Condo owners lose 30% of value, views and sunlight when developer builds 7 story condos in front of property

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Furious millionaires slam developer for destroying gated private paradise island by building huge 91ft high luxury condos that will block out sun

The residents of Grove Isle are devastated over a new development
The new building shields their once-spectacular views
Lawsuits allege violations of planning laws, but construction proceeds

The millionaire residents of a secluded island in Miami say their private paradise has been destroyed, after the city allowed a developer to build a huge 91-foot high, seven-story block of condos that now blots out their waterfront views.

What once offered spectacular vistas of Biscayne Bay and the skyline of downtown Miami has now been blocked by an enormous stadium-like construction of new condominiums, leaving residents in the pre-existing blocks completely in the shade.

Not only that, the way the new block has been constructed with its curved design has created a wind tunnel effect, meaning patio furniture on the neighboring balconies is being blown around. The prices of the original homes are also said to have plummeted by 30 percent.

before



after








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 but now overlook the new building

When the original buildings were constructed in 1979, the address was seen as one of the most exclusive enclaves in Miami, offering a huge amount of privacy



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13360411/Grove-Isle-miami-apartment-complex-blocked-lawsuit-angry-residents.html

[LonePirate]

1. I think their lawsuit might have fared better before the new condos were built.

I don’t see any judge ordering the deconstruction of the new buildings. This might be settled out of court but that seems unlikely to me as well.

[LeftInTX]

2. Man that s*cks!

They will never be able to sell their condos near market value. The original condos will go down hill fast.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. it does. They probably assumed that the club house, tennis courts were permanent amenities for their area

big loss for them...to stare at windows of other condos

[Old Crank]

16. Market value is what you can sell it for

So in a private sale what is paid is market value.

These people are getting a taste of how regular people are treated by developers

[SWBTATTReg]

4. It is not a shame?

Miami and the whole area of FL was / is nice to enjoy. Just too bad that 'just taking your fly rod and finding a spot to fish "even tho you know that you're not going to catch a fish, you know what i mean.

[Permanut]

5. That's the saddest story I've ever heard.

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. I know. Tears your heart out.

Imagine these poor millionaires stuck with having nothing to stare at all day but other millionaires.

[brush]

13. Not as sad as that one that collapsed a few years back.

Hope they don't have that worry too.

[meadowlander]

15. They'll all be underwater in 15 years and looking back with nostalgia

at a time when loss of amenity was their biggest problem in the world.

Sorry but if you bought waterfront property in Florida in the past 30 years, you did it to yourself.

[Earthrise]

22. Yep. People keep forgetting, the planet won't.

[Brenda]

23. Maybe not underwater in 15 but

experiencing severe flooding, hurricane damage and infrastructure failure.

There should be a moratorium on building on the coasts especially on barrier islands.

FEMA has the whole country to take care of not just rich selfish people in Florida who can't see the writing on the wall.

[jimfields33]

25. He's 93. In 15 years, he'll be 108 years old. He could be alive but sadly unlikely.

[True Dough]

30. It was my first thought when reading this is occurring in Miami

Hurricanes will very likely dismantle whatever is going up.

[Traildogbob]

36. Adding to

The outrageous increase in home insurance.
Everybody else have to cover the cost of the inevitable.
Maybe the weight will sink the whole millionaire paradise, and create habitat for sea life.
Fake coral reefs.

[True Dough]

37. I hearken back to Planet of the Apes

Something along those lines.

[ZonkerHarris]

50. yup. Just rent.

[flvegan]

6. Easements aren't just about access, people.

If your property doesn't directly abut the water, if you don't have restrictions in place, consider your view, your sunlight, temporary.

[DFW]

8. A similar thing happened in our neighborhood

The house next to ours had a big lawn, and was, itself of modest size with the big lawn adjacent to our house. Our neighbors across the street have a tiny, but cozy little yard where they can sit outside and have afternoon tea of the (formerly) rare days when the weather permitted. The elderly people in the house next to us decided to move down south to Freiburg and sell their house and land. They even offered our friends across the street the land with the lawn for €200,000 to protect their yard's sunny summer afternoons, but that would have involved some debt that they didn't want to incur with three small-to-high-school aged children. Finally, a businessman who had just inherited a few million bought the whole thing, razed the house to the ground, and built a monstrous Bauhaus villa, way larger than anything in the neighborhood. Instead of a copse of trees and a nice lawn next to us, we now have an iron fence and some wall of this immense house. Our neighbors have no more sunlight in their yard in the afternoon, and the rich guy who built the fortress next to us lives in this immense villa all alone, with only visits from his children from his ex, and the occasional girlfriend or family member. A few other such perversities got built in our area before the whole city office charged with handing out permits resigned and fled (bribes received, so no reason to stick around).

