WALTER C. DANIELS: Watermarke intrusion: What's exactly is a comp play for?

Watermarke intrusion: What's exactly is a comp play for?
Posted: September 18, 2016 - 12:05am
St. Augustine Record

By WALTER C. DANIELS
North Beach
The developer of The Watermarke Resort complex on A1A North in Vilano Beach would have us all believe that his plan is the “right choice” for the North Beach area.
As demonstrated by the vast number of persons who appeared in opposition to the development at the Planning and Zoning Agency hearing Aug. 4, his view is not shared by the residents of the area.
The right choice for such an intense commercial development is to place it in the Vilano Beach Town Center. A lot of tax dollars have been spent to prepare the infrastructure in this area for exactly this type of development.
Indeed, an upscale hotel and complementary Bed & Breakfast are already being planned for the Town Center. A development similar to The Watermarke is neither desired nor suitable for the area north of the Usina Bridge.
The developer needs an amendment to the county’s Comprehensive Plan in order to permit him to build the resort as planned. He says it will be a private resort catering to the resort guests. At the same time, it will include 70,000 square feet of commercial retail space. This is twice the square footage of the space in the Vilano Beach Town Center occupied by Publix. I am skeptical that the business provided by resort guests alone will sustain the economic viability of 70,000 square feet of commercial space.
In order to attract a sufficient cash flow, it will have to be opened to the public at large. This will certainly add to the traffic on A1A, which is very busy now.
It should be assumed that when the Comprehensive Plan was drafted and approved, it was done with the objective of being beneficial to the county as a whole, and in particular to the residents in the various areas of the county as well.
It follows then that a developer desiring a change to the plan should demonstrate that the change will continue to benefit the county as a whole, and also the residents of the area impacted by the change.
The arguments provided by the developer do not meet the criteria necessary for approval of a change to the Comprehensive Plan. A change will only be of benefit to the developer.
There is a substantial amount of undeveloped land between the Usina Bridge and the Guana River Preserve.
An amendment to the Comprehensive Plan will only open the door to more requests for the same type of intense commercial development found in the The Watermarke plan from other development interests.
If such an amendment is approved, getting into St. Augustine from the North Beach area will soon become a nightmare.
If the amendment is approved, planning should also begin now for another bridge across the Tolomato River in the vicinity of the Serenata Beach development.
The hearing to consider the amendment to the Comprehensive Plan is scheduled for the County Commission meeting on Sept. 20. Please contact the members of the Board of County Commissioners and urge them to vote against any change in the zoning of the North Beach area.

COMMENTS
sponger2 09/18/16 - 10:22 am 20Bottom line
We don't need ANY more development. Certain folks may not want to hear it, but it's true. The very things that made this a nice place to live are being destroyed at breakneck pace, while prices for everything go up, and services go down. Noise; traffic, congestion, overcrowded schools and failing infrastructure all point to the place where we say STOP. Wake up and stop letting greed buzzards get rich off our resource, which is already severely eroded.
martystaug 09/18/16 - 01:28 pm 00Trade off
The reason Vilano Town Center has been so slow to develop is because it is geared toward locals. Locals support the restaurants and shops, with a few beach-going tourists at the hotels. That traffic alone is enough to cause backups on May Street coming into town. Add the thousands of vehicles required to support a development of this size and scope and we have bad just getting worse. Plus as the article says, the precedent will be set to destroy the quality of life for Vilano residents, and impact anyone in the May Street area. IF the commission in their wisdom decides to approve this mess, I think they should mitigate the problems it causes by forcing the developers to also pay for and build a bridge from A1A to US1. (not San Marco). This bridge needs to be north of SR 16 and not dump all of the traffic onto San Marco. Nice Trade-off.