Overlay passes; discussion not finished

It took 24 public hearings and 19 months.

But at a Thursday, June 21 special meeting, the Longboat Key Town Commission voted 6-0 to adopt a Comprehensive Plan amendment, allowing for an overlay involving seven properties in the Whitney Beach area.

The state approved the proposed changes Dec. 28, which began a 180-day shot clock for the town to make the changes. At the June 21 special meeting, just seven days remained in the six-month window.

At the beginning of the meeting, Planning, Zoning & Building Director Robin Meyer explained what the changes would mean.

It would allow a developer flexibility to seek a mix of uses but wouldn’t require a property owner or developer to do anything with the properties.

“The beauty of an overlay is you don’t have to use it,” Meyer said. “It provides the opportunities if property owners within this areas wish to use it if they choose to take advantage of it.”

But Larry Grossman, a retired planner for the city of Alexandria, Va., questioned the value of the previous public hearings.

(Throughout the meeting, the number of hearings was cited at 22, because a slide stated that 22 public hearings occurred between November 2010 and May 2012. A 23rd hearing took place at the June 4 regular commission meeting, and the June 21 special meeting was No. 24.)

“Those 22 public hearings would have been better spent with the citizens from the beginning in working things out and including some analysis and information and not just words that are cycled endlessly … ,” he said.

Grossman worried that the overlay lacked specifics.

“You’re trying to get a certain result,” he said. “You can’t control the economics, but the public policy should be very, very clear as to what you’re trying to get.”

But Mayor Jim Brown, a retired architect whose office was across the street from Grossman’s office in Alexandria, pointed out the differences between Longboat Key and Alexandria.

“We’re trying to give a developer some flexibility,” he said. “I’m fully aware that the city of Alexandria and Fairfax County used to pick a corner and say, ‘We want a 7-Eleven there, and they zoned it so that you couldn’t do anything else.’”

Craig Walters, who with other Longbeach Village residents developed a “Village in the Park” concept for the Whitney Beach area, also spoke out against the overlay, saying that better solutions were available.

“Rushing to fix this is not going to serve the community, the public … ” Walters said.

Commissioner Jack Duncan asked for Meyer’s opinion about residents’ concerns.

“When you have strong markets, you can dictate a lot more as to what you want to see done and how you’d like to see that developed,” Meyer said.

Those strong markets don’t seem to exist, Meyer said, pointing to the current state of the shopping center as evidence, and said that the overlay would provide flexibility if someone sees opportunity.

The commission initially voted to remove Whitney Beach references in the amendments on first reading in May, quashing the possibility of an overlay, after hearing from many opponents. However, many supporters spoke out in favor of the overlay during the June 4 commission meeting, which led the commission to add Whitney Beach back to the amendments but delete language that would have allowed for some structures up to 55 feet.

The commission continued the public hearing to a June 21 special meeting to address concerns that the public wasn’t properly notified of the forthcoming vote.

And, if you didn’t get your fill of overlay discussion during the 24 public hearings, you’re in luck:
If any developer opts to actually use the overlay, he or she will have to go through the outline-development plan and site-plan processes.

But, even with the overlay still a hypothetical, the public process will continue. Whenever changes are made to the Comprehensive Plan, the commission must pass an ordinance to the town’s zoning code to implement the change.

“That, again, will go through public process and review,” Meyer said. “We’re not done by a long shot.”