Letter: Sebastian development flawed
Peter Romano
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/19/07
Editor: Was it only St. Augustine City Commissioner Susan Burk who saw the "elephant in the room"?
Staff Writer Kati Bexley's report on Monday's City Commission meeting, "San Sebastian tower gets OK" in Tuesday's Record failed to spot the "elephant in the room." San Sebastian Harbor Development's amendment request for ordinance No. 2007-14 was the subject of the story.
After George McClure's song and dance (since he was not sworn in) at the public hearing of the revised project, The Devlin Group proposed an amendment to: double the number of hotel rooms, halve the residences (What happens to those property taxes that were expected to be collected?), restrict public access, and increase retail square footage. There was no mention in the story of the request for the "twin towers", (there are two that they would like), which is trite, compared to the obvious "elephant" that is, "we don't have a Westin-like hotel." (This is contrary to the misinformation about the Westin in Commissioner George Gardner's newsletter).
The amended Planned Unit Development was a result of the sale of the project -- initially granted by the city to San Sebastian Partners of Ponte Vedra, et al., who couldn't carry it off -- to the Devlin Group two years ago. No one seemed to notice or report on it at the time.
So far the Devlin Group has: had a sea wall give way, their building contractor go bankrupt, not presented documentation of any "intent by Westin", and made no mention of who the builder will be. Westin is only a licensor not a builder.
Devlin "show me the money." Commissioners, do your "due diligence."
Click here to return to story:
http://staugustine.com/stories/081907/opinions_477858a.shtml
© The St. Augustine Record
No comments:
Post a Comment