View of the construction of a new seven-story condo building in front of Building 3 on the northern edge of Grove Isle in Coconut Grove, April 18, 2024. Some residents have sued the city of Miami alleging it broke its own laws to let the condo rise.
pportal@miamiherald.com
One of the serene pleasures of Wendy Gordon’s daily routine was sitting on her Grove Isle balcony and watching the sun rise over Biscayne Bay, framed by Key Biscayne and the downtown skyline.
No more. The sun is blotted out by a new 91-foot tall, stadium-like condominium that curves around the north end of the island and shrouds Gordon’s Building 3 in shadow part of the day.
Nor can she step foot on her balcony, unless she clutches the railing. The crescent shape of the new condo tower and its jarring proximity, combined with the formerly soothing prevailing breeze, creates a wind tunnel that rakes across the north side of Building 3 and the driveway entrance, knocking down patio furniture, annihilating hairdos and slamming car doors.
Gordon’s view, and that of her neighbors, was once unobstructed, but the other day, when she got out of the shower and wandered toward her living room, she realized the construction workers at the new building could see her through her sliding glass doors.
“Thank God I was wearing a towel,” she said. “When residents move in over there, they’ll be close enough to see what I’m watching on TV. Or what I’m reading. I’ll be able to see into their bathrooms.
“We bought a peaceful island lifestyle. It was heaven. It’s gone.”
Reality is setting in for Grove Isle residents who for 10 years fought the new condo on their private island. But they still find it hard to believe that what is, by city code, an illegal building is rising rapidly in the same place where the community’s clubhouse, swimming pool, Tiki hut bar and waterfront restaurant Baleen used to be.
Not just any building. A seven-story, 440,000-square-foot, 65-unit “exclusive luxurious sanctuary” with a “thoughtfully curated collection of indoor and outdoor amenities,” including private elevators, “residents-only poolside bar” and “panoramic views” from “wrapped terraces.” It’s called Vita. Units are selling for $2.7 million to $22 million. Penthouse residents will have rooftop patios with pools for lounging, tanning, cooking and “entertaining.
Vita owners will snatch the bay vistas away from Grove Isle owners like Gordon, who has lived there for 40 years.
The disgruntled residents have sued the city of Miami, hoping to halt construction, downsize Vita and create greater separation from Building 3.
The lawsuit alleges the city, upon the recommendation of recently fired City Attorney Victoria Mendez, broke its own laws by granting building permits to Vita developer Eduardo Avila even though the property was never platted, or mapped and subdivided in accordance with city code.
“I don’t see how a judge can do anything other than revoke permits that should never have been issued,” said attorney David Winker, who is representing a group of Grove Isle homeowners and mainland residents. “Platting prevents inappropriate development. What’s happened on Grove Isle would be like me selling you my backyard casita and then you tear it down and build a big single-family home that doesn’t belong. Or, instead of properly subdividing my land, I could chop it into 10 lots and sell it to people who put up shacks. Platting prevents favelas, too.”
‘Now everybody hates each other’
Building 3 is the northernmost of three 18-story towers built by developer Marty Margulies in 1979, when Grove Isle was sold as a convenient retreat from the mainland, connected by bridge to North Coconut Grove and Bayshore Drive. It was one of the most distinctive enclaves in Miami.
“You came across the bridge and you felt a sigh of relief,” said Bob Denholtz, who lived in Building 3 for 25 years. He couldn’t stand butting up next to the new building, so he recently moved out and paid the price. “Building 3 used to be the most valuable because we had the clear view. Now it’s the least valuable because of that monstrosity. I did not want to be looking straight into my neighbor’s bedroom. I took about a 30-percent haircut on what I could have sold for before this building went up.”
David Schaecter, 94, is an original Grove Isle resident. He and wife Sydney live in a west-facing unit on the third floor. They used to overlook the marina and tennis courts.
“Now we’re staring at a wall of condo units,” said Schaecter, president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation. He and Sydney spoke over the rat-a-tat-tat of a jackhammer 40 feet from their balcony. “It’s invasive. We’ll have to keep our shades closed. A neighbor is installing a 6-foot tall hedge on her balcony to block it.”
