'THE FACT IS CHRIS HELPED WRITE OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. SHE WILL DEFEND THAT PLAN.'
'COMMISSIONER TOLLETTE HELPED WRITE, AND VOTED WITH THE REST OF THE COMMISSION TO ADOPT, THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. CAN ANYONE POINT TO A SINGLE INSTANCE IN WHICH HER POSITION HAS NOT BEEN CONSISTENT WITH THAT VOTE?'
The following can all be found on public record and is a factual account.
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Saturday, October 31, 2009
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November/December 2003 - correspondence between Island Marine LLC, Kevin Donahue, Building Official, and Jim Dye, City Attorney, confirms that the lots on the site of the marina, Pine Avenue (Lake La Vista sub division) can be used commercially but are too small for residences.
ReplyDelete17th December 2004 Jim Dye responds to Kevin Donahue regarding questions that have been raised concerning build ability of existing lots in the R1 and R 2 district located in Wells Terrace and Shore Acres subdivisions.
20th January 2005 Scott Rudacille of Kirk Pinkerton acting on behalf of Jacob Martin and David Gryboski, by now owners of the lots on the old marina site on Pine Avenue, requests confirmation from Kevin Donahue that the 5 lots are approved for R - 1 construction provided they comply with other R-1 regulations.
18th February 2005 Jim Dye informs Kevin Donahue that section 114.135(2) authorizes non - conforming lots for R-1 construction. He finds that the 5 lots on the marina site are non conforming as they are platted 5000 square feet and residential use is required to be 7500 square feet.. (It was later confirmed that these lots were never non-conforming).
3rd March 2005 Kevin Donahue informs Scott Rudacille at Kirk Pinkerton that they will be granted permission to construct R-1 on the 5000 sq ft lots in the ROR district.
This does not go unnoticed by members of P & Z who correctly on 23rd May 2005 inform the Mayor and City Commission that Jim Dye has wrongly interpreted the Ordinance.
During the next several months 3 of the 5 lots are built on at the old marina site on Pine Avenue. We could immediately see was that the houses had been built to the wrong setbacks. In the R-1 district the front setback is 20 feet. In the ROR district the setbacks should be either 29ft or 35ft. The 3 houses had been built with 20ft setbacks when they should have been 29ft. We informed the City. It was acknowledged that a mistake had been made. They stated that the LDR’s were not clear and that particular one was re-written to clarify that you must follow the setbacks for the zoning district in which you are building.
In 2007 Mike Coleman starts construction on the 4th lot on the marina site for members of his family. Again as the foundations went in we could immediately see that again the setbacks were incorrect. We called and informed the Mayor and the building official who by then was Steve Gilbert. The Mayor said that she had checked with her professionals and that they were right. We continued to argue that they were wrong and the house continued to be built! Finally we contacted Commissioner Woodland who raised the matter at a City Commission meeting and said he wanted it looked into. Within 24 hours the Mayor called us to apologize and said that we were right and this mistake would not be made again. Unfortunately by the time she did this the house was almost finished.
continued in next post....
In the meantime, we had been in contact with a lawyer who had previously been chief planner in Sarasota and who we had worked with. Because Anna Maria City had continued to refute our claims regarding the setbacks we had asked him to look at this. When he looked into it not only did he confirm that the setbacks were wrong but he also confirmed that the HOUSES SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BUILT AT ALL. They were not ‘non conforming’ lots as had been claimed by Jim Dye in his letter of 18th February 2005; they were conforming lots as had been previously been pointed out by P and Z as the LDR‘s clearly state that you can build office/retail on a 5000 sq ft lot in the ROR district.
ReplyDeleteWe had no wish to cause trouble for the people that were already living in the residences on the marina site. But at the same time we knew that people were very unhappy with what had been built there and we had no wish to see it repeated all along the north side of Pine Avenue. Following meetings and telephone conversations with Mayor Barford and Alan Garrett it was acknowledged that a mistake had been made by the City and residences should not have been built on 5000 square foot lots. Once more we were told that it would not happen again. We sincerely hoped that would be the end of it and they would keep their word.
Fast forward to last year and the re-writing of the LDR’s to bring them in line with the new Comprehensive Plan. We were amazed when we realized that Mr Garrett had been instructed to re-write the LDR that pertained to the 5000 square foot lots. We again met with the Mayor and Mr Garrett who attempted to say that there was nothing in the LDR’s regarding retail/office and residential use. We pointed out that the Comprehensive Plan has a section that clearly refers to retail/office and residential use. In the Future Land Use Map in the Comprehensive Plan no.2b Commercial Land Use Categories states ‘the residential portion of this land use category is limited to a density of 6 residential units per gross acre‘. This equates to a minimum lot size of 7260 feet for the residential portion in the Residential/Office/Retail area which means you cannot build a residence on one 5000 square foot lot.
Alan Garrett re-wrote this particular section of LDR’s concerning the 5000 square foot lots several times and it clearly still contravenes the Comprehensive Plan.
The new LDR allows a density and intensity not allowed anywhere else in this City and goes against everything that was worked on for nearly two years when the Comprehensive Plan was re-written. The ROR district would have consisted of an interesting mix - larger buildings on the larger lots and then on the other side of the road we would have retained the smaller cottages or you would have needed approximately one and a half lots to build one residence over office/retail and this would probably have to be a maximum of 27ft tall. This would create an interesting mix of different styles and sizes of buildings and would have given a more village type character to the district. Instead what the re-writing has done is allow the north side of Pine Avenue to be developed with similar size buildings to those currently being constructed on the other side of Pine Avenue.
When Commissioner Tollette claims ‘she knows the Comp Plan because she helped write it’ and she will ‘protect and preserve the comprehensive plan as written’ how could she have made such a big mistake by voting for an LDR that so blatantly contravenes the very Comp Plan she professes to preserve?
A top planning lawyer has looked at this and action will taken.