A test of public opinion’s power to define a downtown
Dean Trantalis could see it coming. Six years ago, when Fort Lauderdale’s mayor was the city commissioner representing downtown and the beaches, he alerted constituents to a need to protect a downtown park site from “the threat of development.”
The boldface headline on his April 2015 newsletter said: “Unite to save downtown site for park.” Next to an aerial photo of the small park, with its towering oak and banyan trees, Trantalis wrote: “This park would provide the oasis from urban encroachments that loom just ahead as new development is planned and built nearby.”
Six years later, the site known as One Stop Shop is at the center of a fierce struggle that will help define downtown Fort Lauderdale’s future. The promoter and entrepreneur Jeff John wants to put a concert venue and seven-story food hall on the land, adjacent to the trendy Flagler Village residential community, and pledges to preserve two acres of green space.
Trantalis’ warning resurfaced thanks to David Brown, a Flagler Village resident who wrote us a letter to the editor that we’ll soon publish, one of many we’ve received on the park controversy in recent weeks, nearly all opposed to the development that awaits a key city vote.
Brown and his neighbors are mobilizing to kill a project they say will bring noise, traffic, public drunkenness and other problems. Another letter-writer foresees a downtown version of Spring Break — two words that conjure up images of 1980s debauchery along A1A.
This newspaper has editorialized against the project, and we will publish all the letters we can on the subject, on both sides. Your opinions matter greatly. The volume of mail reflects the sudden prominence of this issue in the city’s civic consciousness — a good thing. But look around downtown, and it’s depressingly easy to see who’s winning the battle between developers and open-space lovers.
The project was set for a vote in July, then postponed and reset for Sept. 9. That’s delayed, too. The reason, Trantalis said, is that the scope of the project keeps changing. He said the city will put the issue on a future conference committee agenda, to give people more time to sound off in a workshop setting.
“Obviously, we want the public to participate,” Trantalis told me. “There’s a lot to hash out. We’re pushing back. I feel they have to find more open space.”
The delays should work to the advantage of opponents.
The extra time will allow them to organize against an advocacy team led by lawyer-lobbyist Stephanie Toothaker on behalf of Damn Good Hospitality Group. Her dozens of meetings with individual commissioners, as reflected on the city’s lobbyist registration portal, has rattled some opponents (there were at least five discussions in the past 10 days alone. She met with Trantalis at Doc B’s restaurant Aug. 23).
Toothaker’s busy schedule should make residents more determined. Their collective clout is needed even more because of a new development involving the homeless.
A federal court has ruled that an activist group can continue feeding the homeless at Stranahan Park. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Food Not Bombs’ weekly meals are protected under the Constitution.
Trantalis said the court decision applies to the One Stop Shop project because it means city parks are open to everybody. A park site under the control of a private vendor can regulate who’s on the property, the mayor said, which means a concert venue can exclude the homeless.
“If we’re going to achieve a result that’s in the best interests of this community, we have to make compromises on what the site is going to look like,” Trantalis said.
The fear of homelessness should not be a factor in this quality-of-life decision, but it’s an unavoidable fact of life in Fort Lauderdale.
As they keep up the fight, nearby residents should recall what Trantalis said in that 2015 newsletter: “Cityscapes are forbidding places when they fail to include open spaces,” he wrote. “I urge us to rally together.”