Somehow, despite initial adverse court rulings and rejections from the city’s building and legal departments, Avila obtained permits to build on seven acres of the 20-acre island without platting the land where Vita stands.
The labyrinthine saga dating from 1977, when the original Grove Isle covenant was signed, provokes intense head-scratching. There are hundreds of pages of documents — lawsuits, settlement agreements, judges’ decisions, architectural drawings, revisions of architectural drawings, platting surveys, emails, memos, permits. There are differing accounts of the agonizing dispute as residents and their homeowners association tried to stop the new condo.
But what is clear from a Miami Herald review is that Vita escaped the city’s normal approval process. The new condo was borne out of a 2020 settlement signed by the developer and three HOA leaders after closed-door negotiations without ever being voted on by Grove Isle homeowners.
“It’s another example of Miami lawlessness — just let the developer have his way and no one will dare tear it down,” Winker said. “If the developer had been required to re-plat, I don’t think the city would have granted permits. Or at least his project would look much different. It is so out of scale and so shoehorned between Building 3 and the northern edge. It looks like that end of the island will sink into the sea.”
The growing presence of Vita and six-days-a-week construction racket has revived complaints that HOA board members undemocratically took matters into their own hands and forged a compromise with the developer. Grove Isle homeowners did not see the settlement until after it was signed on Feb. 4, 2020.
Then, as the COVID pandemic descended on the world, homeowners were encouraged by the board to vote in favor of amendments to their condominium contract, which included the already agreed-upon compromise items — the developer would pay one-third of capital improvement costs on the island, including repairs to the north seawall and fortification of the bridge, and dues-paying membership in a “redefined club” would no longer be mandatory.
The HOA board emphasized that the new condo was approved by the city, without mentioning that the settlement already signed by its president and former president gave the green light to the developer.
“Vote considering facts — not rumors and wishful thinking,” the board’s notice read in advance of the March 30, 2020, vote. “The plans for this Development have full approvals from the City of Miami.”
“They bullied and manipulated residents into thinking it was a done deal and this new building was inevitable, so we should just be resigned to it,” said Elizabeth Tamayo, a 25-year resident of Building 3 who flinched when a crane swooped toward her balcony on a recent afternoon. Her father has lived in Building 2 since 1982.
Said Schaecter: “The HOA dictators betrayed us. They screwed us royally.”
Added Gordon: “This used to be a kind and friendly place. Now everybody hates each other.”
Proud of settlement with developer
Dan Brown, 20-year owner in Building 2 and former president of the HOA, said he was architect of the 2020 settlement. He is proud of it.
“At one point, we were paying 32 lawyers, and to continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a legal battle against a deep-pocketed developer that we were not going to win was, to me, insanity,” Brown said. “The divisiveness was tearing Grove Isle apart. We were tired. We needed harmony on the island.
“We are where we are. It’s too late to change anything.”
The city is trying to dismiss the lawsuit. There is no reason to apply hindsight and undo the settlement, the city maintains.
But a 2019 letter from Mendez — who is staying on the city’s staff until her contract expires in June — and three memos from then Assistant City Attorney Daniel Goldberg show how the city abruptly reversed its position on the platting and permitting requirements after the city was threatened with a lawsuit.
“The city recognized the illegality of issuing these permits in three different memorandums, but ultimately caved into political pressure to issue the permits,” Winker’s lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs are asking that this court quash the illegal permits.”
How the city’s position changed
The first memo from Goldberg to Building Department Deputy Director Maurice Pons on Jan. 18, 2019, advises Pons to revoke building permit applications from Avila because Grove Isle was one tract of land and the parcel where Avila wanted to build — the parcel at the north end — was not platted or subdivided.
Avila had acquired the buildings on that parcel — the clubhouse, restaurant and 5-story hotel — from its previous owner for $24 million in 2013. But the land they stood on was not purchased because it was not recognized as a subdivided piece of the island.
“The developer got a quit-claim deed from the previous operator of those amenities, which is not a warranty deed — the standard way to purchase property,” Winker said. “It is unclear what Avila actually bought. We take the position that the developer is not a legitimate owner but almost like a squatter.”
