A city meeting Tuesday will allow Pass-A-Grille residents to discuss restrictions on the types of structures they can build.
By AMY WIMMER
Published June 8, 2003
ST. PETE BEACH - Just how far are Pass-a-Grille property owners willing to go to protect the unusual character of their neighborhood?
The city will host a meeting Tuesday to discuss the future redevelopment of the oldest settlement on Florida's gulf beaches. The meeting is the first step toward creating rules for new construction in Pass-a-Grille.
The neighborhood already includes a historic district that is on the National Register of Historic Places, but the city is seeking permission to expand that district to include more of the original Pass-a-Grille, a St. Pete Beach neighborhood that was its own town before joining the larger city in 1959.
Particularly in the past decade, as houses have continued to age but properties became far more valuable than the homes that occupied them, historic homes have been razed. In their place, property owners built homes that some residents say are out of scale with the neighborhood.
Piece by piece, the homes that helped make Pass-a-Grille a historic district are disappearing.
Now the city wants to hear from property owners: Are they willing to restrict their own rights to preserve the neighborhood?
In the past, the only development rule for Pass-a-Grille was a height cap. Options for the future include a requirement that the architectural style of new homes be approved by a city committee.
But the rules depend on feedback from the community.
"For those structures that you can't keep, what do you do to make sure that what's developed is consistent with what the neighborhood wants?" asked City Manager Mike Bonfield. "It depends on how much the community can agree to kind of impose on themselves standards to retain the atmosphere or character of Pass-a-Grille."
