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Limited crowd, expansive vision
By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA and AMY WIMMER ST. PETE BEACH -- When elected officials decided to build a $4-million-plus City Hall with no clear plans for the old City Hall, some residents said St. Pete Beach needed a master plan. When proposed land development regulations stalled early this year because some neighbors feared the ramifications, they begged for a master plan. When redevelopment became a campaign issue this spring, candidates demanded a master plan. Yet this weekend, when St. Pete Beach invited the public to two days of interactive workshops with an urban design consultant, about 65 people showed up for the Saturday session. Friday night's session attracted closer to 35. "It is disappointing that more of your colleagues weren't here," James Moore, a design principal with the Tampa-based consulting firm HDR, told those who attended the sessions. "We just have to work to get the message out and build a consensus." "I feel disappointed, but there was a lot of quality, if not quantity, here today," said City Manager Mike Bonfield. "Every person was actively engaged." City officials paid Moore $10,000 to get the master planning process off the ground. Residents and business owners who met with Moore were impressed with his charisma and vision. Yet implementing such ideas in a place like St. Pete Beach, where politics are famously cantankerous and some residents constantly question whether a "good ol' boy system" runs the city, could prove complicated. Ron Holehouse, a local resident who questioned the construction of a new City Hall and, after this year's election, found himself without a seat on the commission-appointed Development Review Board, said he hopes the master planning process will help everyone work together. "It would certainly be my wish that it will get the city all going in the same direction for positive results," Holehouse said, "in lieu of everyone protecting their own turf in an us-against-them mentality." Moore challenged the people who attended visioning workshops Friday night and all day Saturday with a question about what the city wants to be. Is St. Pete Beach a tourist town where people happen to live, Moore asked, or is it a residential town that is also a popular vacation spot? No clear answer came out of this weekend. "Can St. Pete Beach be a tourist and a residential town at the same time? I think so," Moore said. He said the city's "greatest opportunity" for change lies within the Corey Avenue district and along Gulf Boulevard. "You need to try to do these together. They touch each other and are interrelated," he said. Moore suggested reducing the number of curb cuts on Gulf Boulevard and said "there is a real need" for better buffering between residential areas and commercial development on small lots. He criticized rezoning duplex/triplex areas to single-family use. "It makes no sense at all," he said. "If it's working, why not leave it? It just creates disincentives to redevelopment. Zoning should reflect reality, not the other way around." He said because the city has its own reclaimed water system, it should "just give people potted plants" and predicted that in 10 years it "will be really tropical." Approximately 50 residents and business owners turned out Saturday for the all-day visioning session. The group divided into teams to discuss Corey Avenue and Blind Pass Road, Gulf Boulevard, Pass-a-Grille, and residential/general issues. By the end of the day, the group had reached a consensus on what would improve the city: COREY AVENUE AND BLIND PASS ROAD: Link the city park to Corey Avenue under the Causeway Bridge; coordinate Corey Avenue and Gulf Boulevard development with mixed use retail and residential; adopt commercial building guidelines for Blind Pass Road; and have overall architectural guidelines for both areas. GULF BOULEVARD: hotel/tourist zone; guidelines for all new development; the ability to transfer development rights (density allowed, for example) from the east to the west side of the boulevard; and a streetscape redesign including narrower lanes, on-street parking and landscaping. PASS-A-GRILLE: architectural guidelines that would both preserve historic buildings and support new construction; bricking and other aesthetic improvements to Eighth Avenue; redesign of the 21st Avenue commercial node; and a coordinated plan for open spaces. RESIDENTIAL/GENERAL: installation of sidewalks in all residential areas; burying utilities; distinctive entry signs to neighborhoods; better code enforcement; traffic calming; design guidelines for new construction and remodeling; and new codes regulating commercial and residential property abutments. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what we need in St. Pete Beach," said Mayor Ward Friszolowski. "And there are a lot of good things going on right now." Friszolowski said the commission will review Moore's report at its June meeting, but no real action will occur until fall. In the meantime, the city must set priorities and determine costs and sources of funding. "We need to transform these ideas into reality," he said.
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