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Letter to the editor

Interloper barrels into Dunedin's careful path

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published September 23, 2007

State Rep. Tom Anderson is working hard to torpedo Dunedin's application for a state grant to help buy green space for public use. He claims it is because he lives in Dunedin and personally opposes the purchase of roughly 6 acres along Bayshore Boulevard.

However, it wasn't Tom Anderson, Dunedin resident, who signed his letter condemning the purchase to the Trust for Public Land in Tallahassee. It was Tom Anderson, state representative, and he wrote the letter on Florida House of Representatives stationery. He also called the trust's Tallahassee office to speak to an official there, and he wrote a letter to the editor opposing the purchase. He has rallied opposition in Dunedin.

Why go to such lengths? That is not known. Anderson would not comment for a St. Petersburg Times news story about his assault on the project. Regardless, Anderson inappropriately used his position as a legislator to attempt to scuttle the application. It is Dunedin city commissioners, not Anderson, whom Dunedin voters chose to represent them on city issues.

Anderson implies that the city is preparing to spend $18-million to buy local country songwriter J.C. Weaver's property without doing any due diligence. Some Dunedin residents also seem to have reached the same conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The $18-million is Weaver's original asking price. His property is located on both sides of Bayshore Boulevard (Alt. U.S. 19) just north of Pershing Street, which is north of downtown.

The portion on the west side is a 1.5-acre strip on St. Joseph Sound containing only a long pier. This is one of the last places where motorists traveling on Bayshore can catch a good glimpse of the water, because condos and other development have closed off the view.

The portion on the east side of Bayshore is more than twice that acreage, has mature trees and backs up to the Pinellas Trail.

Over the years there have been proposals to develop the land, including one by Weaver a few years ago that included hotel and residential units. Those plans went nowhere and Weaver offered to sell to the city.

Last year, the city submitted an application to the Florida Communities Trust, a state land-buying program, for a grant. The application did not get a favorable ranking. This year, Mayor Bob Hackworth asked the Trust for Public Land, a private non-profit conservation organization, to help the city staff prepare a better grant application. Hackworth did so without informing other commissioners, which was wrong, but the result is that Dunedin's application was ranked second among 118 applications. It is likely that when the Florida Communities Trust board meets Nov. 2 to decide which ranked projects actually will get grants, Dunedin will be in the money.

It is typical for communities to wait for the award of grant money before they invest the time and dollars to do a title search, iron out all the wrinkles, negotiate a deal and decide whether to buy, said Becky Nielsen, project manager for the Trust for Public Land, which will not only help the city with the process, but actually do the negotiating with Weaver if the City Commission decides to proceed.

Florida Communities Trust requires that two appraisals be done on any property purchased with the state grant dollars. The two appraisals cannot diverge by more than 20 percent. Also, a review appraiser looks over the appraisals. FCT also requires title searches, surveys and an environmental site assessment. All of this due diligence is done after the FCT awards the grant dollars, but getting the money does not compel the city to go ahead with the purchase.

The city staff has been aware of questions about who really owns some of Weaver's land since at least early 2005. Both the city and Pinellas County may actually own slices of it. Those questions will be resolved before the appraisals are done, Nielsen said.

Dunedin is not, as some opponents have implied, preparing to buy an $18-million pig in a poke. City officials are smarter than that. The city staff prepared a well-researched 1-inch-thick grant application, the professionals at the Trust for Public Land are providing guidance, and the City Commission has declared its healthy skepticism about Weaver's price and its determination to ensure a purchase is the right decision.

Fortunately, neither the Trust for Public Land nor city officials are buckling under Anderson's inappropriate pressure to abandon the idea. The Weaver property provides a chance for Dunedin to preserve as public open space the last significant undeveloped strip of waterfront along Bayshore Boulevard as well as a beautiful tract along the Pinellas Trail. The land has aesthetic value as green space even if the city never turns it into a park.

Some of those opposed to the purchase say the city can't afford it in these tough times. Whatever the price today, it will be low compared with the value of waterview land in the future. The state, recognizing the land's value, is willing to help Dunedin residents buy it, and the city has money in its parkland dedication fund - dollars provided by developers for parkland.

Opponents also have contended the city has enough parks - a bizarre argument to use in Florida's most densely populated county. Would they rather see a hotel or condos or other uses that would just add more traffic to Bayshore and require additional city services?

The chance to preserve more open space for future generations of Pinellas residents argues for Dunedin to stay in the game at this stage.

[Last modified September 22, 2007, 21:31:34]