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Developer: Rules limit old flavor

Builder Gail Oakes says she wants better riverfront views and more green space at the revamped Homosassa Riverside Resort.

By BARBARA BEHRENDT
Published April 30, 2006

HOMOSASSA - A few years ago, when Gail Oakes and her business partners first started talking to residents and local bankers about their big plans to modernize and upgrade their Homosassa Riverside Resort, they heard plenty of pessimism.

The riverfront hotel wasn't what it used to be. She should have seen it in its heyday. She'd never be able to realize a profit on that old place.

But when Oakes talked to bankers outside the county who had seen the property, they saw what she did: a resort that had seen better days, but had even better days yet to come.

With the potential foremost in her mind, about four years ago Oakes began to fix up the riverside motel buildings one by one. She converted those small, outdated rooms into modern suites complete with river views from new balconies. Each would be sold to another investor so she could afford to start the next.

The plan was to move through the entire site that way. But at one point, when Oakes was preparing to seek a permit for the next phase of the work, which involved bulldozing other portions of the resort complex to build more motel suites, county officials suggested that she go through a special approval process that would address her entire site.

Through this planned development overlay approval process, as it is called, Oakes is proposing constructing 72 motel suites in four buildings that have three floors of living space above parking, and 12 standard hotel rooms with two living floors above retail space.

Not everyone favors the plan.

Some residents spoke out against it at a recent meeting of the Planning and Development Review Board. They said it doesn't meet the newly approved building restrictions for old Homosassa.

The problem is that at about the same time Oakes was beginning the approval process for her project through the county, county officials were also wrapping up the approval process for the Old Homosassa Redevelopment Area Plan. That plan only allows buildings in a commercial project to be two stories over parking.

Oakes was shocked.

She had served on the steering committee that had drafted those new development rules, and she said the height restriction came about late in the process, at a meeting where no commercial representatives were present.

Oakes argues that she has designed several features into her project that should mitigate the issue. Because she is building the suites with three living stories, she can provide more green space and not cover as much of the ground with concrete. She also will provide new public access to the water by constructing a boardwalk.

County staff presented the plan to the planning board with two options. One was to allow the three stories over parking with more green space and the second was to be two stories over parking with less green space. The planning board voted 3 to 1 to go with the plan as Oakes had pitched it.

The County Commission is set to discuss the project in a workshop May 23, with a final public hearing scheduled for July 11.

The resort is the larger of two commercial properties affected by the old Homosassa redevelopment district rules. But Oakes had begun her project before those rules were adopted, according to Chuck Dixon, the county's director of community development.

Still, the staff's job is to be sure the planning board and county commissioners know how existing rules fit with proposed projects.

"You have to consider the intent of the overlay district," Dixon said. "The intent was to produce an end product which is compatible with the area and will aesthetically fit with the area."

Oakes said she has tried hard to do that. She pointed to renderings of the buildings, which pull directly from the redevelopment plan using architectural elements and materials reminiscent of the styles of the old fishing village.

If approved, the project will vastly change the property.

Late last week she walked the property, showing off the converted suite rooms and indicating how much of the site would change.

In walking down the main road into the resort, the road that leads visitors back to the popular Riverside Crab House Restaurant, Oakes indicated that everything to the left on the river side of the road would remain. But the offices, retail spaces and rooms to the right of the road would be razed for the new multistory motel suites.

"I'm trying to give them the view. I'm trying to give them green space. I'm trying to give them the aesthetics and pull it back off the water," she said.

Oakes also said it would provide much-needed additional hotel rooms to old Homosassa.

She said she doesn't understand why the number of stories in the motel suites has become such an issue. Under the current codes, she said, she could actually build buildings another 6 or 7 feet taller if she just made them two stories rather than three. But less living space would mean spreading them out further, eating up the green space she is eager to provide.

The plan also reduces the amount of retail space on the resort property from the current 6,957 to 3,600 square feet.

Oakes said she is stung by opposition to the project.

As she showed off the resort and talked about the plans, she told stories about meeting old-timers who have shared some of the site's colorful history with her.

Oakes talked about how she and her husband and business partner, Phil Oakes, appreciated the uniqueness of the community that had drawn them to become owners of the resort in 1998. She talked about how they used to deliver their son to school on their boat with her husband lifting the boy up over the back fence of the school from the canal that runs behind it.

Standing by the old boat docking area set for demolition, she talked about the man who brought in the crabs for the restaurant as a blue heron stalked around looking for a snack.

Oakes said she has no intention of damaging the close-knit Homosassa community that has become her home.

"I love it here," she said.

Barbara Behrendt can be reached at 564-3621 or behrendt@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 30, 2006, 00:58:16]