A Miami federal jury handed a stinging rebuke to the Village of Pinecrest last week, ruling that government officials in the affluent Miami-Dade suburb violated a residential developer’s civil rights by conditioning a building permit on the donation of private land.
On Thursday, jurors awarded developer Megladon $409,000 in damages after finding the village’s permitting practices constituted a widespread, unconstitutional tactic that effectively coerced homeowners and small builders into surrendering portions of their properties to obtain routine construction approvals.
“This is a major victory for property owners across Florida,” said Tim McGinn, Megladon’s attorney, a shareholder with Gunster law firm. “The jury found that Pinecrest had a systemic practice of requiring land dedications as a condition for issuing permits. That’s exactly what the Civil Rights Act is designed to prevent.”
Village Attorney Mitchell Bierman and a Pinecrest spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Megladon, a Coral Gables-based entity managed by Narciso and Jack Attia, Andreas Hase and Lourdes Heinze de Hase, bought the property at 13100 Southwest 77th Avenue in 2016 for $745,000, records show.
Three years later, Megladon’s plan was relatively straightforward: tear down the single-family home on the property and to build a new one, court records show. Megladon hired an architect and applied to the Pinecrest Village planning director for a permit. But the planning director refused to issue the permit unless Megladon agreed to give the village a 7.5-foot strip of land, which Pinecrest could then use as a right-of-way, the developer’s lawsuit states.
Unhappy with this requirement — which had never encumbered the property before — Megladon sued the village in state court. Pinecrest had the case moved to federal court.
During the trial, village officials admitted to refusing to issue the permit unless Megladon signed an affidavit swearing to dedicate a portion of the property for public use, and waiving any right to challenge that requirement in court.
“The affidavit was the hammer the village used,” McGinn said. “They wanted developers to give up part of their land up front, and at the same time sign away their ability to sue. Without that signature, Pinecrest wouldn’t let our client even break ground.”
The property has sat vacant ever since.
Jurors agreed that the village’s actions went beyond a mere zoning dispute after reviewing evidence that Pinecrest’s village council knew of and tolerated the practice of conditioning permits on land dedications — rendering it an official policy under federal law, McGinn said.
The verdict follows years of litigation, including earlier state court rulings that allowed Megladon to pursue damages under the Civil Rights Act. Before trial, a federal judge had already decided that village staff — including the planning director — imposed an unconstitutional condition on Megladon’s permit. What remained in dispute was whether the policy reflected a broader practice by the village.
“The only way [Pinecrest] could be held liable was if we proved it was a widespread practice,” McGinn said. “The jury found exactly that based on statements by village council members and multiple other examples we presented in court.”
The decision exposes Pinecrest to potential scrutiny over other development applications where similar conditions may have been imposed, McGinn added.
Beyond Pinecrest, the ruling could reshape how local governments across Florida negotiate with residential builders. McGinn said the case marks the first time a developer has recovered business delay damages under the Civil Rights Act for a wrongfully withheld building permit.
“This gives developers — especially small ones — a real tool to push back when cities overreach,” he said. “If a municipality is holding up your project unless you give up land or some other unjust concession, you can now point to this case and demand accountability.”
McGinn emphasized the ruling doesn’t exempt builders from legitimate requirements to mitigate the impacts of new construction, such as traffic or infrastructure improvements. But it sets clear limits on how far municipalities can go in extracting concessions unrelated to a project’s actual impacts.
“This was never about avoiding reasonable obligations,” he said. “It’s about stopping local governments from turning routine permitting into a land grab.”