The neighbors sued, lost, and the rich guy now lives all alone in his big fancy house, socially cut off from the rest of the people in the immediate neighborhood, who asked him, before he finalized his plans for the house, to scale it down. He said no. He is friends with exactly nobody in the area, whereas the rest of us get together regularly.

This "because I can" mentality is not restricted to Florida.

[LeftInTX]

9. Our daughter and her husband bought a house in the Riverside neighborhood of Austin last year

(These homes were built in the 70s, two story, larger than average lots) A few months after they moved in, the next door neighbor demolished the house and is now doing all sorts of stuff. Fortunately, it doesn't bother them. (Their old neighborhood off of MLK in east Austin were mostly 1920'a bungalows and shotgun homes that were recently converted into two stories)

[marble falls]

33. People cannot imagine how screwed up these mini mcmansions are. They have driven a large amount of middle ...

... and lower middle class out of Austin. Especially in East and Central Austin. These "homes" raise property values of everyone's home. Just so .com-ers ca have ridiculous homes in SoCo or East Austin.

You and I know what happened to Austin and it isn't pretty.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.BvgEcC6-1OqUqyEZkW-A2AHaFj%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=a7ebd0405c30ded83c41f63e78e6ea1aac07e31a0e5324460623fb91cfa7b6cb&ipo=images

This was built in a neighborhood of 1920s two bedroom single story homes. This is why I left Austin: could not afford to buy or rent. This was twenty years ago at a time when I was making over $50K/year, a single custodial dad with two kids.

[Johnny2X2X]

34. This is one thing the market cannot correct on its own

Regulations and zoning ordinances are the only thing that gets more affordable housing built, otherwise it's all just luxury condos and mcMansions because that's what nets the builders the biggest profit. My city has been in a condo building boom for over a decade, but the city makes the builders save some of the units for affordable housing, so the bottom couple floors of any new highrise condo/apartment are usually market value and some even take Section 8.

So housing prices going up is not a bad thing if you own a house. But renters are seeing rents rise too quickly right now to be able to save for their own home. Home ownership is still the most sure way to build wealth and have security in this country. And despite what it might seem like, the rate of home ownership in the US has remained basically the same for 50 or 60 years at betweem 63 and 69%. The 66% it's at right now is a little higher than it was during the golden age of the middle class in the US, the 1960s and 1970s. For most people, trying to save up the down payment is the barrier to home ownership. It's hard to save up the minimum of $15K you need in the cheaper areas to live.

[marble falls]

47. Exactly right. Their response: "But controlling market prices by fixing supply is socialist!!!"

[bluesbassman]

38. We're in Dripping Springs. The amount of development is insane.

We’re now on what I fear will be permanent phase 4 water restrictions where the only yard watering allowed is by hand - no automatic irrigation. Yet all the new development requires lawn thar cannot be watered. We’re actively looking out of state for our retirement home.

[LeftInTX]

42. I'm in San Antonio. The water situation is not good.

My neighborhood was built late 70's early 80s. Our HOA doesn't allow demos, garage conversions, adding an extra story, adding an extra house etc. So, we don't have to worry neighbors demoing and turning their place in multi-units.

I just checked out New Braunfels population stats. I'm like..what???
This is crazy:
1990 27,334 22.0%
2000 36,494 33.5%
2010 57,740 58.2%
2020 90,403 56.6%
2022 104,707 15.8%

I thought maybe they were pushing up towards 50 K...I had absolutely no idea!!!

[bluesbassman]

43. It's all up and down the I35 corridor from Waco to San Antonio.

It'll be like the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles soon. Take you two hours to drive 30 miles.

[marble falls]

48. It takes 17 acres per person to recharge the Balcones aquafer most of us around here get out our water ...

... from. We've passed that number decades ago. We're just waiting for a perfect drinking water failure.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

10. it happens all over southern California. not just loss of sunlight but loss of privacy

windows of two story mcmansions overlooking one story homes and their backyards.

[Old Crank]

12. In Sunnyvale

There are restrictions on that. Second story window sill heights are higher which make it harder to look down. Required planting of trees to block site lines. A few other items. Plus neighbors are notified.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

45. sounds like heaven

[Old Crank]

53. It is good in some ways.

But when I was on the planning commission some of the neighbors used the rules and procedures as a cudgel against an Asian family that wanted to enlarge their house so one set of parents could live with them.

[DFW]

28. It is still rare where we are

Land is extremely expensive, especially as close to Düsseldorf as we are, and the whole team of the permit office has to be in on the corruption. If just one is honest, the others get ratted out.

