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Voters may decide development's fate

Indian Rocks Beach commissioners have 60 days to approve a mixed-use project. If they don't act, the issue will go to voters, probably in March.

By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
Published September 18, 2005

INDIAN ROCKS BEACH - It appears voters here will decide the fate of a proposed $16.5-million Publix supermarket and condominium project on Gulf Boulevard.

But despite the efforts of the developer, AG Armstrong, to rush the matter to the November ballot, legal and logistical issues will most likely delay the referendum until the March election.

Tuesday, the City Commission was supposed to discuss a citizen petition calling for the referendum, but pulled it from the agenda.

Then they discussed it anyway.

The commission then decided to hold a special meeting Monday to decide whether to support the referendum initiative.

On Thursday, following the advice of its attorney, that meeting was canceled.

When the fate of the referendum on the proposed mixed-use project will come up again is anyone's guess. It depends partly on whether the 575 petition signatures collected last week calling for the referendum are certified valid by the supervisor of elections within the next 10 days. Only 451 valid signatures are required to force a referendum election.

It also depends on the commission, which has 60 days to consider the issue. If it does not act, the referendum would automatically go to the voters at the next general election. Since the deadline for getting the referendum language on the November ballot is Monday, that election would be in March.

Here is the question the petitioners want voters to decide:

"Do you approve the rezoning of the city block between Gulf Boulevard, 1st Street, 25th Avenue and 26th Avenue to a planned unit development and granting variances and other approvals necessary to construct a multiuse, three-story building consisting of no more than a street level grocery of 30,065 square feet with 29 ground level parking spaces and loading zone, second level parking for 119 vehicles and 24 condominium units on the third level?"

"This referendum request is really a godsend," Mayor Bill Ockunzzi said Friday. "What the lawyers and the commission couldn't accomplish, the citizens of Indian Rocks Beach can decide."

He says the town has been prevented from considering or even discussing the proposed development because of a lawsuit filed by some citizens this year.

That lawsuit challenges a variance approved by the commission to allow the project to be reviewed under special planned development rules. At issue is whether or not the city's development regulations and its comprehensive master plan agree as to what kinds of projects qualify for the planned development process.

But that's a whole other story.

At bottom, the issue for city residents is whether they want a large combined commercial and residential building covering an entire block at the city's northern boundary.

Some residents say it represents healthy growth for the city and will allow residents to shop for groceries locally. Others say it will generate too much traffic, create a "canyon effect" along Gulf Boulevard and violate the town's density regulations.

The developer, who in the past has blamed city officials for delaying the project, formed a political action committee earlier this summer to bring the issue to voters.

"I've never done a project the citizens didn't want, and I'm not going to start today," Allen Goins, AG Armstrong president, told the commission Tuesday.

Goins says he originally hoped to pay the estimated $10,000 cost for a special election, but because of a pending countywide changeover in voting equipment, the elections office is not allowing any special elections between November and March.

If the referendum appears on a regular election ballot, there is no cost to the town or the petitioners.

Under the city's charter, the process between the time residents sign a referendum petition and when that referendum actually appears on an official ballot is complicated and time-consuming (see related story).

Bottom line, the referendum must be submitted to voters no later than one year after it was originally filed with the city clerk.

There is one other option available to the city, according to City Attorney Andy Salzman: approving the project as described in the referendum. This would make the referendum request moot.

It is highly unlikely that would happen, however.

Ockunzzi said the project described in the referendum petition is a "blank slate" and leaves many development issues unresolved.

He also says the city - or another group of residents - could file a competing referendum that would either prevent the project from moving forward or would redefine the project's scope.

If two competing referenda appear on a ballot, Salzman said, city charter says the question receiving the most affirmative votes would win - unless, of course, both were defeated.

"These are some of the things the commission and the town will be discussing," Ockunzzi said.

[Last modified September 18, 2005, 02:15:36]