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Setbacks set off squabbling in beach city

Indian Rocks Beach's Board of Adjustment says its recommendations are ignored by the City Commission as it deals with redevelopment.

By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
Published March 29, 2006

INDIAN ROCKS BEACH - Growth and redevelopment issues continue to cause discord, most recently when the city's Board of Adjustment unanimously criticized the City Commission for failing to act on BOA recommendations.

At a recent meeting, one BOA member called commissioners "SOBs," while another said he was "revolted" and "embarrassed" by the City Commission's actions in allowing a home to violate the town's front setback rules.

"As a member of this board, I am insulted. You appoint us to do a job. We are here to do the best that we can. If you think we all need ethics or morals training, then you shouldn't have approved us to begin with," BOA member John Ruzic said at the end of a contentious meeting on March 21.

His fellow board members voted unanimously to put Ruzic's remarks formally into the official minutes.

Ruzic angrily reacted to a memo sent to the board about a comment another board member, Richard Smith, made at a previous meeting.

"I got this thing in the mail regarding the comment board member Smith made," Ruzic said. "I don't think he meant any harm by it. They (the City Commission) needs to get their rear end in here to listen to what we have to say and what we do as volunteers.

"I am highly insulted the city would take such a position. If they have a problem with that, then they are the SOBs we thought they were when they overturned what we did at the last meeting in order to get more votes."

The memo was written after Mayor Bill Ockunzzi, City Planner/Analyst Richard Benton and Deputy City Clerk Cheryl Davis reviewed a tape of the BOA's Feb. 21 meeting when the BOA unanimously rejected an 8-foot front setback variance for a home at 319 La Hacienda Drive.

Just before the BOA vote on the case, Smith "made an offhand remark," according to the memo, to the applicant that they "sell the house for a profit and move."

Davis wrote in the memo that she and Ockunzzi agreed that "the comment was in all probability not meant to be derogatory, but it is unknown how the applicant or anyone else present may have perceived the comment."

City Commissioner Jeremiah Carmody referred to the comment during the City Commission's March 7 meeting, apparently after receiving complaints from the applicants.

Carmody, as well as Ockunzzi and Commissioners Jim Palamara and Jean Scott, voted to approve the frontyard variance, rejecting the BOA's unanimous denial.

"I was revolted, I was embarrassed," Smith said at last week's BOA meeting, describing the City Commission's action on the variance as "blatantly, so foolishly breaking the rules of Indian Rocks Beach."

Smith said he believes the BOA should be "disbanded" if the commission is not going to follow its recommendations. Under the city's organizational structure, the BOA is an advisory board only. Final decisions on variance requests are made by the City Commission.

"We come down here once a month, give you three to four hours of our time and then get kicked in the face," said Smith, who thinks the city action will "open the floodgates" to more homes seeking frontyard setback variances.

The commission approved the variance for the La Hacienda home, largely in an effort to encourage owners of older homes to improve their homes, rather than tearing them down and rebuilding.

The owners of the property, Philip and Anexa McIntyre, wanted to build a garage onto their 1950s-era home. To do so would extend the front of the home 8 feet past the fronts of other homes on the street.

"The whole board was offended," says BOA member Stephen Small, who chaired the March 21 BOA meeting. "The board tries very hard to be reasonable. We struggle with a lot of ordinances that originated in the 1950s and 1960s."

Small said the BOA action to put Ruzic's comments into its official minutes was "to express displeasure" with the city commissioners' comments in their meeting and to the memo criticizing Smith.

"We are supposed to work together," Small says. "We always question why the commission doesn't go along with our recommendations."

How redevelopment is affecting the city - and how the commission will act on the BOA's recommendations - will be revisited at the commission's April 4 meeting.

A 5-foot-81/2-inch rear yard variance request approved by the BOA for a waterfront property at 469 20th Ave. is on the commission's agenda. Complicating the issue is a mistake made by the city in approving plans for a new home that includes a rear deck or porch.

No one in the city caught that the planned deck protrudes into the backyard setback until a next-door neighbor complained. A stop-work order has since halted construction on the new home.

"It's a huge deal. The city has admitted it made a mistake," property owner Michael Alea says. He says it will cost as much as $60,000 to tear down and redesign part of the home.

"We all have to live within the rules," said neighbor Kevin McGrath, who filed the original complaint with the city.

Mayor Ockunzzi, who along with the commission will have to decide whether Alea can keep his deck, says issues relating to setbacks are a continuing issue.

"We have a problem with small lots. It is the new emerging thing that is a problem for our town," Ockunzzi says, adding the city will have to find some "remedy" for the Alea home.

As for the Board of Adjustment's anger with the commission, Ockunzzi says Ruzic's comments "were out of line."

[Last modified March 29, 2006, 01:23:20]