They’ve sold Paradise –
… and will put up what?
What happens when you lose your lease on
That’s the question now at hand as, in fulfillment of one of the easiest predictions I’ve ever made, the residents of Briny Breezes voted overwhelmingly, 82% in favor, to sell their property and their town to
At least two-thirds of the shares had to be voted in favor of the sale in order for it to pass.
In the end, an overwhelming 82% of the shares voted in favor of the sale.
Briny Breezes Resident Bill Waterman walks past photographers with the result of the vote, after it was announced that residents voted 82% in favor to sell to Ocean Land Investments, Inc.
As I have previously posted, compared with typical mobile home parks, where ownership of land and buildings are divided, with the landowner often able to consume all the real estate appreciation and the residents fighting for a say in their fate when redevelopment is economically powerful, Briny Breezes is unique in two ways:
· The residents own their land.
· The residents are their own town.
The town boasts 600 feet of beachfront on the ocean and 1,100 feet along the Intracoastal.
600 feet of oceanfront (from Cordova to Briny
1,100 feet of
It is nestled between Ocean Ridge and Gulf Stream. It is the smallest municipality in
That corporation creates a wonderful mini-study in governance and effective democratic processes.
The owners of the 488 trailers hold shares in the corporation based on their lot size and location.
Thus even though it is people who vote, their votes are weighted (a concept I have seen expressed in fiction only in Nevil Shute’s unusual political fantasy In The Wet) so some are worth more than others. Since Briny is a town because it is a jointly run real estate property, weighting the votes — and weighting the economic proceeds of sale — is equitable.
On average each trailer is worth roughly $1 million, but some owners will only get about $700,000, because they have smaller interior lots. The lots along the Intracoastal and the
And, importantly for its legitimacy, the governing structure is of long standing, a critical factor when very large dollars are at stake:
Some of the trailers have been held in families for generations. Many of the residents paid far less than $100,000 even just a few years ago for a piece of old
Too often I have seen sudden wealth divide previously harmonious working bands. (This is always the challenge when a startup goes public; huge wealth in cash changes perceptions and motivations.) Here the residents had a governing system that they had used for half a century, and they used it:
All together, there were 15,703 shares at stake and of those 15,247 were voted.
Over 97% participation. No nation on Earth gets a higher legitimate turnout.
Hey, I have no problem getting 99.9%!
The final tally: 12,556 Yes. 2,691 no. Only 456 shares were not voted, or 3% of the vote.
The residents did a second wise thing — they had a long pre-vote debating interval, which let the issues have a full and fair hearing.
The vote was a divisive one, pitting those who wanted to sell against those who wanted to stay.
They had a high acceptance threshold — 67% — so any irrevocable and massively consequential decision had to have strong support.
After the vote, as residents headed out to pick up their golf carts for the ride back to their homes, Peter Murray, 75, said, “It was a landslide vote obviously … I think that is a good thing, I think things will calm down now.”
His wife Mary was already reminiscing and worried about how hard it will be to leave their seaside home of 10 years.
A high threshold and a long period of debate are both good governance, because no matter how attractive the economics, how impeccable the logic, it’s an emotional wrench to bid goodbye to the home, be it ever so humble:
Mary Johnson, who has been at Briny Breezes for 25 years, cries after hearing the announcement about the sale to Ocean Land Investments, Inc. for $510 million.
Joyful? Sad? Wistful? It’s all in her face.
Truth be told, Briny Breezes, however idyllic and rustic, was never quite paradise. Everyone is fond of it because it was familiar, and comfortable, and a bit of the old
And the unknowable future? Whatever it holds, it will be quite different from what is there now. (The median income in adjacent
Logan Pierson, Vice President of Acquisitions for Ocean Land Investments, Inc. visits Briny Breezes.
