Animosity takes off over approved apartments near SRQ

Although a 372-unit apartment community at the former Sarasota Kennel Club was approved by the Sarasota City Commission last week, it appears likely a court will determine if the project actually moves forward.

By the requisite supermajority vote, commissioners approved three measures at their Sept. 6 meeting to clear the way for Aventon Sarasota, which is being planned by Raleigh, North Carolina-based Aventon Companies for the 25-acre site across University Parkway from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport.

The approval followed impassioned arguments by the SRQ President and CEO Rick Piccolo and Sarasota attorney Robert Lincoln, who specializes in challenging rezoning and site-plan approvals. Citing the approval as contrary to the city’s comprehensive plan and a 2018 agreement with the airport, which in part included discouraging residential development beneath the airport’s noise contour for takeoffs and landings, the two hinted at a possible legal challenge.

What commissioners may not have been aware of, based on their line of questioning, is that at its monthly meeting the week prior, the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority Board of Commissioners authorized Piccolo and airport attorney Dan Bailey to pursue legal action should Aventon Sarasota be approved.

The airport isn't suing the city with its own money. Not supported by city or county taxes, its revenues come from aviation operations such as landing and gate fees, as well as hangar leases, parking and rental car fees, concessions, and retail and restaurant leases, among others.

The airport board’s vote was unanimous with member Doug Holder abstaining, citing prior legislative representation work for the Collins family, which owns the property via the Jack G. Collins Sr. Revocable Trust, during the greyhound racing constitutional amendment matter that eventually shut down the kennel club in 2019.

Since the track closed, Aventon, which has experience developing sites close — but not this close — to airports emerged as the only potential developer of the property, although there was some flirtation from previous suitors. While sympathetic to the plight of the Jack Collins Jr. and the Collins family, Piccolo told the SRQ board that residential was the worst possible use for the land given its proximity, about 1,500 feet, from the end of the runway.

“I sympathize with the kennel club ownership,” Piccolo said. “They were put out of business by a constitutional amendment, but that doesn't justify going to residential use versus commercial use.”

Previously zoned for heavy commercial, the majority of dwellings in Aventon’s site plan would lie beneath the 65 decibel day-night average sound level contour. That’s fine for a Home Depot, Piccolo said. Not so much for residents exposed to the noise for long periods of time.

A clear conscience

Between the interlocal agreement, the comprehensive plan — which commissioners voted to amend to allow residential on the site as part of the Aventon approval process — and a 3-2 recommendation for rejection by the Sarasota Planning Board, Piccolo told the airport board he was surprised by the City Commission’s 4-1 approval on the first reading of the rezoning and site plan.

With the airport board’s litigation approval in hand, he and Lincoln testified before the Commission last week and hinted, short of outright threatening, a legal challenge should the project be approved.

Although the authority had shown interest in the kennel club property in 2019, the financial uncertainties brought about by COVID-19 — which for months all but shut down commercial aviation — forced SRQ to tighten the reins on capital spending. Otherwise, it may have been an ideal location for rental car operations, satellite parking, or a combination of the two.

In the interim, in June 2021 Aventon filed a preliminary application with the city for a comprehensive plan amendment to facilitate the project and put the property under contract pending eventual approval.

Piccolo denied the airport’s prior interest in the site was the reason for its objection to the apartments. Prior to last week’s City Commission meeting, commissioners were presented with an affidavit from Jack Collins Jr., which describes a lunch meeting with Piccolo — which Piccolo said Collins requested through a mutual friend — to discuss the airport’s objection to the project. If the Aventon project is denied, the affidavit reads, Piccolo told Collins he should be the first person he calls.

More on that later.

Instead, Piccolo said his objection was based on health, safety and the inevitable noise complaints the airport will receive regardless of how well informed new residents are or liability waivers they sign, as pledged by Aventon.

“We all know, and we’ve dealt with it for years, no matter how much you notify people you're going to get noise and you're going to get people wanting action and wanting you to fix the noise that you can't fix,” Piccolo told the airport board.

Most of the residential properties in similar proximity to the airport were built in the 1970s and 1980s, prior to contemporary science and regulatory language regarding noise. The airport spent some $45 million on noise abatement programs in the 1980s and 1990s to add sound dampening to homes, to purchase homes and to buy aviation easements over an RV park at $2,500 per lot.

He also cited safety as an issue.

“Forty-nine percent of all aircraft accidents happen on initial departure or final descent,” he told the SRQ board. “And so you're going to put, 1,500 feet off the end of the runway, 372 housing units. We think that we need to take this as far as we can. We might not win, but if anything goes wrong, while I will feel awful, I will sleep at night knowing that I made every effort, and you'll be able to sleep at night knowing you made every effort, to bring this to a different conclusion.”

About that affidavit

During the City Commission hearing, Commissioner Hagen Brody read aloud from the affidavit after saying he had suspicions regarding the airport’s “very tense opposition” to the project.

“On June 14, 2022 I went to lunch at Libby’s with Airport Authority President and CEO Frederick J. Piccolo,” the affidavit reads. “At that lunch, Mr. Piccolo expressed to me the Airport Authority was interested in acquiring the property from the Trust. After June 14, 2022 Mr. Piccolo again expressed to me that the Airport Authority would like to acquire the property from the Trust, and in the event the application for development approvals are denied, he hoped he ‘would be the first call I would make.’ ”

With that implication drifting throughout the meeting chamber, Lincoln told commissioners the lunch was arranged through a mutual friend. Piccolo added he had never previously spoken with Collins. He did confirm inviting Collins to contact him if the apartments were denied, but characterized it as more of a casual remark.

“This is low. This is not evidence of anything and should be struck,” Lincoln said of the affidavit, which was entered into the public hearing record. “It is not only specious, but in a situation where Mr. Collins isn’t here to be questioned to his face about this is cowardly. Mr. Collins is implying that the airport is doing this for some underhanded purpose.”

Piccolo told commissioners that during the lunch he laid out the airport’s case to Collins, and that it had invested $30,000 to evaluate the property in 2019, just prior to the pandemic.

“At the time COVID hit and we were down to less than 10,000 passengers per month,” he said. “We only had $15 million in reserves. This would have cost us two-thirds of our reserves. We couldn’t do it.”

Brody attempted to diffuse the emotionally charged situation at that point, but Piccolo pressed on.

“This is a very cheap shot. … If I knew that we were going to grow like we did when we were approached about it I would have spent the reserves because we would have made a lot more money. And I told him if this thing doesn’t work out, it’s not personal. Make me your first phone call because we’re in a different financial position. Not because I want the property, but because I don’t want to go through this again because I can’t depend on the city to live up to the agreement that we made four years ago.”

The initial legal challenge, Bailey told the SRQ board, would be against the approval of the comprehensive plan amendment before the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings. A win there would invalidate the rezoning and site plan approval.

“It's a high standard we would have to meet,” Bailey said. “If the hearing officer determines that the plan amendment was clearly debatable, then the city wins on that issue. Then on the other two approvals, they would be challenged probably in circuit court.”

No time frame has been announced for filing legal action.