Building 3 homeowner Fernando Paredes argues that Grove Isle condo owners own the land, and if the north parcel had been subdivided into a separate property, it would be worth far more than $24 million.
“That is prime real estate worth at least $75 million and the developer got it for a third of its value because he only paid for the commercial assets,” Paredes said. ”We, the owners, are stripped of the quality of life we paid for by a developer who is impersonating as the owner of our land and we didn’t even get a dollar? How did that happen?
“Remember, over 40 years and thousands of real estate transactions, no one, no lawyer, no real estate agent, has ever said that there was another plat on this island. Re-platting would have required 100 percent of the vote from Grove Isle homeowners and the developer never would have won that vote.”
The second memo from Goldberg to Pons on Feb. 5, 2019, was similar, except that Goldberg advised that no one on the island could receive building permits until it was re-platted. Upset Grove Isle homeowners who could not do any work on their units or common areas complained that the city was violating their property rights.
In the third memo on March 22, 2019, Goldberg notes “subsequent developments.” The HOA’s lawyer threatened to sue the city to get building permits for homeowners, and warned that damages could exceed $500 million. Goldberg changed his advice to Pons.
“Because of this claim for substantial damages, and to eliminate any further claim of damages, we retract our prior recommendation and recommend that the Building Department proceed with processing all permit applications on Grove Isle now and going forward (subject to standard rules, procedures and regulations),” Goldberg wrote, opening the way for Avila.
Mendez, in her March 22, 2019, letter to the HOA’s attorney, affirmed she was retracting her no-permits recommendation and attached Goldberg’s memo. She also offered a “simple solution.”
“There is a simple solution which would allow the division of land to be recognized without proceeding through the platting process,” Mendez wrote. “That solution is for the Association, on behalf of the homeowners, to execute a covenant in lieu of unity of title with the neighboring owner. I am certain that, if you were not aware of this solution, that you will now advise your clients of this solution.”
Mendez’s letter set in motion negotiations between the HOA leaders and Avila that resulted in the 2020 settlement.
The new agreement, signed by Brown, HOA president Karen Gilmore and a third HOA board member, superseded the covenant of 1977, but did not include all the signatories from 1977, which were mainland civic and neighborhood groups that objected to the original Grove Isle plan of four 40-story towers, arguing it was too dense and would cause noise and light pollution. Margulies reduced his plan to three 18-story buildings with a limit of 575 units.
The island, originally known as Fair Isle, remains one undivided tract of land. As Mendez suggested, the platting process was avoided. Un-platted Vita is in violation of the city charter and city code, Winker states.
Winker sees parallels between the Grove Isle case and another case he won, that of the misbegotten Wawa gas station and convenience store that was to be built on Grand Avenue in Coral Gables, across the street from George W. Carver Elementary School. The Wawa plans were never approved in a public vote of the Coral Gables city commission but rather in an administrative decision by the city attorney and city manager.
When Carver parents took the city to court, Judge Michael Hanzman chastised Coral Gables for breaking its own laws. Wawa, which had started construction for placement of its gas tanks, canceled the project. The bulldozed lot remains empty behind a broken fence.
In Grove Isle, the 2020 settlement disregarded the 2015 order by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Bronwyn Miller, who said Grove Isle homeowners were entitled to keep the club, restaurant and hotel amenities that were essential to Grove Isle’s appeal and their decision to live there.
The club, which had fallen into disrepair in the six years Avila owned it, even with escalating mandatory dues, was closed in August, 2019. Eight months later, after the settlement was signed and permits were granted, the amenities were demolished. Gone was the piano bar, gym, spa, tiki hut and pool, dining hall where wedding receptions and parties were held and the waterfront restaurant which was open to the public and counted Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez among its regulars.
Developer: Adhering to 2020 settlement
Avila and his development company, Grove Isle Associates, LLLP, and CMC Group developer Ugo Colombo, who has joined the Vita project, are not defendants in the lawsuit against the city.
