Revisions on Longboat growth, development goals near completion

After about a year spent combing through the town of Longboat Key’s comprehensive plan, the Planning and Zoning Board is nearly finished with its revisions. 

The plan is an overarching document designed to provide a vision for the future of the town along with the necessary steps needed to achieve the goals. It also acts as a basis for land use regulations, addressing all physical elements of the area for an extended period of time.

“Every jurisdiction in the state has a statutory requirement to have a comprehensive plan,” Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons said. “It has to have certain components and requirements associated with that.”

The revision process, which takes place every seven years, allows for the town to make changes to its plan. The plan is a requirement for each city in the state of Florida. At the seven-year mark, no changes have to be made as long as the plan meets all state statutes. 

The town is not required to wait seven years. The board is able to go into the plan and continually update it to meet state requirements as needed.

For example, in 2016, the state adopted the requirement to include conservation and coastal management elements. The town opted to add them that year, rather than wait for their plan to be evaluated years later.

Regardless of whether the town utilizes more frequent updates, the plan is still required to go under review by the state every seven years. Following this update, the next evaluation would be in 2029. 

Missing elements the town is required to have as part of the revision include a long-term planning timeframe covering at least 10 years, a future transportation map, a future land use map and the incorporation of the recently adopted property rights element. 

When reviewing, the board has to ask themselves what may need to be added and what may need to be removed, whether it's because it doesn’t make sense in the plan or is outdated. The boards also needs to consider whether the existing wording effectively communicates the town’s goals and objectives. 

Early in the process, the board decided to include a glossary of terms in the plan so the language could be more easily understood by the everyday person. 

All that remains for the Planning and Zoning Board is another visit with Batch 5 to create an ordinance and hold a public hearing and the review of Batch 6. 

The plan was broken into six batches for the Planning and Zoning Board to tackle the document. Examples of batches include the mobility element and the conservation, recreation and open space element. The element that remains is the housing, government and capital improvement element. 

The process, following the board’s conclusion of the amendment process, is extensive and includes numerous back-and-forth exchanges between the Town Commission and Planning and Zoning Board. 

Once each batch of amendments is made, the board must send it to the commission for approval. Once the amendments are approved, the plan returns to the board for development of an ordinance. 

Public hearings are held at both the Planning and Zoning meetings and commission meetings. If passed, they are sent to the Department of Economic Opportunity for review to ensure compliance. If needed, the department can request additional revisions. 

On April 3, the infrastructure and mobility elements were adopted by the commission, and the Batch 5 amendment recommendations were also approved to head back to the Planning and Zoning Board. 

Last August, when the board was first making progress on the plan, Parsons estimated the work would be complete by the end of 2022. 

“The time frame that we had mapped out to potentially be able to get through all the elements in one year was based on each element only taking one meeting,” Parsons said. 

For example, the Batch 5 element took six meetings for the board to revise, which was due in part to the size of the batch and the time allotted at meetings to go over the material. 

With uncertainty on what time will be needed to go over the final batch and to gain commission and state approval, there is no set date for when the entire plan will be complete.