After longtime community activist Tjet Martin testified and the court made its decision Jan. 22, Joni Mitchell’s lyrics — “they’ve paved paradise and put up a parking lot” — played in some people’s minds.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit Judge John F. Lakin denied the request of Martin and co-plaintiff Jo Ann Meilner to temporarily halt construction of five parking spaces in a city-owned beach access.
As part of a 2012 lawsuit that seeks to void a joint agreement between the city and ELRA Inc., the corporate entity of Ed Chiles’ Beachhouse Restaurant, the injunction sought to protect the city’s beach access-pocket park from development.
The pocket park is adjacent to a 34-space private parking lot that serves the Beachhouse Restaurant along Gulf Drive.
The injunction was specifically designed to halt the city’s Jan. 8 authorization to Gator Grading and Paving for a $16,500 project to replace a native dune with five parking spaces.
Martin testified the proposed development would destroy wildlife habitat and an environmentally sensitive dune area for which the city received a 2010 permit for restoration seaward of the coastal construction control line.
“The birds will be gone, the plants and the trees, too,” she said.
Martin testified that in the past 10-11 years, she has attended every Bradenton Beach commission meeting, assisted in planting 2,000 sea oats along the beach and volunteered as Scenic Waves co-chair and with the Waterfronts Florida Program.
Martin also told the judge that while she filed the injunction before the court, she didn’t attempt to stop work on the adjacent 34-space parking lot — which also is challenged in the lawsuit — because it is privately owned.
Lakin denied the injunction without prejudice, allowing the plaintiffs to try again another day.
After the hearing, plaintiffs’ attorney Ralf Brookes said he was “absolutely shocked” that the judge did not allow the development agreement and other documents into evidence.
He said he is considering another request for an injunction.
Brookes told the judge the agreement was inconsistent with the city’s comprehensive plan and city code because it changes the property use from a natural area to parking, and violates the city charter because proper city procedures were not followed in its enactment.
Brookes also argued that the city-owned park and the adjacent restaurant parking lot are designated “preservation” in the comp plan.
ELRA alleged it obtained a 2012 Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit in reliance on the city’s development order.
Also in its response, ELRA claimed it would incur costs if required to obtain another DEP permit, in defending against DEP enforcement actions and for alternative parking and attorney’s fees.
Representing Bradenton Beach, attorney Charles Johnson of Blalock Walters said, “At this juncture, the court found insufficient evidence to grant an injunction.
“In part, the court was concerned that the case was filed in 2012, and the matter was not brought before.”
Johnson told the court that the construction on the city owned parcel is the final phase of a $150,000 parking project.
Chiles said, “I think we’re moving forward again. We’d started this as a private-public partnership.”
He also said he wants to continue efforts toward beautification, as well as sea turtle and environmental protection, including the dunes.
“It’s been very unfortunate that it’s been very costly to do the right thing,” he added.
Meilner is a former member of the city’s planning and zoning board. Martin is the life partner of Bradenton Beach Mayor Bill Shearon, also a former P&Z member.
Meilner and Shearon, along with Rick Bisio and Joyce Kramer, resigned from the board in 2012 after commissioners approved the development agreement with Chiles allowing beachfront parking for the city during the day and valet parking for the restaurant at night.
Shearon had been a co-plaintiff with Meilner and Martin until he was elected mayor in November 2013.
Lakin is the third judge assigned to the lawsuit. Judges Janette Dunnigan and Gilbert Smith Jr. disqualified themselves due to their past relationships with Chiles.
Near the end of the hearing, Lakin asked Johnson if the paving work were to go forward whether it could be removed.
Johnson advised the court that, according to the engineer he’d talked to, it could.
No future court date was set.