Community meetings to lend northern exposure

Three meetings scheduled for the month of March will have the same starting point: the north end of Longboat Key. But the road map from there will depend largely on the ideas of those who join in on the discussions.

The meetings will focus on a north-end community-planning effort facilitated by the Longboat Key Revitalization Task Force. The effort began in January, when New College freshmen, under the direction of sociology professor Dr. David Brain, conducted interviews about the north end with approximately 40 stakeholders. The stakeholders then attended a planning charrette in which they were divided into four groups and asked to envision what they would like to see at the north end in 10 years.

“What was neat about the exercise was that with four groups not knowing what the others were talking about, you still had a lot of agreement,” said Michael Drake, acting president of the Village Association.

Three teams of three architects each then held a sketching session in February to visually represent the ideas.

The March community meetings are the next step of the process.

“These are not recommendations, they are not conclusions, they are simply ideas being presented,” Task Force Chairman George Spoll said.

The first meeting is for members of the Longbeach Village Association and will take place Wednesday, March 7. Gary Hoyt, architect for the Longboat Key Publix project, will speak at the event, along with landscape architect Phil Smith, Key architect Robert Rokop and retired architect Richard Levin, a Village resident.

The second meeting will be hosted by the Longboat Key Public Interest Committee (PIC) and is open to the public. The meeting will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, at Bayfront Park Recreation Center, 4052 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

The third discussion will be the program at the annual meeting of the Federation of Longboat Key Condominiums, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday, March 17, at Longboat Harbour condominium, 4454 Gulf of Mexico Drive. Although the meeting is typically limited to delegates of condominium members, the meeting is open to residents of condominiums whose associations are Condo Fed members.

Public meeting
North-End Revitalization Public Interest Committee Forum
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 14
Where: Bayfront Park Recreation Center, 4052 Gulf of Mexico Drive