- January 22, 2025
Loading
The town of Longboat Key Planning & Zoning Board approved an ordinance to amend the town’s maximum allowable height for boat docks and lifts to prevent future damages and losses of residents’ boats.
At the board's Jan. 17 meeting, members voted 6-1 in favor of passing the ordinance through to the town commission, where the ordinance will need to pass two public hearings before being adopted into the town’s code.
Those two hearings could both happen in February.
In the proposed amendment, dock heights can not exceed 5 feet above the mean high water line, and lift pilings can not exceed 11 feet from the mean high water line.
The changes were first discussed at a town commission workshop in November 2024 following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, during which residents experienced displaced, damaged or missing boats due to the high surge.
This led to some residents raising concerns and wanting the height restrictions of boat docks and lifts to be raised.
Chapter 158 of the town’s code outlines current regulations for dock and lift heights, which are different depending on whether or not the property has a seawall.
Current boat dock standards state that the highest walking surface of a dock should not exceed the top of the seawall cap. For properties without a seawall, the highest walking surface should not be higher than 5 feet above the mean high water line.
The ordinance change is to make the regulation uniform so, with or without a seawall, the highest walking surface of the dock can not exceed 5 feet from the mean high water line.
“The board’s recommendation was to just have a uniform, consistent maximum allowable height,” Director of Planning, Zoning and Building Allen Parsons said at the Jan. 17 meeting. “The maximum allowable does not mandate that someone constructs a dock to that height, but that’s the maximum allowable height.”
The current standards for boat lifts state that lifts can’t be higher than 5 feet above the highest walking surface of the dock. If a property does not have a dock and is adjacent to a seawall, then the lift can’t be higher than 5 feet above the seawall.
This measurement includes all parts of the lift, including pilings, guides, beams and motors.
New standards proposed by the Planning & Zoning Board would make it so the maximum height of the lift pilings can not exceed 11 feet above the mean high water line.
Again, this change makes the maximum allowable height uniform among properties with or without seawalls and measured from the mean high water line.
“The recommendation of the board then was to have a uniform standard that would tie the maximum height to the maximum height of the boat lift pilings, that height being 11 feet,” Parsons said.
The 11 feet maximum height excludes the guides and motors, which are typically placed above the main lift structure. This means the boat lift pilings could be 11 feet tall, and the motors and guides could be above that, which is typical in most boat lift designs.
Having already had a workshop about the ordinance, most of the board was in favor of the ordinance to amend the town’s code.
Board member Jay Plager, though, voiced his opposition to the new maximum allowable heights.
“If you’re concerned about Longboat Key tradition and if you’re concerned about heights of boats on the canals and the visual appearance…we really need to think about what we’re doing,” Plager said.
One of Plager’s concerns is some larger boats may tower over properties if, for example, the boat is 10-15 feet tall and then raised possibly 9-10 feet out of the water with the new lift heights.
“People with money will do almost anything,” Plager said. “And one of the things they will do is they’ll get bigger and bigger boats, and they’ll float them up higher and higher because that’s what they like to do.”
At the meeting, Parsons also recommended a rewrite of the code. With the proposed amendments, the numerous strikethroughs and phrase additions made the code clunky, according to Parsons.
“I think the language that’s been provided here is awkward, I think it could be easily misinterpreted,” Parsons said.
This was another point of contention for Plager, who said the board should have more time to review the new language.
“Let me be clear, I will not vote on the fly for a rewrite here in front of us without having spent some time working through it, looking at it, comparing it with existing documents and giving it some thought,” Plager said. “I simply will not work on the fly like that. I think it’s a mistake.”
However, the residents who attended the meeting, like Sleepy Lagoon resident John Hodgson, were in favor of the new maximum allowable heights.
“I’m very supportive of this change in regulation, which ties the height of your lift to the water,” Hodgson said. “(During the hurricanes) my motors were underwater, my controllers were underwater, as were those of my neighbors. So this regulation would allow us to raise the lift and the equipment to the water, not to our property.”
Plager, though, continued to be the dissenting board member, citing that much of Longboat Key’s development has centered around keeping a lower profile.
“We did away with those high condominiums for the very reason that we want to look like a small, low community,” Plager said. “We really need to rethink where we are on this.”
Plager attempted two motions — one to strike the language that exempts motors and guides from the height allowance, and one to reduce the maximum allowable height to 7 feet. Both motions failed to garner a second.
The ordinance amendments for maximum allowable heights for boat docks and lifts passed 6-1, with Plager being the dissenting vote.