P&Z to re-dial cell tower ODP

A future Longboat Key Planning & Zoning Board meeting will have a familiar ring to it.

The board voted 8-1 Oct. 18 to recommend an ordinance for an Outline Development Plan for a proposed 150-foot stealth tower at Longboat Island Chapel. But the board will decide once again whether to approve the ODP at an upcoming meeting, along with an application for a special-exception use of the chapel property and a site-plan amendment.

Why the echo?

Applicants Jim Eatrides, owner of the Longboat Key-based Alpha-Omega Communications Inc., and Kevin Barile, president of the Tampa-based Ridan Industries II, agreed at the Nov. 10 Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting to submit additional documentation, including an engineering analysis and construction plans. The additional documents were submitted in response to an administrative appeal, filed by Grand Mariner LLC and Accursio “Gus” Sclafani and his wife, Doreen Erickson, which challenged Town Planner Steve Schield’s Sept. 20 determination that the applications were complete.

But P&Z Director Monica Simpson told the ZBA that the application was actually incomplete and recommended approving the appeal on the basis of five of its seven points. Simpson explained the reversal at Thursday’s meeting, saying that she had read Schield’s report for technical merit but didn’t come to any conclusion about its completion. Schield told the board he felt comfortable with his assessment because detailed construction plans typically aren’t required until after an application has been approved. But Simpson told the board that the town’s cellular tower ordinance requires additional application materials, and town attorney David Persson agreed.

“Monica is correct, because if you look at the section of the code that governs cell towers, it is very stringent,” he said.

Attorney Mary Solik, who represents Eatrides and Barile, told the board that she has worked on approximately 300 cellular-tower projects during her career and had never been asked to submit materials, such as construction drawings, at the application stage. But after consulting with her clients, she agreed that they would accept all seven appeal points and submit plans needed to address them by Monday, allowing them to return to P&Z in December. (On Tuesday afternoon, Eatrides said that he was waiting on the final parts of the plan and would submit them by Wednesday.)

Still, Persson had concerns about a “shot clock” that gives local governments 90 business days from the date a cell-tower application is deemed complete to approve or deny it.

“I want you to concede that the clock stops until the 13th of December,” he told Solik, which means that the clock will restart when Schield determines the application complete.

Eatrides described the decision to submit additional plans as a strategic one.

“Getting reasonable cell coverage is an important issue for the residents, visitors and workers of Longboat Key,” he said. “We want the application and the process to be just right, just like the town staff does and the opposition does. This has been going on for three, now going on four, years. Redoing the ODP hearing and adding a month is not going to kill us.”

But Erickson said that she and Sclafani would continue their challenge, even if the applications are again determined to be complete. She said that she supports the independent study of the town’s telecommunications issues, for which the town put out a request for proposals Nov. 14.

“We’re fighting for our property,” she said. “This doesn’t belong in an area like this.