plan for 200 single-family homes. According to court records, the upland entitlements “remain in effect.”
On hold until the 2013 El Conquistador Parkway agreement lawsuit is resolved are transportation approvals for 1,658 residential units.
Also pending is the developers’ 2014 application for 1,097 single-family units, 2,492 multi-family units, 60,000 square feet for offices and 100,000 square feet of commercial space, according to court records.
Former Manatee County Commissioner Jane von Hahmann described the Aqua shoreline as the “largest mangrove forest in northern Sarasota Bay” and the “last vestige” of pristine shoreline in the county other than the coastal property at the FISH Preserve in Cortez.
In 2013, developers proposed to dredge an entry canal where seagrass beds exist, create a marina basin and finger canals and destroy mangroves and wetlands to create seawalls for the hotel, marina and residential project.
About 1,000 people attended a 12-hour meeting in August 2013, many voicing opposition to the wetland and mangrove destruction.
On hearing the public outcry, the county commissioners turned down the developers’ request to amend the comp plan, giving rise to their 2014 private property “takings” complaint.
In a motion to rule against the developers’ complaint, the county’s attorneys wrote: “The plaintiffs allege that their shoreline parcels include submerged lands that extend as far as 650 feet (approximately) beneath the waters of Sarasota Bay to the state’s sovereign submerged lands and an extensive tract of coastal wetlands.”
The attorneys argued Manatee County’s coastal policies assert a legitimate state interest in protecting coastal and sensitive areas that do not deprive the plaintiffs of “economically viable use of the property as a whole.”
The motion was heard Dec. 4 and a decision is expected in January 2016.