A developer planning a 315-unit apartment complex along North Military Trail in Riviera Beach has filed a lawsuit accusing the city's water utility of illegally slapping the project with fees that shot up 157% after the paperwork was already submitted. 7920 Riviera Beach Holdings LLC says the sudden jump could add $2.6 million in direct costs and push the project's total price tag up by $1.6 million.
The lawsuit, filed last Friday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, targets the Riviera Beach Utility Special District over water and wastewater impact fees the district approved in February 2025, according to the Bradenton Herald. Those fees took effect June 1, 2025, and combined, they raised the per-unit charge from $3,940 to $10,126 — a 157% increase. The developer says it had already submitted all permits for its project at 7880 N. Military Trail by April 24, 2025, weeks before the new fees kicked in.
A Steep Jump Broken Down
The increase wasn't evenly split. The wastewater impact fee rose a modest 4%, but the water impact fee itself jumped a staggering 289.7%, per the Herald's reporting. 7920 Riviera Beach Holdings alleges the city should have applied the fees in place when it filed its permits, not the higher rates that followed, and the lawsuit disputes the city's position on which fee schedule should govern the project.
Central to the fight is the Florida Impact Fee Act, which the developer says bars new or increased impact fees from applying to permit applications that were already pending before the fee's effective date. A city official reportedly told the developer that utility impact fees are determined by the date payment is made, not the date a permit process number is issued — a distinction the lawsuit challenges directly.
City Says They Weren't Impact Fees at All
Riviera Beach's utility district is fighting the suit on a different front entirely: it argues the charges were never impact fees subject to the state law in the first place. According to the filing, the district now claims the so-called Capital Charges are actually water and sewer connection fees excluded from the Florida Impact Fee Act, and that it mistakenly used the word “impact fee” when it passed its original fee resolution.
That explanation runs into a complication. Randy Sherman, the utility district's chief financial officer, described the charges as impact fees during the board's February 19, 2025 meeting and said at the time that the new fee would far exceed what other utilities charge. The district reportedly went on to issue revised invoices relabeling the charges as a water capital charge and a wastewater capital charge, which the developer's lawsuit says also folded in water deposits, sewer deposits, trash deposits, meter connection charges and sewer inspection fees.
How Riviera Beach Stacks Up Regionally
Even at the disputed lower classification, Riviera Beach's $10,126 combined charge dwarfs what neighboring communities charge developers. Delray Beach charges roughly $2,000, while Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach charge around $4,000. Palm Beach County charges $5,000, and Wellington and Jupiter both charge $6,000, according to figures reported by the Herald.
City officials have defended the size of the increase by pointing to a proposed $400 million water treatment facility the fees are meant to help fund. Sherman argued that project represents the kind of extraordinary circumstance that justifies skipping the phase-in period state law otherwise requires for large impact fee hikes — and Riviera Beach City Council members ultimately approved implementing the increases immediately rather than spreading them out.
Not the City's Only Fee Fight
This isn't the only fee dispute swirling around Riviera Beach's redevelopment push. The city is in the middle of what the Herald describes as rapid redevelopment aimed at upgrading aging facilities and adding higher-end housing and commercial space, and it postponed a separate final vote in May on residential and commercial project fee increases that in some cases would top 500%, after the Gold Coast Builders Association raised concerns about the proposal.
As reported by the Palm Beach Post, the developer's core allegation is straightforward: the city is charging new, vastly higher water and wastewater impact fees instead of the ones that were in place when it submitted its plans. Riviera Beach did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, and the case remains pending in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
