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Editor’s Note: The following is a copy of a letter submitted in August to Matt McLachlan, AICP Community Development Director, and Ron C. Rinzivillo, AICP Senior Planner, City of Safety Harbor. The issue addressed was to be considered by the City Commission in October, but is now scheduled to be considered on Monday, Nov. 3.
Dear Mr. McLachlan and Mr. Rinzivillo:
Thank you for meeting with me for an hour on August 14, 2008, regarding my concerns on Saxony Homes’ “The Cottages of Safety Harbor” development proposal. As I mentioned in our meeting, I was relieved to hear your assurances that this project is not a “done deal,” stamped with the City’s Seal of Approval, as I feared from my initial discussion with the developer’s representative. Approximately August 7th, 2008, 1 saw the engineering plans for the project, and was alarmed to hear repeated comments, “This is what the City wants,” from the developer.
Please allow this letter to serve as documentation of our conversation. My first point was that it appears reasonable that Saxony Homes’ representatives could have run project plans past Senior Planner, Mr. Rinzivillo, whom they had reason to know had served Safety Harbor in 2002, when they first proposed a plan encompassing the 13th and Main site. They could have approached the City’s clerk to obtain minutes of the December 6, 2002 meeting, which I obtained from your office, and have attached to this letter, to refresh their own memories regarding neighbors’ wishes. They could have shopped around preliminary ideas and sketches to all of us directly affected by their plan, both supporters and detractors from 2002, before even approaching the blueprint stage. They could have contacted former city planner, Ron Pianta. He is still working locally, in Hernando County. It seems a plethora of resources could have been plumbed by a developer sensitive to neighborhood concerns.
Second, addressing the idea of what Safety Harbor wants for the corner of 13th Avenue South and Main, in terms of community advisory group recommendations, and telephone survey results, that information might reasonably be reflective of pre-real estate/banking downturn thinking. A goal of those focus groups involved creation of a stock of affordable housing for professionals seeking to live in Safety Harbor. It does not appear likely that Safety Harbor’s targeted local workforce will have the funds to satisfy current down payment requirements on a $200,000 “Green, Workforce Housing,” property.
Under current economic and real estate market conditions, it does not appear that new construction for affluent, young professional families is a critical issue for Safety Harbor. Mr. Tom Zucco’s August 17th article, “Vacant Homes,” in the St. Petersburg Times’ business section emphasized that, “ …as many as 7 percent of the houses in the bay area are vacant.” An exhaustive inventory of affordable homes already exists on the market within financial reach of young professional families.
In conclusion, thank you, again, for meeting with me. Thank you for listening to my objections to the “Cottages of Safety Harbor,” proposed development plan. Please insert my letter in the file staff will present to the Planning and Zoning Commission on the September 10, 2008 meeting date. Please attach the enclosed Commission paperwork from December 2, 2006.
Commissioners, upon review of my letter of objection:
• Please honor condition 12 on the attached “Conditions of Approval” document, “Lots 10, 11 and 12 shall be reconfigured into 2 lots with widths not less than 50 feet.”
• Please consider the real estate downturn, and remember all the vacant property presently available for housing young, professional families.
• Please consider parking issues. The proposed development does indicate two- car garage parking for each of the four units. There is no additional parking for residents’ visitors, with the exception of parking along 13th Avenue, South.
• Please ask yourselves, (borrowing heavily from Mike Donila, St. Petersburg Times, “Will it be too much development on the site? “
• Again from Donila, “Does it fit in with the neighborhood?”
• Finally, loosely from Donila, “Does this development establish a precedent for this use on future residential streets in Safety Harbor?” Are four, shotgun style, 1,600 square foot; two-story residences located on a 120 foot residential parcel consistent with existent land uses in Safety Harbor’s Park Heights subdivision?
Consider the matter from the perspective of a judge from an appeals court, “Does this parcel have a reasonable nexus (connection) to downtown?” Or, is that connection tenuous at best? If your decision is that the corner of 13th Avenue, South and Main Street has only a tenuous nexus to downtown, and that the corner is residential in nature, rather than borderline commercial, please do not allow approval of a zoning exception based on the “nexus with downtown,” argument of development of the central business core.
Thank you for your consideration of a viewpoint in opposition to this project.
Nancy J. Besore,
100 13th Ave. South,
Safety Harbor
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