St. Petersburg - Neighbors of Big Bayou are buttressing their environmental arguments with legal ones in fighting a developer's aim to build 60 new boat slips in the quiet backwater.

Attorney Dan Schuh, a resident of neighboring Driftwood, has filed a motion with the state's Division of Administrative Hearings contending developer Prospect-Marathon Coquina's application for the slips was invalid because the slips are not legally tied to the developer's Waterside at Coquina Key North condominium development, a conversion of an apartment complex.

Schuh said the developer represented a connection but is not selling the slips to condo owners.

"The developer took this thing under cover of darkness as a residential application and rammed it through the approval process," Schuh said.

In a statement, Prospect-Marathon said it complied with legal requirements to get permits for the boat slips and will present evidence to that effect, but would not elaborate before the hearing. The case was to be heard Dec. 11 but has since been pushed to Jan. 3, though Schuh hopes to delay it further.

Driftwood residents began preparing in October and have hired an environmentalist to support their claim that the new slips will harm the bayou, where some of them have their own docks. Schuh said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recently denied similar projects in Boca Ciega Bay because of manatee protections and that the corps should do likewise in Big Bayou.

The state Cabinet voted in June to extend a submerged-land lease and allow the new slips, a threefold increase over what the condo property has now. Prospect-Marathon had to pay the nominal lease fee as well as $300,000 for a boat ramp in Palm Harbor. The Department of Environmental Protection issued an intent to permit construction.