Formula for beach density contained overlooked flaw
St. Pete Beach will have to amend its development plans because of the unnoticed error.
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN
Published December 24, 2003
ST. PETE BEACH - For as long as people have been building on the sand here, they have determined the allowable number of hotel rooms or condo units by including in their calculus all of the land they own from Gulf Boulevard to the water.
Not any more.
City officials say they recently discovered that the method used to reach density on the beach - a measurement that included acreage west of the state's Coastal Construction Control Line - is wrong.
"I think it's just one of those practices that was institutional and was overlooked," said City Manager Mike Bonfield.
So what does it mean to property owners along the shore?
Bottom line is, it just got more expensive to redevelop here. "It's a pretty big loss," said Jerry Speece, explaining that densities for some properties have been reduced by as much as 60 percent.
Take 25 gulffront properties. The old formula allowed 1,529 residential units, or condominiums, on those properties. The new math says only 1,050 units can be built there, a loss of 479 units.
The hit is greater for hotel rooms.
The numbers are 3,059 units with the old method and 2,100 units with the new method, a loss of 959 rooms.
For every condominium unit a developer builds on the beach, he would have to build four hotel rooms to justify the amount of money spent on land. Most city regulations allow hotels to build just twice as many units per acre as condominiums, so the math and regulations are skewed toward condominiums.
Basically, the odds against hoteliers wishing to redevelop their gulffront properties here just got higher. "That's really the driving force here - the cost of land," Bonfield said.
With city and business leaders hoping to increase density on the beach so it is economically viable to redevelop hotels, this revelation puts a kink in their plans. The city's new master plan proposes greater heights for hotels in select areas. Now the city has even less density to work with.
"This just creates a situation for us that it's going to be even harder to overcome" obstacles in the way of redevelopment, Bonfield said.
So how did the city get to this point?
When St. Pete Beach adopted its comprehensive plan in 1989, the city was required to designate the land west of the Coastal Construction Control Line "preservation" on its Future Land Use Map in order to be consistent with the county. That area is pretty much off limits for development.
However, the city continued to zone this land, which comprises 32 acres, as commercial. Property owners then included that acreage for density purposes.
Fortunately, Bonfield said, most of the hotels and condominiums on the beach were built long before the coastal line was drawn so there are only a handful of projects that have crossed the line.
Last spring, the Pinellas Planning Council, which guides countywide growth, discovered Madeira Beach was including property west of the coastal line to calculate density.
Mike Crawford, a principal planner for the PPC, wrote a memo in April to Rick Johnson, a county planner who acts as building official for Madeira Beach: "This practice causes the otherwise permissible maximum density to be exceeded and is not correct."
While working for his private practice on a redevelopment project in Madeira Beach, St. Pete Beach City Attorney Jim Devito found out about the density issue there. Last month he brought it to the attention of St. Pete Beach, which has since changed its method for calculating beach density.
"We are not pushing anything because they are working to resolve it," Crawford said.
Less density means changes to some current projects. The Coral Reef Beach Hotel has scaled back a redevelopment project and a plan to turn the mom-and-pop Sun and Sea Resort Motel into nine luxury condominiums is on hold.
"We don't have any quickie solutions, unfortunately," said Speece, St. Pete Beach's planner.
But there are three options the city can consider, he told commissioners last week.
For residential development, increase density from 15 units per acre to 18 units per acre, which is allowed under the comprehensive plan. The commission would have to pass an ordinance for this to happen.
To support resort development, create a community redevelopment district designation to allow greater flexibility in determining density and unit size. This plan would take up to nine months to accomplish and would need approval from the city, county and state.
Try to get the Pinellas Planning Council to amend its rules to restore density on the beach. This is "unlikely," Crawford told commissioners.
Commissioners decided to pursue establishing a redevelopment district designation, which would result in higher buildings on the beach.
"There is a model of success here," Devito said, referring to Clearwater Beach's redevelopment plan.
In 2001, Clearwater adopted a development plan for its beach by allowing 600 more hotel rooms to be built than allowed. About 16 acres on the beach are designated sites of high-rise developments that can use the "bonus" rooms.