They and their attorneys have maintained they are abiding by the 2020 settlement, which was upheld by an appellate court in 2021. Avila was developer on the seven-acre, 2.2-million-square-feet Plaza Coral Gables project, which includes a Loews Hotel, apartments, offices, restaurants and shops, and Colombo is known for the Brickell Flatiron condo, among others.
Impassioned Grove Isle homeowners who opposed Vita say it’s important that what happened to their community not be repeated. They contend they were misled by their HOA board and abandoned by city government.
“Our city’s zoning codes were crafted with the explicit purpose of safeguarding the unique character and integrity of our neighborhoods,” said Rosario Kennedy, a former Miami commissioner whose consulting firm has represented the homeowners who opposed Vita. “Never, as commissioner and vice mayor, had I ever seen such a debacle.”
Tamayo compares government corruption in her native country, Venezuela, and Miami.
“I come from a country where the rule of law no longer exists. We want the law to be followed,” she said. “There has got to be accountability or this type of overdevelopment in a city run by developers will continue. It’s time to put a stop to these abuses of power.”
Among the decisions she has documented in her files was Miami-Dade County’s waiver of its shoreline development ordinance for Vita, Tamayo said, showing a copy of the waiver.
“It was waived because the developer presented the 1977 covenant, which was subsequently overridden by the 2020 settlement,” she said. “What if this becomes a safety issue, like in Surfside where the new condo was built so close to Champlain Towers? We’ve got a sea rise problem here. We’ve had hurricane damage.”
Grove Isle units sold for $100 per square foot 42 years ago. Value rose to about $800 per square foot last year. But units in Building 3 are worth only about $500 per square foot, according to sales records and listings.
Contentious HOA board meetings
“The HOA argued Vita would increase property values for everybody,” Paredes said. “And homeowners were looking at lots of expenses and two assessments for the 40-year recertification and repairs that kept going up the longer they were postponed. Fixing the parking garages went up from $13 million to $20 million.
“So the board made people afraid of how much money we’d have to spend, and that we couldn’t afford more legal fees. It was a fear campaign, which is a common tactic of HOA boards who harass their residents. We would go up to the microphone to speak at meetings and the president would turn it off.”
Brown, the former president who negotiated and signed the settlement, said he rang the doorbells of all 575 units to explain that homeowners had no choice.
“There was no stopping the developer. The city gave out building permits. It could not have been done without the city’s approval,” Brown said.
When asked why he and Gilmore followed Mendez’s “simple solution” to avoid the platting process rather than insist that the developer go through the platting process, Brown said the HOA did not want to prolong the dispute and expend more money on lawyers’ fees. He was also asked why he and Gilmore agreed to an indemnification clause in the settlement, which said if the HOA got sued, the developer would pay for costs and damages.
“There was nothing underhanded, no one got paid off,” he said. “The only way we could’ve won was through the city. Once the city said the permits were granted, I was not going to invite more lawsuits.”
Brown said the HOA compensated Building 3 owners according to the percentage of their view that was to be blocked. He couldn’t remember the amount of the compensation. Building 3 owners interviewed by the Herald said they never received any compensation, nor heard any discussion of it.
“It’s not that I don’t have compassion for Building 3 but we did everything we could to help them,” Brown said. “I lived in Manhattan. I can’t tell you how many buildings went up on slivers of land, close enough to reach across balconies and shake hands. Here, it’s not going to be that close. I’m sure when it’s done people with blocked views are going to live with it. I can understand if home values go down initially, but once everything is finished I think they will go back up and grow.”
Crossing the bridge to Grove Isle no longer leads to a peaceful haven. It’s noisy, dirty, full of construction equipment and orange traffic cones. Residents can no longer walk around the perimeter of the island and stop at the northern end to absorb the view from their piece of paradise.
“But it’s not over for us,” Sydney Carpel Schaecter said. She was pointing out her window to where Vita extends around the west side of the island, 100 feet farther than in original plans. “Look what they’ve done to us. Everybody knew about the platting requirement and it was swept under the rug. Secret negotiations. Giving in to the developer. One mistake after another.
“Don’t set a precedent. Stop construction. Investigate. Withhold the certificate of occupancy. It’s never too late.”