[Old Crank]

11. Sometime back Sunnyvale required

A potential shade from your new building in with your plans. You are limited in how much shade your addition or remodel can throw on other property.

[Old Crank]

14. I wonder if they were given the option to buy the property.

Also the 2 other buildings behind theirs have restricted views.

I don't know the planning process in FL. So I don't know how much input they were allowed. I do know that where I lived in CA a lot of notice is given and then people show up and complain that the development was just sprung on them with zero notice.

[LeftInTX]

17. I think the round shape is more restricting. Sounds like they were duped.

(Looks like there's enough space between them and they're staggered. Although there are units without an ocean view, it's better than this claustrophic view. Plus they purchased those units know why they were getting.

I can't quite figure all the ins and outs, but it sounds like the HOA made decisions without consulting the condo owners. Sounds like a saga. I think most of the residents are retired.

snips....

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.

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.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coconut-grove/article287349750.html
https://archive.ph/i8M4s

Even more:

Apparently they sued the new property owner in 2015.

group of residents filed a lawsuit to stop his project at 4 Grove Isle Dr. and accused him of vindictively shutting down their slice of paradise. Their lawsuit comes just days after the developer filed his own lawsuit against the city, and follows the island’s condo association’s suit against the developer.
https://archive.ph/Ubs9e

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

19. interesting...if the property had been properly "subdivided" the condo owners would be better off

even though the property was never platted, or mapped and subdivided in accordance with city code.

the owners of the existing three buildings would have spaces between the new buildings to peer between... retaining some of their ocean views. Instead they get this one building monstrosity.

[Old Crank]

21. It sounds like a real mess

Plus the leaders of the HOA have run amuck. Money talks and I don't think that this will get torn down. The only people really affected are from the lower half of the one unit.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

46. the view you posted shows that the island condos blocked the full ocean view from the homes on land

the land home owners must have been angry with the three island condo buildings went up

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

18. I'm sure the owners with views (building 1 facing forward, building 3 facing the other way) paid higher prices

[Chainfire]

20. Lesson here: You don't control property that you don't own.

[pstokely]

24. don't buy a house on leased land

https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/life/2018/02/25/waggoner-ranch-sale-jolts-landholders/339882002/

[marble falls]

26. Too bad for those wealthy assholes. These are the same jerks who block public access to beaches. I have ...

... no sympathy for them at all, not a bit. They'll just go out and gentrify a middle class or a poorer neighborhood.

[BoRaGard]

27. I'd bet a sack of fiddlehead ferns the developer is a Republican

Shitting on other people, including other Republicans.

It's what they do.

[Vinca]

29. Poor millionaires. Next thing you know there will be pleas on MSNBC between the St. Jude's

kiddies and the ASPCA's starving dogs.

[XanaDUer2]

31. Tough

[David__77]

32. That new building is quite ugly. Looks very discordant.

It’s reasonable to consider the potential for future development when buying a home.

[Happy Hoosier]

35. Rich people problems....

Don;t get me wrong... if I was one of them, I'd be pissed. But I'm not. And most South Florida rich people suck. So I have quite a bit of Schadenfreude.

[honest.abe]

44. Exactly what I was about to write.

I can only imagine what they paid for those condos. Even with 30% loss in value I am sure its alot more than what my house is worth.

[onethatcares]

39. when the big wind from Africa comes

those places will cost the rest of us a lot of money to rebuild. Maybe they'll get beach renourishment funds to build their own private islands without a bridge.

I see no one discussing how the waste water is taken care of or the drinking water pumped in. I'm sure they don't truck it in in 80 gallon jugs.

Nor are they discussing the cost of insurance for these Richie Riches. Once they go down or flood out who would think about rebuilding.

[harumph]

40. War between the super affluent and the mega rich!!!

[Chakaconcarne]

41. This is happening in cities as condos move into old residential neighborhoods

Not affecting views, but sunlight.

[ripcord]

49. I was worried about my neighbors

So I built on 5 acres, I am in the middle as far from them as I can get.

[marble falls]

51. This is what speculation in property is about. In some future another developer will shit on the owners of ...

... the new building's owners' parade. Their current value fell 30% of their value? After how many years of appreciation? I refuse to pity the wealthy who will be just fine, no matter what.

[Silent Type]

52. Don't think views are guaranteed, although might have a case for misrepresentation.

They might get paid something as a nuance settlement for lost value, but that’s still questionable.

[JoseBalow]

54. Awww...

Pobrecitos!

[In Too Deep]

55. Oh no!

You bought a condo in a high-rise - a high-rise that likely blocks the view of someone else.

I don't feel sorry that your view was then blocked.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

56. lol... I did notice that the three older building blocked the ocean view from the houses on the shore