The UK, not LBK, won the Key Club battle
Longboat Key is a small town, and divisions of this sort bode badly for the future atmosphere in the community.
AL GREEN
Contributing Columnist
green@lbknews.com
If you run into a town commissioner in Publix or in a restaurant, you might find it amusing to ask them to describe what it was they voted for when they approved the development at Islandside. I expect you would get at least six different answers. The way it finished up, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the commissioners gave you a different answer each time they were asked.
In some respects, this entire mish-mash reminded me of the original meetings when the Shannon Hotel Group was requesting permission to purchase the club. Everyone became so involved with their own version of what should occur that the importance of detailed specificity and future obligations totally passed without comment.
In the beginning, they created golf courses. They were a vital part of the total ambience of Longboat Key. If you lived on Longboat Key, you got an almost totally private beach, 45 holes of relatively inexpensive golf and a dedicated group of employees who were emotionally involved in the preservation of ‘paradise.’ What you have as a result of this latest departure from that long lost dream is a major tourist resort that happens to be located, and will use as the mailing address, Longboat Key. The name will remain, but the spirit will be gone.
Whatever comes of this new operation, it will be far removed from the rest of the community. The golf club will be an accessory for a tourist and conference center. What will go on there will stay there. It will be located on Longboat Key but it will not be a part of it.
The original concept as described in the Arvida and town documents and General Development Plan (GDP) wrote of a golf club that was to be “readily accessible” to the residents. This is now a distant memory.
It can be argued that by pricing admission to the club so high, Loeb Partners Realty deliberately drove the major portion of the residents away. This created a lack of involvement by most of the residents, thereby allowing the changes to go forward relatively unheeded. It certainly must be agreed upon that the golf club and its facilities itself had very little to do with any of the discussions. The club comes out of this far worse off than it was. The loss of a golf course readily available to the residents will have a severe impact on future real estate values.
If those residents of Islandside, who form the group known as IPOC, choose to continue fighting, this will further expose the division that has surfaced because of this controversy. Longboat Key is a small town, and divisions of this sort bode badly for the future atmosphere in the community.
At no time during the extensive discussions did Mr. Joe Lesser or his lackeys suggest sitting down and working out a compromise solution. It was all for one, nothing for all. All we heard was about “numbers not adding up” and what was needed by the people in London. To be told that the criterion for a decision as important as this was how it went over in England is mind-boggling.
Longboat Key is a different place today than it was yesterday. The controversy might well continue for years, and the town will never be the same. In a paradise, neighbors don’t treat their neighbors this way.
