Tree farm flooding near airport could cost Broward $29M
The new runway at Fort Lauderdale’s airport has sent water rushing across a tree farm owned by the family of former congressman E. Clay Shaw Jr., and a judge says Broward County is to blame.
The county could be on the hook for millions of dollars because flooding during and after the runway construction ruined more than 500 palm trees on one 7-acre parcel and frequently inundates the rest of the Dania Farms property, greatly devaluing the land, according to a judge’s ruling.
The runway over U.S. 1 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was completed in 2014, just north of the land purchased by the Shaw’s father in the 1930s. Shaw’s family sued the county in 2015.
Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson ruled in September that the county had in effect taken use
of the land away from the Shaws. He ordered the county to make an offer for the property and scheduled a jury trial in March to decide the final value.
County commissioners on Tuesday will consider authorizing an offer of up to $5 million for the northern portion of the property and the trees there, and possibly $23.7 million for the southern portion.
Attorney Barry Balmuth, representing the Shaws, said he’s not sure the proposed offer is a fair price. It’s not just the value of the farm that has to be considered, but the lost potential of placing hotels on the property, he said. The county approved the land for commercial and industrial development in the late 1980s.
A family farm
E. Clay Shaw Sr., a medical doctor and Miami’s first urologist, purchased about 50 acres in the area beginning in the 1930s, when Dania was a prosperous farming area known for tomato fields that have long since given way to development.
The farm and nursery have been in the family’s hands ever
since. The family turned down many offers to develop the property over the decades but left open the option because of the site’s desirable location close to the airport, Port Everglades, the Dania Cut-Off Canal and coastal waters.
The younger Shaw, who oversaw the farm for decades and represented the Fort Lauderdale area as a Republican congressman from 1981 until 2007, died in 2013.
The land is now owned by his wife, Emilie, his brother John and his sister Gayle Peters. Balmuth, who is representing the farm along with co-counsel, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, said family members did not want to comment on the dispute.
The county purchased 10 acres of the original Shaw property for $4.2 million in the early 1990s, when plans for expanding the south runway were first being developed. The county used its eminent domain powers to force the sale because the Shaws wanted to keep the land for their tree farm business.
The property has always been a part of the family and family life. During a non-jury trial that led to the judge’s decision in September, John Shaw testified that when he was growing up, his family would make regular outings to the farm from their Miami home.
Emilie Shaw remembers visiting the farm when she dated her late husband in the 1950s. Regular weekend outings to the farm continued after the couple married, moved to Fort Lauderdale and had children.
“We just enjoyed it because it was just a very peaceful, very beautiful piece of land,” Emilie Shaw testified. “It was so close to everything, and yet you thought that you were very far away.”
The runway construction and the flooding it created greatly disturbed her husband, she said.
“You have to understand that my husband loved his property, as did his parents. It was part of their lives and they always wanted something beautiful to happen to that piece of property,” she testified. “And so when he saw the county flood it time and time and time again, he would pick up the phone and he would call [former Airport Director Kent] George and he would say to him, ‘[Kent], you are flooding my property.’ And [Kent] would say to him: ‘Don’t worry about it; we will take care of it; we will take care of it.’ ”
But Emilie Shaw said the problems continued and led to a final phone call in which she said George told her husband to “Sue me. Sue me.”
“And then, from there it was not long after that that my husband got very sick, and he then died the following September,” she said. “But I will tell you that he went through a lot, and he begged this man, OK?”
Flooding problems
When work started on the runway expansion in 2012, flooding at the tree farm prevented workers from accessing the northern portion of the site, which had 455 royal palms, 100 pygmy date palms, 13 Mexican fan palms, 11 Canary Island date palms and three Senegal date palms, according to the suit. It also made their roots unsuitable for transplanting.
“To remove a palm tree, you need heavy equipment. You can’t get it on the property,” Balmuth said of the northern portion. “It’s like a swamp.”
The flooding worsened when Northeast 10th Street [Griffin Road] in Dania Beach was built east of Federal Highway, 7 feet higher than the old “Taxi-Cab Road” and also eliminated access to the northern portion, the suit said. The northern portion is next to an airport taxi holding lot.
The runway and street construction projects were designed to keep the water away from the Shaw properties, which are split by 10th Street. But required permits weren’t followed, regional water managers say.
The South Florida Water Management District has fined the county $20,000. District officials said the county made corrections and is now generally in compliance with the permits, although the fines have yet to be paid.
The Shaws contend silt deposited by the runoff contains heavy amounts of arsenic, causing further damage to the soil.
Throughout the trial, the county maintained it did not bear responsibility for the problems at the farm, which had a history of flooding that required regular pumping. The county maintained that the palm trees on the parcel on the north side of 10th Street could have been salvaged but were abandoned by the nursery. Attorneys said the tree farm contributed to some of the flooding by trying to keep water out of other parts of the land.
The county also argued that many of the issues have been resolved and that the problems hadn’t stopped Dania Farms from continuing to operate.
But Levenson ruled “the flooding and diminution of access are direct results of the county’s intentional construction projects.”
Attorneys for the county said it still might appeal the judge’s order, but that can’t be done until after the jury trial.
If the county is forced to buy the property, it will try to make others pay. It has filed a counter-claim against the contractors in charge of the runway expansion, including Baker Concrete Construction and Tutor Perini Corp., saying they would be responsible for the damage. It has also filed an action against Old Republic General Insurance Corp., saying the company is required under the county’s policy to cover construction damage done to other properties.