Landscaping company seeks expansion in Longboat Key

After its old office building was abandoned and demolished after it suffered extensive storm damage in 2024, Grant’s Gardens is taking steps to build a new, raised building on the same lot.

On Tuesday, the town of Longboat Key’s Planning and Zoning Board discussed a proposal by the landscaping company to redevelop a parcel the company purchased for $570,000 in 2021. Town Planner Tate Taylor presented the plans for a raised, 756-square-foot building on the 0.4-acre lot at 524 Gulf Bay Road.

“The owners at this time would like to amend their site plan in order to construct a smaller, FEMA-compliant, elevated building to avoid future flood damage with associated parking and additional landscaping,” Taylor said, presenting a slideshow to the board that showed a rendering of the proposed structure.

Image courtesy of town of Longboat Key

Gulf Bay Road, surrounded to the north, south and east by Joan M. Durante Park, is narrow and short, with a handful of houses on either side and the Euphemia Haye restaurant at the front of the road intersecting Gulf of Mexico Drive. Grant’s Gardens, which does projects at many large condominium complexes and resorts on Longboat Key, currently operates on Gulf Bay Road out of a small two-bay garage at 525 Gulf Bay Road and the lot across the street that it is hoping to redevelop.

Zoned C-2 General Commercial and well within the height, setback, building coverage and open space requirements, staff recommended approval. After Taylor’s presentation on the proposed building, Planning and Zoning Board member J. Plager said he saw nothing that drew concern.

Then a neighbor spoke on the subject.

“The property, quite frankly, is a dump,” said neighbor Marina Attili. “It’s not well maintained. It’s a cluster of vehicles on working days, and I think that they’ve done very little to promote the general well-being of the street and be good neighbors on the street. They’ve been terrible neighbors on the street, and they don’t really care or they don’t really know. I don’t know which one is worse.”

Jeff Kelley, partner with Grant’s Gardens, addressed the concerns on behalf of the landscaping company. He said Attili was not only a neighbor, but a longtime former employee who was “let go for misconduct” last June. Kelley made allegations that Attili has since made false reports to code enforcement, harassed employees, stole from and potentially vandalized Grant’s Gardens.

“All this started in post-termination in retaliation,” Kelley said. “We take the neighborhood and our place in it very seriously. Any time there have been code enforcement officials out, we have been found in compliance.”

Attili asked if she could make a rebuttal on the record, saying the statements by Kelley were slanderous. She was not allowed to approach the microphone again, though, after Town Attorney Maggie Mooney noted that the public hearing portion of the meeting had ended. She then reminded the board what it is they were tasked with evaluating at the quasi-judicial hearing.

Some members of the Planning and Zoning Board signified that past zoning designations on Gulf Bay Road may have been a mistake, but that the project was not something that warranted a negative recommendation by the board.

“It appears to me that Grant’s Gardens has met all the criteria that have been outlined for us in deliberating,” Board Member Ronald Ginsberg said. “There’s now a little bit of a fly in the ointment, so to speak, as to how its operations, beyond the site development requirements, impact the neighborhood and impact perhaps the island.”

Ginsberg said he doesn’t see any need to reject the application, but that he wanted to make sure that complaints in regards to the business are taken seriously by town staff.

After deliberation, Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to recommend approval of the site development plan. The plans will now go to the Town Commission with a recommendation of approval from the board.