3 December 8-14, 2022 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ MIAMI BEACH NULL AND VOID LAWSUIT: CITY FAILED TO SEEK VOTER APPROVAL OF LAND TRANSFER TO BULGARI HOTEL PROJECT. BY IZZY KAPNICK A Miami Beach resident is claiming the city failed to hold a required public vote before giving up beachfront land rights in a $7.4 million deal tied to the Bulgari Hotel redevelopment project. Mitchell Scott Novick is asking the Miami- Dade County court to nullify the deal, under which BHI Miami Limited Corp. agreed to pay Miami Beach $7.4 million in exchange for the city handing over a sliver of beachfront land and part of the city’s 21st Street right-of- way between Collins Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean, according to the court documents. BHI Miami bought the abutting hotel property, the site of the Seagull Hotel, in early 2020 for $120 million. The company is planning to build new structures on the site as part of the project to convert the property to a high-end Bulgari Hotel, Novick says. He says the city’s beach- front land is set to be “unified with the adja- cent Seagull Hotel property to create a single development site.” In approving the deal, Novick claims, Mi- ami Beach violated a city charter that re- quires a public vote for transfers of city-owned waterfront properties and beach access land rights. Miami Beach held public proceedings over the beachfront transfer, but city officials “did not disclose that the ‘right of way’ to be vacated was beach ac- cess” and therefore required a referendum, Novick says. City records show that the Miami Beach commission approved a measure authorizing the transfer of a 6,700-square-foot right-of- way to BHI Miami in May 2021. The resolu- tion states that the city will retain a “perpetual easement” to allow for continued public use of the land for pedestrian-and-ve- hicle travel and utility maintenance. The measure also says that a pedestrian beachwalk is to remain in place after con- struction is complete. Though the resolution does not mention a citywide referendum, it states that appraisal, advance public notice of the land transfer, and an internal city review are required, all of which the city claims it completed. A waiver of competitive bidding, which needed an affirma- tive vote from five of the seven city commissioners, was passed in the resolution as well. The hotel rede- velopment project is led in part by Nabil Kobeissi, head of Blue Hori- zon group, a firm that invests in public and private markets, venture capital, and real es- tate. The group’s Blue Horizon Advisors arm includes “leading investment professionals in London and the UAE [United Arab Emir- ates],” the group’s profile states. The Seagull Hotel, built in 1950, was designed by Albert Anis. At the time of BHI’s 2020 acquisition of the hotel from Lionheart Capital and Actium Development, it had 178 rooms. In December 2020, Bulgari and Kobeissi announced plans to renovate the hotel and build a new pool, spa, fitness center, and res- taurant while reducing the number of rooms to 100. “We are particularly proud to have se- cured such an extraordinary location for the new Bulgari Hotel in Miami,” said Bulgari Hotels and Resorts chief executive Jean- Christophe Babin in a press release. Novick is a Miami Beach resident who owns the nearby Sherbrooke Hotel on Col- lins Avenue. He is a regular speaker at city meetings, during which he has criticized South Beach for what he perceives as a lack of crowd control and late night crime pre- vention. A former member of the city’s his- toric preservation board, he has been a vocal advocate on land-planning issues in Miami Beach. Novick says he regularly uses the right-of- way in dispute, on the south side of 21st Street, to walk to the beach and ocean. He wants the court to void the land trans- fer resolution, as well as a historic preserva- tion board decision approving the Bulgari Hotel development plans. Attorneys for BHI Miami have not re- sponded to a request for comment. In related litigation, Setai Hotel Acquisition, owner of the Dempsey Vanderbilt hotel, is su- ing Miami Beach over the right-of-way transfer and other actions the city took that allowed the Bulgari Hotel project to move forward. Setai says that when it acquired the Dempsey Vanderbilt property in 2015, it se- cured a longstanding easement for ocean cor- ridor views, which dates back to the 1930s. The Setai complaint claims the city allowed the Bulgari Hotel project to move forward without regard for Setai’s rights and the eco- nomic impact Setai will suffer if the new ho- tel blocks Dempsey Vanderbilt guests’ ocean views. | RIPTIDE | Photo by Warren LeMay ▼ WESTON SIGH OF RELIEF ARRESTS MADE IN ANTI-SEMITIC AND RACIST INCIDENTS. BY ALEX DELUCA T he Broward Sheriff’s Office has arrested three teenagers in connection with a rash of anti-Semitic and racist vandalism in Weston, capping off a month-long investiga- tion into crimes that left the community’s Jewish residents on edge. During a press conference held on Wednes- day, November 30, Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony said that his agency had arrested three 16-year- old Weston residents on criminal mischief and fel- ony burglary charges after they confessed to vandalizing a residential neighborhood with anti- Semitic and racist slurs. Two of the teenagers re- ceived hate crime enhancements to their charges. While Tony declined to divulge the names of the suspects, given that they’re minors, he prom- ised to investigate and charge anyone who ter- rorizes the community, regardless of their age. “Anytime there’s a threat towards our school or any component in this community, we’re go- ing to investigate thoroughly and charge you ac- cordingly,” Tony said. “I can care less if you are 14,15, 16, 38, or 75.” The arrests come nearly two months after the first incident on October 5, in which residents of the Weston Hills neighborhood in the City of Weston awoke on the Jewish holiday Yom Kip- pur to find anti-Semitic and racial slurs in graffiti. Scrawled across sidewalks and bathrooms in the manicured neighborhood in Broward County’s westernmost city were large swastikas and the phrase “kill Jews.” Weeks later, on October 25, bigoted mes- sages again showed up around the bathrooms. Then, on October 30, it happened again when nearly identical graffiti was found on en- trance signs and around a children’s playground in the Hunters Pointe subdivision of the same neighborhood. Following the most recent incident, Crime Stoppers offered a $5,000 reward for in- formation leading to an arrest, which was raised to $15,000 af- ter the homeowners association pitched in. A truck with a bright, LED screen advertis- ing the Crime Stoppers reward could be seen on many days driving around the neighborhood. Tony said he doesn’t believe the arrests were a result of a Crime Stoppers tip. Instead, he attri- butes the success of the Broward Sheriff’s Office investigation in part to “old-school surveillance,” what he describes as officers “hunkered down” in parts of the community. According to the sheriff, the teenagers ex- pressed a sense of remorse for the incidents to investigators, and said that the vandalism was supposed to be “a joke.” The incidents come amid an increase in anti- Semitism across the country. Florida, in particu- lar, has seen an “alarming rise” in extremist activity driven by online misinformation and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, according to a report released in September by the Anti-Defa- mation League (ADL). According to the report, “Hate in the Sun- shine State: Extremism and Antisemitism in Flor- ida,” the number of anti-Semitic incidents documented by the ADL in Florida rose to 190 in 2021, a 50 percent year-over-year increase. [email protected] GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS MITCHELL SCOTT NOVICK IS ASKING THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY COURT TO NULLIFY THE DEAL. THE INCIDENTS COME AMID AN INCREASE IN ANTI-SEMITISM ACROSS THE COUNTRY. The Seagull Hotel in Miami Beach on March 11, 2018.
