ROBERT THAGGARD: Vilano wasn't 'built' for a Watermarke project

Guest Column: Vilano wasn't 'built' for a Watermarke project
Posted: September 18, 2016 - 12:05am
St. Augustine Record
By ROBERT THAGGARD
North Beach
The recent approval by the St. Johns County Planning & Zoning Agency of a Comprehensive Plan amendment to allow commercial development in a residential stretch of A1A is tantamount to the mismanagement of land use in the Vilano Beach area.
This 17-mile stretch of coastal highway is one of the last strictly residential oceanfront drives remaining in Florida. The protection from commercial development afforded by the county’s long-range Comprehensive Plan was one of the primary reasons my wife and I purchased our home in this area.
The proposed The Watermarke commercial project is not at a size and scale compatible with the surrounding area. The proposed project, which includes a 130-unit hotel and ancillary facilities, is significantly larger than a small 29-unit inn and a couple of restaurants nearby that were erected prior to the establishment of the Vilano Beach Town Center Mixed Use District. The Mixed Use District for Vilano was adopted to harmonize Vilano as a year-round residential community with retail and commercial development that would revitalize an existing blighted or otherwise inefficiently developed area. With the abundant opportunity for commercial development within the Vilano Town Center, there is not a demonstrated deficiency of other available lands designated commercial to accommodate the proposed commercial use of the The Watermarke project.
The County’s Comprehensive Plan also requires that a proposed amendment for rezoning that allows commercial activity be contiguous to an existing Development area which has developed in a pattern similar to the proposed amendment. This is not true with respect to The Watermarke project. Locating a commercial operation in the middle of a residential area is not a contiguous pattern of development.
The members of the Planning & Zoning Agency cited jobs, tax revenue and private property rights as justification for their approval and ignored the other qualitative criteria required by the county’s land use plan in approving a plan amendment.
By their affirmative vote they essentially undermined the county’s well thought out objectives for the zoning overlay of Vilano which encourages redevelopment of the Town Center area and protects the residential nature of the coastal corridor of A1A.
Private property rights and the economic base of land use are already encompassed in the county’s Comprehensive Plan in accordance with state law. I urge our County Commissioners to reject the recommendation of the Planning & Zoning Agency and redirect the efforts of its members to preserve the vision for Vilano that is already enshrined in the county’s development plan.
COMMENTS
sponger2 09/18/16 - 10:28 am 21The PZA (Profane Zoning Advocates)
Don't live there. I bet you money. The comprehensive plan is there for a reason and these dimwits need to get their collective heads out of their azzes and move on to gainful employment in the private sector that is not connected with development. It is abundantly clear they do not have our best interests at heart. I wonder how those snakes sleep at night.