Longboat ends contract with zoning consultant

Longboat Key is ending its contract with Calvin, Giordano & Associates, the consulting firm it hired to help rewrite and update the town’s zoning code.

“The contract is being cancelled due to increasing dissatisfaction with both the work products and responsiveness of the consultant in meeting the initial and overall intent of the update effort, which is to make the town's zoning code easier to read and use,” Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons said in an email.

Cancellation of the $165,300 contract, which dates back to 2016, comes after the board finished a multi-year process of rewriting the town’s zoning laws, particularly when it comes to nonconforming buildings and voluntary and involuntary rebuilds.

The end goal of Longboat’s zoning overhaul is to allow property owners to rebuild close to what they had and keep up with the modern real estate market.

Parsons said his staff will use some of CGA’s recommendations as it continues to tweak the code.

“This work consists primarily of reorganizing existing code provisions in an order that groups more like-topics together,” Parsons said.

“This work will be the first step in the completion of the overall intent of the update with components related to improving the code’s readability,” Parsons said.

The Planning & Zoning Board will send its overall zoning recommendations to the town commissioners on Nov. 5. Additional changes being made by Parsons and staff will be sent to the Planning & Zoning Board for review at its December meeting, Town Manager Tom Harmer said. The town commission will see those changes sometime after the first of the year.