LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | Sound off: Referendum

‘Yes’ on Key Club referendum

Dear Editor:

I have already cast a big “YES” for the proposed Islandside Referendum. The Key Club needs to expand and offer more and better facilities for its members. The town of Longboat Key will be a huge beneficiary of the club’s expansion.

Milan Adrian 

Longboat Key

Traffic solutions must come first

Dear Editor:

We have read recently that developers suggest a change in zoning from condominium usage to condominium usage/resort would result in lowering the traffic impact. 

It has been written that the proposed zoning would constitute a lesser use of the roads than the present zoning when built out. 

We also received a letter in the mail stating the same thing: “Studies show that hotel guests use fewer vehicles and make fewer trips per day than permanent residents.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. We are in the hotel/resort business here in Sarasota County. We can truthfully testify that the proposed zoning is the highest and most intense use that could be assigned to that property. Chances are the “studies” mentioned relate to downtown Chicago, New York or Paris hotels, but they clearly do not relate to our Longboat Key situation.

The developer’s suggestion that many people would not bother to rent cars and would use public transportation is also wrong. People who spend $500 to $1,000 a night for a room also spend $700 to $800 a week for a rental car, especially at that location on Longboat Key, with no shopping and no restaurants. 

 We are not opposed to development, but we are opposed to misrepresentation. And we are opposed to any further development until the traffic situation is rectified. 

Otherwise, Longboat Key and Sarasota will become unpleasant winter experiences like Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Naples and other overdeveloped parts of Florida.

George and Sally Rauch

Longboat Key

Further development will destroy lifestyle

Dear Editor:

The question before us is simple: Will the new Key Club development make life better for the current residents of Longboat Key?

Longboat Key is a narrow, fragile barrier island that is already suffering from the effects of too much density. Traffic on Gulf of Mexico Drive is horrendous during season (it is hard and dangerous for bikers and pedestrians to cross the road). It has been impossible to get into popular restaurants without booking weeks in advance. Tennis courts are jammed. There are no parking spaces at Publix’s in season.

Each large new construction project brings our delicate Key closer to ecological, social and economic destruction.

Because of the recent recession, resort development halted all over the country. But in the last year, hurricane-like forces of development have come roaring back.

All of the charming bungalows and beach cottages that were the essence of Longboat Key soon will be gone.

The new hotel at the Longboat Key Club in and of itself may not do all that much harm. But it rolls us down a slippery slope toward overzealous development.

If Longboat Key keeps relaxing the zoning codes for each new developer who comes along, the town will be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I have watched this happen along the whole length of Long Island. One-hundred years ago, Coney Island was a charming little beach town. Today, it is a slum. The same process happened to town after town along the South shore, all the way until it reached the Hamptons.

Recently, East Hampton has been fighting off the developers. It “up-zoned” the vacant land so that buildable large plots required two or five acres. It also set up a land-conservation program and instituted a tax of 2% on all home sales to pay for it. The income from this tax was used to buy up significant land and farms to halt development.

Critics said that the tax would destroy the town, that sales of expensive houses would be halted. Guess what? Just the opposite happened: Prices soared. Supply and demand. Buyers knew the town would forever retain its charm.                                                              

Second homeowners and wealthy retirees don’t want to reside in a tourist town. Tourists bring traffic and pollution and, frankly, eventually depress home values.

Town governments often welcome new developments. They have the vain, desperate hope that new gigantic developments will boost tax revenues to cover ever increasing deficits. 

In the end, these monies are never enough to cover the expenses they require, not to mention the damage they do to the charm and ambiance of resort communities is irreparable.

The editor of the Longboat Observer wrote that the essence of our stewardship over our lands is preservation and making it better for the next generation. 

A 300-unit convention center hotel will not preserve or improve anything for the people of Longboat Key. It will scar a beautiful piece of land and muck up everything for everyone else for decades and decades to come. 

Think of why we all came to this oasis: because it was beautiful; it was not Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale or Miami.

When is it enough? Enough people, traffic, condo developments. Enough concrete, pools, congestion. 

Longboat Key is just about perfect as it is. We don’t need to help future developers steal our paradise for their selfish enrichment.

Blake Fleetwood

Longboat Key

Longboat Key has reached the tipping point

Dear Editor:

If one pays careful attention to your April 23 issue, the thoughtful reader may indeed come to the same chilling conclusion I have: 

Our beloved paradise of residential exclusivity and pristine natural beauty is dangerously close to a precipice. And if it is crossed, our paradise will gradually disappear into traffic blockage that even a quadruple bypass could not fix.

Tourists will be thick as a biblical plague of locusts, some zipping around on Segways; renters will be crammed into condos and single-family homes celebrating as if spring break occurred weekly. 

Think this absurd? I suggest you read “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. 

First, consider your front-page story that Goodwill is still seeking a location here. I am all for charity and donations done privately and anonymously. 

But the Longboat Key I invested significant money in for residential property is not the spot for Goodwill. 

We have our churches and temples, which are integral to our community and already serve charitable functions. I have donated numerous times to Goodwill and have no problem driving to Anna Maria Island or Bradenton to drop off merchandise; I don’t think we need one we can walk to. And yes, image and perception are major factors for prospective Longboat Key property buyers.

    Second, there is the town center,  which is beyond the province of town government to waste $1.5 million on purchasing the land. Such investment and development is best left to actual real estate developers, not central planners who think they know better than the private market. 

Third, there is the Longboat Key Club Trojan horse proposal. It is looking to convert 300 residential units to tourism! Great for them (more money) and bad for us (more traffic, more temporary visitors who do not care whether our beaches and other resources are overrun). 

As Ray Rajewski and others have so intelligently pointed out, this is in addition to the future tourist rooms at the former Hilton and Colony Beach & Tennis Resort come the day that boondoggle is adjudicated and a developer puts up more and more tourist accommodations. And let’s not forget the increasing number of homes and condos that have become short-term Motel 6s.

So what does our beloved Longboat Key tip into? 

First, we become Bradenton Beach, then Miami with attendant crime and decay. And in the final apocalyptic vision, we become the Colony in its present dilapidated state. Like Hiroshima Park, the fenced off Colony is our dire warning.

Joseph Iannello

Longboat Key