Key Club compromise offered

The Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board appears at the end of its deliberations of the Key Club’s redevelopment proposal and both sides of the debate are weighing in at the last moment in an attempt to affect the outcome.
On Thursday Dec. 3 the Key Club sent its formal response to the 40 proposed conditions of approval that the Planning and Zoning Board arrived at during its last hearing two weeks ago. This list of conditions ranged from dictating the maximum height of the proposed condominiums to imposing a fee to be paid to the Town as reparation for lost open space.
In the Key Club’s response, written by Attorney John Patterson, several of the Planning Board’s conditions were either deleted or modified with varying degrees of explanation. Here are some highlights of the Key Club’s modification to the conditions of approval.
During the Planning and Zoning Board discussions the Board reached consensus that the Key Club would contribute a land acquisition fee to offset the loss of open recreation space in the proposal. The Board intended that this money be used to help develop the future Town Recreation Center. This demand appeared as condition of approval number 7. In its response the Key Club intentionally deleted the entire condition.
Another mandate imposed by the Planning and Zoning Board was the requirement that the Key Club work with the Road Association to relocate the gatehouse and make entryway improvements. The Key Club inserted language that says if they are unable to agree on the terms of such improvements, the gatehouse and entryway shall remain as shown in the application prior to the Planning Board’s consideration.
One condition that was watered down is that the Key Club remained bound to submit a site plan that would identically reflect the binding concept plans under consideration. The Key Club asks that the word “identically” be deleted.
Perhaps the most contentious conditions was pushed by board member George Symanski who insisted that the Key Club find a way to assure or guarantee that the hotel would be built and the Town does not receive merely the condo towers without the hotel and conference center. At a meeting two weeks ago, Key Club General Manager Mike Welly said the Key Club would look at ways it could, “put some skin in the game” to assuage Symanski’s fears.
What the Key Club ended up offering is to pay the Town a sum of $500,000 upon completion of the second residential condo building in the project. If the hotel is not built, the Key Club says the Town can retain that money.
The main opponent to the $400 million project is the Islandside Property Owners Coalition, which issued a statement (see side bar) on Dec. 3 that called offered a compromise that the group said, if adopted, it would support. The essence of IPOC’s compromise proposal is a request that a taller than planned hotel be built with additional condominium units to help finance the construction. In trade, the two condominium buildings the Key Club plans to build directly on the golf course would be eliminated as well as the large parking garage along Gulf of Mexico Drive. IPOC President Bob White says the hotel and conference center are ultimately the amenities that are bringing value and new business to the Key. This plan would allow that to be accomplished while avoiding over-buildings the site.
The Longboat Key Club Redevelopment Plan has been the subject of several days of hearings as the proposal works its way to the Town Commission. The role of the Planning and Zoning Board is to render an advisory opinion to the Commission. The conditions of approval are the suggested mandates that the Planning and Zoning Board believe the Town ought to impose on the Key Club if the development plan is approved. The Town Commission is due to consider the Plan as early as Jan. 2010. The Commission, as the ultimate deciding body, can either accept the Planning Board’s recommendations, modify the conditions as it sees fit, reject the entire proposal, or suggest the granting of any approval follow the appropriate changes to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan.