Longboat brainstorms redevelopment options

The Town Commission unleashed Planning, Zoning and Building officials Monday to brainstorm ideas about how to reduce the number of nonconforming properties on the island.

The runway laid for the Planning, Zoning and Building Department came after a more than three-hour brainstorming session between commissioners about what kinds of changes they would like made to the town’s zoning code to realign the thousands of nonconforming units with town rules.

“I just would like to turn their brains loose, that’s what I got from this session,” said Mayor George Spoll of the Planning, Zoning and Building staff. “What we have done is expose some ideas.”

The problem the commission sought to solve is that if any property wants to redevelop, any new building must match the cubic volume of the structure it would replace. That means developers couldn’t raise ceilings, build larger units or add space to a unit that doesn’t already have it.

Without a path toward redevelopment, the worry is that the real estate market might leave some of Longboat’s properties behind, resulting in falling property values and town revenue.

“What we’re doing here is laying out the groundwork and the foundation of that development,” At-Large Commissioner Jim Brown said.

In their conversation, commissioners often referenced a 2016 draft ordinance that addressed the issue. Commissioners directed town staff to use this Planning and Zoning Board-approved draft ordinance as a framework to create a new zoning code.

The 2016 draft ordinance was tabled by the Town Commission in 2017, a decision made because of a pending application to redevelop the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, said Commissioner Jack Daly.

“Some buildings are 50 years old, reaching the point that they will be obsolete,” Spoll said. “How do we make it possible for them to be replaced if they have the will to do so?”

The solution to that is buried somewhere in the answer to whether the town wants to offer property owners and developers more or less flexibility in applications for redevelopment.

More flexibility would give the Town Commission more latitude to make decisions on a case-by-case basis but would give developers more options to design projects that the commission may not approve. Less flexibility, or more regulation, gives developers a better idea of whether their project will be approved but takes decision-making power from elected officials.

Commissioners said they wanted more information before making a decision about flexibility in town codes.

One decision that did come out of the meeting, however, was to eliminate the planned unit development process that gives developers flexibility from town codes in designing projects. Unicorp National Developments used the PUD process to get approval to build a hotel at the site of the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort.

Town staff has been asked to prepare different conditions for development and scenarios about how they would affect island properties that could seek redevelopment.

“Everything is on the table,” Spoll said.