Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Sides deadlock over Ozona waterfront

Marina owners will fight to mount a duplex on abandoned pillars, but an opposed citizens group says it won't budge.

By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published November 8, 2004

OZONA - The six rows of concrete pillars a few feet from the waterfront seem so out of place that one resident calls them the Stonehenge of Ozona.

"I wish I had a nickel for every time someone says, "What are those for?' " says Jill Howard, 56.

But while England's mysterious monument draws droves of tourists together, Ozona's 24 pilings are at the center of a growing neighborhood controversy.

Howard, who co-manages the neighboring Speckled Trout Marina, hopes the unsightly pillars soon will have a purpose.

Her parents, Jack and Dolores Bennett, own the tiny parcel of land on Bayshore Drive where the 16-foot-tall pillars stand, in addition to the marina, a three-bedroom home and a large parking area across the street.

They want to build a duplex on top of the pillars, which were left over from a previous owner's aborted attempt to build a snack bar in 1990.

But the pillars stand so close to the shoreline of St. Joseph Sound and the road that building on them requires county approval. In September, the Pinellas County Board of Adjustment denied the Bennetts' request, citing a letter opposing the project from the Ozona Village Improvement Society.

In the letter, OVIS president Peg Mahara wrote that the proposed duplex would pose a safety hazard and push the historic fishing village down a slippery slope of overdevelopment.

For the past few weeks, the Bennetts have been preparing to fight back.

Jack Bennett, 81, and his son, Rick, 53, have gone door to door to hundreds of homes in Ozona to drum up support for the plan and prove that OVIS does not represent the viewpoint of Ozona's residents. They have handed out fliers and gathered 70 signatures so far.

At the next OVIS meeting on Tuesday, the Bennetts, who are OVIS members, will ask the board to drop its opposition to their plan.

"Things around here are going to change," Rick Bennett says. "A lot of people that you talk to want to see investment. They want to see their property values increase."

When the Bennetts purchased their 1.6-acre Ozona property, which includes the Speckled Trout Marina, for $680,000 in 2001, they thought it would be a good investment.

They completed construction of a three-bedroom home there in 2002 and cleaned up the property.

Howard and her fiance, Ron Spicuzzo, began managing the marina, where boat owners pay $10 to launch a boat and leave their trailer on the property for the day. A few pay $120 per month to keep their boats parked in the gravel parking lot behind the Bennetts' Bayshore Drive home.

But the Bennetts say they've lost $10,000 per year for the past three years running the marina.

Renting out half of a waterfront duplex would give them enough money to keep it going. They would live in the other half and give their current house to Rick Bennett and his family.

If they aren't allowed to build on the pillars, Jack Bennett says they'll be forced to sell the property to developers.

In September, Pinellas County Development Review Services recommended approving the Bennetts' request to the Board of Adjustment.

Without permission to build closer to the road and water than the county's rules would otherwise allow, the Bennetts could only build a home too narrow to inhabit, county development review services director Paul Cassel told the board.

But the Board of Adjustment rejected the request and asked the Bennetts to negotiate more with their neighbors.

The Bennetts say the marina is doomed if they cannot build the duplex.

"The county has so few public launching ramps," says Dolores Bennett, 80. "They just are letting this little community group dictate what will be built here."

Some OVIS members, however, say there are two sides to the Bennetts' duplex proposal.

Sam Hart, who lives next-door to the Bennetts and sits on the OVIS board, says building on the pillars would overcrowd the village's already scarce waterfront space.

"If someone wants that kind of thing, let them move to New York," says Hart, 57, who has lived his entire life in his 307 Bayshore Drive home.

OVIS member Terry Fortner, 51, says the group has always opposed any new development that requires a variance from established county codes. That approach, she says, is essential for preserving Ozona's heritage as a small fishing enclave.

"Sometimes newcomers don't always realize that people have memories that go back to when their parents were here and when their grandparents were here," Fortner says.

"We used to be a place where no one knew where we were. . . . We have to be consistent in our approach to further development here."

In her letter to county officials, Mahara wrote that building so close to the street would create traffic problems, and building so close to the water would expose the duplex to storm damage.

The Bennetts say those claims are unfounded.

Jack Bennett says he's well aware of Ozona's dwindling waterfront access, and he plans to keep the space between the pillars open to preserve the view.

No matter what the Bennetts say at Tuesday's meeting, Fortner and Hart say OVIS will not change its stance.

"It's a dead issue as far as we're concerned in the community," Hart said. "OVIS is only going to give them a hearing because they're demanding some sort of a hearing. It's not going to do any good."

Regardless of whether they win the support of OVIS, the Bennetts say they plan to resubmit their application for county approval.

This time, they hope they'll have enough documented community support that any OVIS opposition won't matter.

"There are a few old settlers here that are not open to change," Dolores Bennett says. "They want to keep this the way it was back in the '40s."

Fortner says OVIS makes an effort to include anyone with an interest in Ozona in the group, which has about 240 members and monthly public meetings. The village has about 1,800 residents, she says.

Turnout at the meetings is usually small, Hart says, but board members and others closely involved in the group are dedicated to Ozona.

"There's nobody else who wants to get out there and get things done," he says.

Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 727 771-4303.

f,9,um0 The next meeting of the Ozona Village Improvement Society is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Ozona Village Hall, 41 Bay St.

[Last modified November 8, 2004, 00:36:25]