Benjamin Companies Denied Ag Tax Break on $33M Fort Lauderdale Site
The Greenbelt Law can cut what a developer pays to sit on land waiting for a better market. Broward's property appraiser did not buy this attempt.
The Benjamin Companies planted dozens of banana trees across its stalled downtown Fort Lauderdale development site this year, then asked Broward County to tax the block as farmland instead of a development parcel. The property appraiser’s office said no.
Why it matters
Florida’s Greenbelt Law lets qualifying land get assessed at its agricultural use value instead of its market value, and for a developer sitting on an entitled but unbuilt site, that gap can be the difference between carrying a live tax bill and carrying a farm’s. The Benjamin Companies bought the full city block at 707 Southeast Third Avenue for $33 million in February 2022 and won approval for two 33-story towers with 542 apartments combined. Construction never started. Rising building costs and softer rental growth left the company holding a $33 million parcel with no revenue coming off it, which is exactly the position the Greenbelt classification is built to soften. The site remains classified as vacant commercial, meaning it is still taxed on its development potential, not on the value of a few rows of saplings.
The numbers
The 2.4-acre site spans eight vacant lots plus one lot carrying a six-story office building from 1972. The approved plan called for a seven-story podium, 801 parking spaces, and 13,800 square feet of commercial space beneath the two residential towers. With the project stalled, the company put the site back on the market for more than $33 million in February 2025. In January 2026, it applied for an agricultural classification on the parcel. The office of Broward Property Appraiser Marty Kiar denied the application, and the banana trees planted since have drawn attention from Fort Lauderdale residents and local groups who question whether the plants are being maintained as a working crop at all.
What’s next
The parcel stays on the market and taxed as commercial land for now, with no construction timeline and no confirmation that the trees have produced fruit. Whether the company reapplies for the classification in a future tax year, or whether the denial pushes it toward selling at a discount instead, will say more about how much the strategy was worth pursuing than the bananas themselves. See our coverage of the South Florida market for more on how Broward developers are managing entitled land waiting on better conditions.