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High anxiety in St. Pete Beach

The fight in St. Pete Beach over high-rise hotels is one that is coming to define the politics of development growth in Florida. Tired of more buildings and more gridlock, people are petitioning to take matters into their own hands. In this Pinellas beach community, though, the government's plan is less about growing than it is about surviving.

St. Pete Beach is largely a resort town, known nationally for its signature Don CeSar Beach Resort, but market forces are beginning to work against it. The older hotels have become prime targets for condominium conversion, and government officials say hoteliers won't invest in new properties without a greater potential for profit. The equation goes like this: the bigger the building, the more rooms, the better the chance for profitability.

The city's development blueprint, some four years in the making, aims to "maintain its place as a high-quality tourist destination and residential community." The tradeoff is that the plan entices hotel investment by allowing some taller buildings along a one-mile stretch of Gulf Boulevard. That one provision is largely what has spurred a citizens group to gather signatures for six different referendum questions that could face voters in March. The group wants to take land-use powers out of the hands of the City Commission and put them into the hands of voters.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Walt Logan is being asked to throw out the referendum, but this is less a legal fight than a political one. It is about development growth and the anguish it stirs in Floridians, except that in St. Pete Beach the plans are relatively modest and reasonable. The city is not proposing to wall off the waterfront with hotel towers, which is why the sharp division is all the more concerning.

"To me, the most important thing is that, when it is all said and done, this city will move forward and we all need to live together," says City Manager Mike Bonfield. "We all need to be careful to address this factually and not emotionally. Words are things that are difficult to take back."

The conflict is a familiar one to Florida, but, in St. Pete Beach, the intensity of the emotions may exceed that of the development.

[Last modified December 17, 2005, 01:01:18]