Developer calls Beach Towing a zoning violator

Deco Capital Group LLC delivered a legal memo to city officials in Miami Beach contending that the operations of Beach Towing in the Sunset Harbour area violate city zoning rules.

The company’s memo alleges that Beach Towing has violated zoning rules unnoticed for at least the last 30 years and should be shut down.

It is a new phase of an ongoing fight between Deco Capital and Beach Towing.

Deco Capital owns eight lots that comprise 1733-1769 Purdy Avenue, which are located near Beach Towing. Three of the lots were owned years earlier by Beach Towing, which inserted a deed restriction to keep competitors off the lots before selling them in 2003.

The deed restriction prevents the land from being used for parking, among other uses that include towing and storage.

“We’re not building a storage yard, a parking lot, or a towing or garage business. We’re not simply going to, nor do we want, to build any of those things on our lot,” Bradley Colmer, managing principal of Deco Capital, told the Miami Herald.

Colmer also told the Herald  that Beach Towing is demanding payment for waiving the deed restriction and allowing Deco Capital to proceed unimpeded with a luxury mixed-use project called Sunset Harbour Residences on the parcels assembled on Purdy Avenue.

An investor in the development told the Miami Herald that Beach Towing wants “a multimillion-dollar payment” from Deco Capital. [Miami Herald] — Mike Seemuth