Another Victory: Embassy Suites appeal in splash park case denied. (SAR)

Multicolored monstrosity and developer lost, again. Today, we won another victory. Congratulations to the St. Augustine Beach residents, Planning and Zoning Board, former Chair Jane West, St. Augustine City Commission, former Mayor and current Commissioner Undine Celeste Pawlowski George, current Mayor Margaret England, current Vice Mayor Maggie Kostka, and Commissioners Donald Samora and Dylan Rumrell, City of St. Augustine City Attorney James Patrick Wilson and partner Jeremiah Mulligan. W

We did it -- another victory over the Temple Destroyers who would turn our village into an ugly unreasonable facsimile of Broward County.

Will KEY BEACH NORTH LLC and AKERMAN law firm, land planner KAREN TAYLOR, former County Commissioner, lawyers CYNDI LAQUIDARA (former Jacksonville General Counsel) and THOMAS O'NEILL IBGRAM, now be found responsible for the City's legal fees?

Footnote: tedious THOMAS INGRAM is no longer with AKERMAN -- he's the guy responsible for billing the City of St. Augustine some $200,000 in support of the notion of bringing 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste illegally dumped in the Old City Reservoir back to Lincolnville, putting dirt on top of it, and calling it a "park." We beat him on that one, too.


From The St. Augustine Record:

By Christen Kelley

Posted at 4:59 PM

The courts have once again ruled against Embassy Suites in St. Augustine Beach, upholding the city’s decision on Friday to reject plans for a splash park at the beachfront hotel.

Key Beach North, the developers of the hotel, were seeking an appeal of a recent ruling that sided with the city.

The company submitted plans in 2018 for a children’s splash playground with a water slide on the hotel property off of A1A Beach Boulevard.

The project quickly became unpopular among residents and commissioners, who felt the splash park would have a negative impact on the overall aesthetic of the area. They also cited concerns about the height of the project, because the height of the actual hotel ended up being higher than expected.

After the request was denied, Key Beach North filed a lawsuit claiming the city did not have grounds to deny the splash park because it met code requirements. The court ruled in favor of the city.

Circuit Judge R. Lee Smith, in his summary on April 25, stated: “The court finds that there exists substantial competent evidence supporting the written findings that ‘there was evidence of adverse visual impact on the surrounding environment’ and ‘the proposed structure and usage was incompatible with surrounding uses.’”

A few months later, Key Beach North filed a petition in the 5th District Court of Appeal.

“None of those findings identified any provision of the City’s Land Development Code that the project violated,” the petition reads. “Instead, the City rejected the project on the basis of a grab bag of complaints that had nothing to do with any standard prescribed by the Code.”

On Friday, a judge denied the appeal with only a one-word opinion, signaling the final decision on the case.