Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By Brittany Wallman

Published May 18, 2007

FORT LAUDERDALE -- The developer of a controversial, high-rise boat-storage warehouse revealed this week that a neighboring condo asked for $550,000, among other things, to support the project.

The revelation came as a surprise to many and drew gasps from the crowd who filled City Hall on Tuesday to speak out about the Harborage Club boat-storage proposal on a canal off Cordova Road.

"Have you been approached by anybody on the opposing side for cash, money?" Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson asked the developer's lawyer, Debbie Orshefsky, as a hushed audience waited in suspense.

"Yes, commissioner," she answered.

Orshefsky said condo Mark I's request for the money Sunday night was shocking in its magnitude. Even the condo attorney who asked for it labeled the amount "ridiculous," saying it was a starting point for negotiations, and one of a long list of requests.

"This is the normal course of business in development," said attorney Neil Schiller, of Becker & Poliakoff. "What we did is we asked for a large amount of money, not expecting that large amount of money but trying to leverage the other requests we were making."

The condo didn't get any money, and the developer, Atlantic Marina Holdings of Charleston, S.C., received city approval for the warehouse Tuesday. But the revelation could lead to changes regarding secret developer agreements. At least two members of the City Commission said they may consider a law requiring disclosure of such deals.

City Attorney Harry Stewart said he didn't think the attempted deal violated city laws, but said a cash-for-support request carries the "appearance of impropriety." State Attorney's Office spokesman Ron Ishoy said no one filed a complaint with his agency. Developer deals with neighbors are common in South Florida's close quarters, where vocal opponents can kill a project. The mollified neighbor usually agrees to speak on the project's behalf, or at least not to oppose it. Schiller said it's not unusual for condos to ask developers for cash.

"Trust me when I tell you, this isn't the first time this has happened," said Schiller.

But Hutchinson and Orshefsky disagreed, saying deals typically have the developer making general improvements for the neighbor, like adding landscaping, painting a building, putting up a new sign. It was the request for cash that made this stand out, Hutchinson said. And the amount, even more unusual.

"There's nothing more appalling to me, nothing," she said.

In the crowd Tuesday night were several residents of the Mark I, an older, 50-unit condo a block away from the canal-front Harborage site on the opposite side of Cordova Road.

The condo also wanted the Harborage reduced in height from 11 to seven stories, a key sticking point for support, Schiller and condo president Karen Anderson said. They wanted 8-foot palm or oak trees planted at their condo building. They wanted to be insured by the developer in case construction debris flew into their condo during a hurricane. They had a long list of safety and operational requests. And they asked for the money, they said, which could have paid for a traffic study and other mitigation.

Schiller said he or the condo board members would have endorsed the Harborage if the requests had been met.

"If there was the right package," Schiller said, "[Mark I] would have approved the project."

They got nothing. On Tuesday, Schiller stood before city commissioners and gave a critical analysis of the project, pointing out city staff's findings that the project clashed with parts of the development code.

Anderson called the project a "detriment to my neighborhood." Hutchinson said she just learned Tuesday of the attempted deal and felt the public should know.

"I was stunned," she said. "I couldn't think of anything else after I heard that."

She voted with Mayor Jim Naugle and Commissioner Carlton Moore to approve the Harborage, which originally was 15 stories tall and the subject of vociferous opposition for weeks.

Hutchinson said she might ask the city to consider a law requiring developer agreements be divulged. Naugle, who called the condo's actions "shaking down a developer," said he, too, was interested in such a law.

Anderson insisted her condo's opposition was "never about the money." She said she asked herself at the commission hearing whether anyone else in the neighborhood cut a deal with the developer, which is why she would like such agreements to be public.

"I wondered that night about people who seemed to have reversed their positions," she said. " ... I was looking around the room, thinking, `Hmmm.'"

Orshefsky said her client made no deals.