Colony Association seeks to extend tourism deadline

The Colony Beach & Tennis Association is asking the Longboat Key Town Commission to extend the tourism use of the shuttered resort by a year-and-a-half.

In a 20-page letter to the town’s Planning Zoning & Building Director Robin Meyer, Don Hemke, the Association’s attorney for planning and zoning issues, wrote that the Association will petition the commission to ask that a Dec. 31, 2012 deadline be extended through June 30, 2014, allowing the property to maintain the grandfathered status of the property’s 237 units.

The status originally would have expired Aug. 15, 2011 (one year after the resort closed), which could ultimately have limited the 18-acre property to six units per acre.

However, in March 2011, the commission agreed to extend the deadline to the end of 2012, but asked the parties involved in legal disputes surrounding the property to return in a year to give a status update.

When the parties returned to the commission in March, commissioners had stern words. They expressed frustration that the interests hadn’t made progress in working out legal disputes. Several commissioners indicated that they would be unlikely to vote for another extension.

Much of the letter addresses the legal uncertainties surrounding the property and concludes:

“Most optimistically, a first-class resort at the Colony cannot be reopened until June 30, 2014.”

For more information, pick up a July 30 copy of the Longboat Observer.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].