Dock deal leaves public high, dry

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published June 18, 2007

Whether a private developer should be allowed to build boat docks in a publicly owned aquatic preserve is a dubious enough proposition. But Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has raised an unassailable point about the resulting business transaction: The public should never get fleeced in the deal.

That, unfortunately, is business as usual in Florida. The state routinely allows builders to put docks on public submerged lands and gets back 6 pennies on the dollar that is then earned.

The issue is amply illustrated by the 60 new dock slips at a St. Petersburg condominium conversion project, Waterside at Coquina Key North, that the state Cabinet approved last week. The slips are a significant inducement for condo buyers and amount to cash in the bank for the builder. Each slip can sell for $65, 000 or more.

By Sink's ciphering the docks will return a $6-million profit to the builder, for an investment of little more than a few hundred thousand. "I'm a big fan of getting more access to water by boaters, " she said. "But ... this is not a way that we ought to be ceding our valuable waterfront access to a private developer who is going to profiteer. ... It's not good economics."

Sink was outvoted on the St. Petersburg project, but she did elicit a promise that Department of Environmental Protection secretary Mike Sole would reconsider the outdated financial formula the state uses. That formula has been driven by private interests, not public ones, for years.

Coquina Key developer Alex Walker says that Sink is not taking into account his total investment of nearly $155-million on the project. But his argument assumes that every waterfront property owner has an absolute right to build commercial docks on land that is owned by the public. They don't, and especially not in waters that are designated an "aquatic preserve" to assure environmental protection.

Sink, a former bank president, promised to bring a business approach to state government, and she makes a cogent business point. "This is not some fee we are charging to some taxpayer, " Sink said. "We are selling an asset of the state."

Sink is on target. The state can't be giving up the people's property without getting a fair return.

[Last modified June 17, 2007, 22:32:25]