Our View

Longboat Key town commissioners might want to take to heart the not-so-subtle notification they received last week from Town Manager David Bullock.

Bullock warned his bosses:

“As much as it may disappoint you, you’re going to talk about this a lot. You’re going to talk about it in details that will make your eyes roll back, because that’s what it’s going to take to work through this code.”
Bullock was speaking about the task of revising and rewriting the town’s comprehensive plan and land-development codes.

Presumably, town commissioners know this daunting task must be completed. It’s crucial to the future of redevelopment and the future of Longboat Key. If a new comp plan and codes are not created, residents and taxpayers can pretty much be assured there will be little redevelopment — and less to the future of Longboat Key as a premier resort/second-home community.

That is not conjecture. If you have lived here for half of a decade or longer, you remember well the strife and lawsuits that erupted when the former owners of the Longboat Key Club and Resort sought approval of a $400 million expansion and redevelopment plan.

All of that occurred because of fuzziness and unclear language in the town’s development codes and comp plan. For years, former Town Attorney David Persson alerted the Town Commission and planning and zoning board to the fact the town’s codes were recipes for lawsuits and needed clarification.

And for years, more than a decade, the task of fixing the plan and codes never occurred. To be sure, it’s a difficult, head-pounding undertaking. Maybe more like a colonoscopy. You know you need one, but the unpleasantness of the ordeal (the night before!) causes you to procrastinate and focus on things you shouldn’t — like town center designs, figuring out what to do with Bayfront Park, beautifying Gulf of Mexico Drive and rising sea levels.

Yes, all true. After going to great lengths and expense of bringing in last winter the Urban Land Institute to help the town craft a roadmap for the future, the ULI Advisory Panel’s recommendations — chief among them rewriting the comp plan and codes — have pretty much succumbed to governmentitis.

The now famous ULI citizens committee has devolved into a group with no purpose, no focus and no use. Not by its own making, but because of the lack of specific direction and mission from the Town Commission. Rather than take the ULI Advisory Panel’s 15 recommendations and roadmap and begin to address and implement them one by one, in order of the ULI’s priority, the commission abdicated. It tried to do the kumbaya thing by forming a citizens group, which really wasn’t a citizens group. It was an arm of town government with token citizen involvement. It was destined to fall into the hole it’s in.

Each time this “citizens” panel meets, its members question their role. You know there’s a problem when the committee members start talking about sea levels rising. Yes, they did that.

To paraphrase Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, it’s time to hit the reset button on the ULI report.

Disband the current citizens committee.

And then town commissioners should create a real citizens-based panel of three to five people to craft and write a new Constitution for the town of Longboat Key. And put a deadline on it.

This would not have to be done at the expense of other ULI recommendations, e.g. pursuing a town center, or town priorities, e.g. beach preservation. But it should be as high or higher of a priority.

When the Founding Fathers created and crafted the U.S. Constitution, delegates to the Constitutional Convention voted on naming five members to a Committee of Detail that drafted the document.

Surely among Longboat Key’s august citizenry there are five visionaries, lawyers, land-use experts and pragmatists who can do what the ULI Advisory Panel urged. As noted in the box above, the ULI final report to the town said:

“The panelists also strongly recommend developing and adopting modern codes and permit processes to implement those policies in the land development process.

“The importance of undertaking this planning and zoning process cannot be emphasized strongly enough.”

This is crucial for the next generation.

If commissioners take this on, they will create a positive legacy and a turning point in the town’s history.

+ Stand your ground, Manatee
Ever since the Manatee County School Board voted 3-2 to install armed guards at 32 of the county’s elementary schools, predictably, there has been a chorus of critics quick to question and chastise the board and district administration.

“They moved too quickly.” “They didn’t get enough public input.” “They should have checked the state laws more thoroughly beforehand.” Wah, wah, wah.

We’ll continue to applaud the school board and administration for taking the right and bold action. Typical governments are too slow to act and afraid to act for fear of criticism.

But without leaders willing to be pioneers, take risks and be decisive, we all would be worse off — maybe even dead.

REMEMBER THE ULI’s TOP PRIORITIES?
When the Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel issued its final report last March for the town of Longboat Key, it recommended 15 specific priorities in order of priority.

Before those recommendations, however, the panel also wrote the following in its summary of recommendations. Note the emphasis on rewriting the town’s comprehensive plan and codes:

“Focus on the future instead of the past. Taking time to renew the future vision for Longboat Key is absolutely necessary for continued success.

“The 1980s-vintage plans and codes not only are out of date, but also perpetuate an unfortunate current pattern of community infighting, with good people focusing on the things that divide instead of working together and making more progress.

“The panel’s recommendation is not to amend the town’s comprehensive plan, but to replace it with a new plan tailored to meet the needs of the future.

“The panel recommends that the current system of ‘tourism units’ and other complicated aspects of the legacy code be abandoned or suspended and that new zones that reflect the community vision be adopted.

“The panelists also strongly recommend developing and adopting modern codes and permit processes to implement those policies in the land development process.

“The importance of undertaking this planning and zoning process cannot be emphasized strongly enough.”

ULI’s TOP FIVE PRIORITIES
1) Rezoning the Colony — Institutionalizing the hotel zoning of the Colony ensures that the high-end tourist facility will return to the site and enable progress when development is ready to proceed.

2) Land-use planning efforts for Whitney Beach — A vacant or at best underused shopping center that is likely better served in the future as a mixed-use development. Doing the vision/zoning upfront that enables the desirable development for community will streamline the process. As part of this process, interim uses should be explored to backfill with creative uses such as an incubator or a community kitchen.

3) Comprehensive/vision plan update — The comprehensive plan for the town has not been updated in 30 years. A new plan is needed that reflects the changes that have occurred in the past 30 years and the changes desired for the next 30.

4) Developing and adopting modern codes and permit processes — The panel heard from multiple business leaders that current codes and permit processes make business investment frustrating at best and unlivable at worst. Town codes should provide certainty to investors and help implement the vision plan for the town.

5) Master plan for Publix Super Market area — The Publix site is the center of Longboat Key and should be developed into a pedestrian-friendly town center that primarily serves local residents but also visitors.