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Fishing tradition holds sway

Tarpon Springs commissioners turn down a rezoning that would put townhouses next to crab traps.

By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published September 8, 2005

[Times photos: Douglas R. Clifford]

Crabbers, from left, Stephanie House, 24, of Tarpon Springs, John Eckel, 18, of Holiday, and Thomas May, 20, of Holiday repair crab traps Wednesday while working at Ike House Stone Crab on Roosevelt Boulevard in Tarpon Springs. The city decided against allowing townhomes to be developed on Roosevelt.

	Crabber Steve House repairs crabbing lines at Ike House Stone Crab on Wednesday. An estimated 30,000 stone crab traps are stored in the area where townhomes were proposed.

TARPON SPRINGS - Crab traps smell. And commercial fishing boats make noise before dawn when people want to sleep.

And person after person after person told the City Commission Tuesday night that both stinky crab traps and noisy boats make the port of Tarpon Springs the good and special place it is.

Commissioners agreed. They voted unanimously to deny a requested land use change and rezoning that would have allowed six townhomes to be developed at 201 Roosevelt Blvd.

That half-acre is home to a house and six docks. It is near an area used by commercial fishing boats and charter boat captains who come and go at all hours of the night. An estimated 30,000 stone crab traps are stored in the area.

Putting townhomes in the area would only invite trouble from new residents who didn't realize what they were getting into, crabbers and fishing boat captains said.

"We're going to have six individuals, and they are going to take a position that we own everything that we can see; this is our domain," said commercial fisherman William W. Hooper Sr., 73, of Tarpon Springs.

Michael Lockhart, 48, imagined that some Sunday morning he would be hammering together a crab trap while a townhome owner was on his upstairs balcony trying to eat a danish pastry in peace.

They won't want that, he predicted.

"I wouldn't want it," he said.

The introduction of multifamily housing into the area would bring pressure on the fishing boats to curtail their activities, skippers said. What is now a working commercial fishing area, something that makes Tarpon Springs unique and attractive, would be put at risk, they said.

Not true, said an attorney for the applicants. City and county property records indicate the land is owned by Jack and Martha Sellers of New Port Richey and Cassal Holdings LLC, also of New Port Richey.

"These six units are not going to affect other people with their crab traps and their charter boats and what have you," lawyer Herb Elliott said.

Elliott said the property taxes on the land, plus its relatively small size and other factors, would make it difficult to use for commercial fishing.

But commissioners said permitting residential development on the property could undermine the commercial fishing industry that helped build the city and gives Tarpon Springs a sense of history and authenticity.

"I'm not in favor of erasing our footprint, and I never will be," Mayor Beverley Billiris said.

The city's planning staff likewise recommended denying the request. Since 1989, they noted, the comprehensive land use plan has specifically designated the areas south and west of Island Drive and Roosevelt Boulevard as an area for commercial fishing.

"It is a very special and unique place, and once it's gone it won't be back," Commissioner Robin Saenger said. "I think it's an important statement that we're making now."

[Last modified September 8, 2005, 01:49:23]