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Article Courtesy of The
Herald-Tribune By Dale
White
Published July 9, 2015
MANATEE COUNTY - Having prevailed a second time in the case, attorneys for
Manatee County consider a five-year legal battle with a telecommunications
company over the denial of a cellphone tower at the River Club golf course to at
last be over.
“I think we're done,” said Chief
Assistant County Attorney Robert Eschenfelder, who successfully
defended the county's rejection of the tower in federal court.
Vertex Development could still appeal the ruling by U.S.
District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich, Eschenfelder said. “I
would highly doubt that they would... I would be shocked if they
got any traction” from the appellate court.
Mary Solik, an Orlando attorney representing Vertex, declined to
comment. "I have a policy that I don't talk to the press," Solik
said.After Kovachevich ruled
against it in 2011, Vertex filed a motion for reconsideration.
Kovachevich recently ruled against the company again, issuing
what Eschenfelder regards as a “more legally rock solid” opinion
with the “benefit of subsequent land use law.” |
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A
federal judge has ruled for a second time in favor of the Manatee County
Commission's 2009 denial of a proposed cell phone tower at the River
Club golf course.
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In December 2009, the County Commission voted 6-1 to deny a 150-foot cell tower
on land Vertex leased from the River Club golf course. With Commissioner Larry
Bustle dissenting, most commissioners agreed the tower would violate an open
space requirement in the site plan for River Club, a 946-home suburb south of
State Road 70 and just west of Lakewood Ranch. They said that land use approvals
for River Club granted from 1985 to 1989 allow “an accessory use” at the golf
course — but that use would have to be related to golf, not telecommunications.
The River Club Homeowners Association, a separate organization from the golf
course, opposed the tower. More than 1,000 residents signed a petition against
it.
Approvals for River Club were “site-plan specific,” Patricia Petruff, attorney
for the homeowners association, then told the commissioners. “The golf course is
to remain a golf course in perpetuity as open space. Perpetuity means forever.”
Kovachevich's ruling also took into account River Club residents' objections
about “visual impact” based on aesthetic grounds, the appearance of the
community in which they chose to buy their homes.
In February 2010, as a result of the River Club case, the County Commission
decided that before a cell tower can be approved in neighborhoods in the
unincorporated area, the company wanting to erect the tower must prove no other
sites nearby are suitable.
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