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Delray Beach hires Patton Boggs to tackle transient housing

By Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Delray Beach city commissioners have hired two law firms — including one of the most connected in Washington — to tackle the city’s transient housing problem.

Tuesday evening, commissioners agreed to engage the powerhouse firm of Patton Boggs and the Boca Raton firm of Weiss Serota to draft and most likely defend new regulations that will stop drug rehab centers from housing patients in Delray’s single-family neighborhoods.

The Patton Boggs firm will handle the issue from a national perspective, while Weiss Serota has experience with transient housing regulations and litigation locally.

And it won’t be cheap. The Patton Boggs firm will charge Delray Beach$443 an hour to a maximum of $125,000 plus expenses. That doesn’t include the cost defending new regs in court if need be. By the way, the hourly rate is a “discount” off the firm’s regular charge, according to an email sent the city.

Weiss Serota, meanwhile, will charge the city $215 for its work.

“This is a very important issue,” Commissioner Tom Carney said. “It’s very important that we get this right, very important that we balance everybody’s interests and rights.”

Carney, an attorney by trade, initiated the contact with the Patton Boggs firm.

Anything the city does will have to walk a fine line between the rights of the rehab patients, protected under the American Disabilities Act, and the property rights of neighboring home owners — including those who rent their homes seasonally to snowbirds.

South Florida, including Delray Beach has become a center for the drug rehab industry. Some of these businesses have established group homes in single-family residential neighborhoods, flouting city ordinances passed three years ago to stop them. City code limits the number of times a house can be rented in a year to six and also requires landlords to register with the city.

Boca Raton banned these group homes outright, but the stricter approach  didn’t withstand a court challenge.

Mayor Woodie McDuffie noted that there is no state licensing requirement for these homes.

“We will fix this,” McDuffie said.

Audience members clapped when commissioners approved the motion to hire the two firms.

“Thanks for your applause,” McDuffie responded, “but it ain’t over yet.”