“The town of Palm Beach, Florida, is reviewing Donald Trump’s use of his Mar-a-Lago Club as a residence, even as the former president is set to once again violate a length-of-stay provision he himself agreed to three decades ago,” Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. Read story here.
By now, the details of the dispute are fairly well know. It’s a battle over local land use regulations, although in this case, the restrictions are in a contract, not a municipal ordinance, and therefore are governed by contract law, not land use law. In 1993, Trump got a “special exception use” permit that allowed him to convert the mansion built for Marjorie Merriweather Post (heir to the Post cereals fortune, wife of stockbroker E. F. Hutton, and America’s richest woman at the time) to a social club by agreeing to terms that essentially prohibit using the property as a hotel by limiting its use for overnight accommodations to brief stays.
Huffington Post wonders, “Precisely why Trump insists on living at Mar-a-Lago in violation of his agreement is … unclear. He owns three houses in [its] immediate proximity …: a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront home … just north of Mar-a-Lago’s beach club …; a 6,000-square-foot house across the street …; and a 3,000-square-foot house just to its west ….”
At the end of the day Palm Beach may not ever actually pursue the matter. The city may have to explain exactly how they are going to enforce the contract, or be asked why the city has not previously enforced the contract. The provision just might be illegal under Florida law, after all Trump owns the property, and it is not unusual for individuals to have a business in their home or on the property they live on. And Trump can claim the city was unreasonable in its demands and he was coerced into agreeing.
If he owns three properties that are adjacent he can float like a butterfly among the four and the fact he can be at the club every day seems to make most objections moot, because how do you separate the time out, record it, and if he takes a nap in his office how does that count?
The city might well have to pass an ordinance though such would likely apply to neighbors so perhaps the locals don’t really want that.
We will have to wait and see if this is much ado over nothing.