San Carlos Island development goes back to the drawing board
Victory eluded San Carlos Island residents Wednesday who hoped a mega-development in the midst of their working waterfront would be flat-out denied.
Rather than a denial, Lee commissioners sitting as the zoning board voted to remand the zoning of Bay Harbour Marine Village back to county staff for retooling, after a hearing examiner found it to be inconsistent on many counts with the Lee plan.
The board also chose to continue rather than deny the developer’s proposed amendment to the comprehensive plan that has the residents most concerned. Commissioner Frank Mann cast a lone vote to deny the land use change.
Put forward by developer Jack Mayher, Bay Harbour Marina Village sought to turn a 7.5-acre boat storage yard on Main Street into a 14-story residential tower of 113 apartments, 29 wet slips, dry storage for 286 boats, a parking garage and 30,000 square feet of commercial space.
But a hearing examiner gave the zoning application a thumbs down, citing a long list of incompatibilities with the Lee plan.
“The proposed density, intensity, and heights are too high and out of character with the surrounding neighborhood,” began Lee County Hearing Examiner Laura Bellflower’s report to the board.
Hearing examiner shreds San Carlos Island mixed use project
The project now goes back to Lee planning staff to make sure the development corrects some of the more egregious issues with its fit in the neighborhood.
From there it will go again before the hearing examiner to see if the amended zoning application is consistent with the Lee plan.
The developer’s zoning and plan amendment applications will then be heard by the commission in back-to-back hearings.
“I for one want you to vote on it now,” Nicholas White echoed the feeling of most residents who spoke. “Otherwise we will go back to square one, putting lipstick on a pig that’s still designed for a central urban land use – the one thing we don’t want on San Carlos Island.”
Both the developer and residents endured four days of hearings to get to this point, at great cost in time and money.
According to Bellflower’s report, the board had grounds to deny the developer’s request because it’s “illegal,” as White put it; e,g., inconsistent with the Lee plan.
Ostego Bay Foundation President Joanne Semmer, who leads visitor tours of the island's working waterfront, asked the board to deny Bay Harbour’s land-use change as a matter of preserving the unique marine businesses there – from the region’s largest travel lift to a deep water port with the state’s shortest route to Cuba.
Commissioner Larry Kiker, a former professional fishing guide, noted the land-use change “could devastate the shrimp industry. Do we want to take that out of the picture?”
Island resident Charlie Whitehead called the system that allows zoning and plan amendment cases to be heard together “broken,”
“The process is a mess,” Whitehead said. “If remanded, the zoning will be tailored to fit the comp plan amendment the developer wants rather than the original comp plan.”
Kiker agreed the convoluted hearing process was like “putting the cart before the horse.” Better to decide the big picture you want (the comp plan) before the details (zoning application), he said. Commissioner Frank Mann agreed.
Nothing stops you from doing that, residents’ attorney Ralf Brookes said. A Florida statute allows developments under 10 acres -- which Bay Harbour is – to be considered in separate comp plan and zoning applications, Brookes explained.
The board chose not to take that route, however.
Responding to another of the commissioners’ concerns – their inability to talk with concerned residents about their issues because of constraints under Lee codes in zoning cases – Brookes pointed to a Florida statute that allows counties to have such communications provided they’re revealed as ex-parte communications.
“Lee County is among the very few in Florida who don’t do it this way. You can change that,” Brookes said.
Kiker has been on record several times saying the process of vetting developer applications needs to change, although no details have been put forward.
Lee attorney Richard Wesch said the Bay Harbour zoning application could return to the board as early as February.
Follow this reporter on Twitter @PatriciaBorns.
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