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Redevelopment projects to get case-by-case review

St. Pete Beach approves a measure to spur development while the city's comprehensive plan faces legal challenges.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published January 15, 2006

ST. PETE BEACH - Despite ongoing legal action, some redevelopment will likely move forward after the City Commission Tuesday approved an ordinance to allow project-specific rezoning of some commercial property.

"People have been out there trying to assemble property for more than a year," said Commissioner Deborah Martohue in advocating moving ahead with a PD, or planned-development, district. "They can't wait forever."

The city's comprehensive redevelopment plan has been delayed by opposition from a political action committee, Citizens for Responsible Growth, which objects to the call for taller resort hotels and mixed-use developments for enhanced tourism. While issues related to that plan wend their way through the courts, the PD district will allow developers to request use of existing development capacity for projects combining residential and commercial uses. A final vote on the PD plan is scheduled Jan. 24.

The PD concept would only apply to land already designated as commercial and lying east of Gulf Boulevard or in the northern part of the city, well outside the resort areas whose potential tall buildings have been the subject of protest. A developer would need at least 1 acre to apply for a PD project and could then add residential construction to make a commercial development more financially attractive. Such developments would be limited to two stories in height unless the land area is at least 4 acres, in which case buildings could reach seven stories.

The PD concept does not grant developers a right to build, just the right to apply for greater capacity. Any proposal would be specific to the site and its plan, so the commission could deny a request if it didn't like the plan. Nonetheless, the commissioners debated its details before approving it 4-1.

"This is not what we planned, what we wanted to achieve," said Commissioner Ed Ruttencutter, the lone dissenting vote. "This really looks like we're trying to sidestep what the residents want."

Ruttencutter asked that the PD district include the same restrictions on heights, setbacks and other elements that are part of the larger redevelopment proposal. City staff reminded him that the looser standards in PD are minimums for application, not grounds for approval, and that the commission could require case by case that a development meet its desires. Including the standards up front might preclude a project ever coming forward, they said.

"We're boxing ourselves into a corner," said City Manager Mike Bonfield. "The whole beauty of a planned-development ordinance is that you have the discretion."

Ruttencutter said he feared the PD district might become more attractive for developers than waiting for the city's full redevelopment plan, but Bonfield reassured him PD does not allow the capacity available under the larger plan and so would not displace broader redevelopment.

Citizens for Responsible Growth's attorney Ken Weiss said he fully expected the commission to approve the PD district, but that he thought it would be illegal because it would violate the city's comprehensive plan requirements on which it is based. City officials say the PD is merely a regulation applying the policy of the comprehensive plan and so is consistent with it.

CRG has sought referendum questions to let voters decide redevelopment issues rather than have the commissioners do so. A court has discarded three of those referendum questions and recently denied CRG's request to reconsider that decision, so Weiss said he will appeal the decision. The issues are also bound up in two other lawsuits, one of which will have a hearing Feb. 8.

In other commission action:

Commissioners voted 5-0 to add to the March ballot a referendum question that would change the city's charter to require unanimous commission vote to approve any comprehensive plan changes that affect five or fewer parcels of land. CRG had petitioned for this referendum question.

Commissioners voted 5-0 to amend the city's historic preservation ordinance to remove the possibility of property owners having their buildings involuntarily designated historic.

Commissioners heard a report that replacing the Pinellas Bayway drawbridge with a fixed span will be delayed at least a year because the state lacks funding for the project. The earliest the bridge could be completed is now 2010.

[Last modified January 15, 2006, 01:47:20]