The 5th District Court of Appeal upheld a state wetlands permit for an enclave of homes on Perico Island for developer Pat Neal of Neal Communities.
The March 21 decision takes the developer a step closer to constructing Harbor Sound on 3.46 acres fronting on Anna Maria Sound, including the destruction of 1.05 acres of mangroves.
Three appellate judges affirmed a Southwest Florida Water Management District August 2015 permit decision in the appeal initially brought by former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash and four nonprofits, ManaSota-88 Inc., Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage, Sierra Club and Suncoast Waterkeeper Inc.
Another order by the 5th DCA in March turned down requests from both sides to assess their attorneys’ fees to the other.
Harbor Sound is planned as four 8,400 square-foot homes on 23,700-28,200 square-foot lots on Anna Maria Sound for Neal family members.
“That’s still the plan,” Neal told The Islander April 5.
Harbor Sound is adjacent to Harbour Isles, a partially-built 650-plus unit development approved in 2010 by the city of Bradenton.
In the March appellate arguments, attorneys for Neal and Swiftmud asked the panel to allow the state permit to stand, while McClash’s Cape Coral attorney Ralf Brookes said a prior administrative law judge’s decision ought to prevail.
Brookes wrote in an April 4 email, “We presented all of our arguments very well,” adding the 5th DCA issued no written opinion. “We, of course, are disappointed that the district court did not uphold the administrative law judge’s decision.”
The ALJ decision compared Neal’s project to the dredge-and-fill projects in Florida in the 1960s and 1970s — before environmental controls — and recommended denial, which was overturned by the Swiftmud governing board, then headed by developer Carlos Beruff.
Considered by the panel were McClash’s standing as a recreational boater and fisher, as well as a Swiftmud decision to require Hillsborough County mitigation.
Neal weighed in on the appellate decision, saying he doubted the 5th DCA would have affirmed without an opinion “on the narrow issue of standing.”
Neal said he believes the judges were persuaded by the 1977 precedent of Save Anna Maria v. Department of Transportation, a case that stands for the right of local regulatory bodies to choose mitigation.
The same week in March as the oral arguments, McClash and Harbor Sound neighbor Debbie Wilcox sent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a Clean Water Act complaint after workers were seen trampling through coastal vegetation at the site.
According to Corps public information officer Nakeir Nobles April 6, that complaint was resolved.
“It was found there was no impacts to jurisdictional waters of the U.S.,” she said.
Next for the subdivision, Neal expects his son Michael Neal, owner and contractor, will finish improvements under the state permit.
Asked about his plans for the adjacent 36 acres he owns on Perico Island, Neal said, “That’s too many questions.”
Did anyone really think that preserving nature would win over money and the pull his company has on this area? Not on your life ! So much again for keeping the area preserved and natural. Too Bad!!
If anyone really thought that McNeil would get stopped, they are really living in the clouds. This developer is much too important to the county of Manatee to tell him he can’t do anything. Once again, money and power win!!!
It’s okay to tear out an acre of Mangroves, who knew? I live on Perico Island and do not want to think of what he’s going to do with the remaining 36 acres. I can’t get out of my driveway now with that eyesore, Harbor Isles. We’ll be out of here in less than ten years.