I have never been prouder to live in St. Johns County than in the defeat of The Watermarke five star resort by We, the People.
It takes a village; it takes a village to defeat pillaging developers. We've done it again and again in St. Augustine, and now we're doing it in St. Johns County
Thanks to PZA member (and former chair) Richard Williams, who voted to deny it ab initio -- the only PZA member to vote no.
Thanks to Commissioners Jay Morris, William McClure, Jeb Smith and James Johns, to lawyer Jane West, to St. Augustine Record Opinion Editor James Sutton, three outstanding guest columnists, two dozen public hearing fact/percipient witnesses, three expert witnesses and hundreds of Vilano Beach residents -- decisions are made by people who show up.
Keep showing up.
We, the People won again September 20, 2016, defeating the usual suspects, dodgy characters and undisclosed investors, represented by cunning corporate mouthpiece ELLEN AVERY SMITH of the ROGERS TOWERS and supported now only by dazed, confused and angry Commissioner PRISCILLA "RACHAEL" BENNETT (R-HUTSON COMPANIES), a developer dupe, who with rote rodomontade, routinely insults anyone who disagrees with her, like DONALD J. TRUMP in drag. BENNETT appeared on the verge of tears last night, as she was when she lost on the 16.66% sales tax increase on June 16, 2015.
In her baby-talking peevish peroration, disgruntled Commissioner BENNETT said there were people spreading "misinformation" and "getting people very, very upset." She falsely claimed opponents did not have "competent and substantial evidence," leading County Attorney Patrick Francis McCormack to instruct the Board that the proposal was a legislative action, requiring only a "rational basis" for Commissioners' votes.
BENNETT said "misinformation builds false expectations and false desires." BENNETT said "people are being manipulated with misinformation." BENNETT said, "I do not support encouraging public anxiety and worry" with false information.
Not once did BENNETT identify any "misinformation" or anyone spreading it.
BENNETT went out of her way to be rude and crude. BENNETT insulted the Vilano Beach residents, their lawyer, journalists and activists with a rant worthy of DONALD J. TRUMP, containing errors and no facts and asserting evil intentions to those whose opposition was well grounded in fact and law. BENNETT's District 5 includes Vilano Beach, so her demagogic attack was on her own constituents -- hundreds of them who attended the hearing, and dozens of whom stayed into the evening when the project was killed.
Ignoring residents' reliance on the comprehensive plan in relocating and buying or building homes, BENNETT said the comprehensive plan is "not written in stone."
Oddly, BENNETT said "we're sworn to uphold the law."
But that's exactly what her fellow Commissioners did -- not one of them provided a second to her emotional motion to support a bad project.
Amid an FBI corruption investigation of St. Johns County, BENNETT dropped out of the race for re-election for District 5: she will be replaced on November 22, 2016 by Henry Dean, an environmental lawyer who served as Executive Director of the St. Johns River Water Management District and the South Florida Water Management District.
ROGERS TOWERS PARTNER ELLEN AVERY SMITH (SAR)
SAVE OUR VILANO residents dressed in white shirts filled the Auditorium (SAR)
Watermarke resort fails to garner support
Posted: September 21, 2016 - 12:06am | Updated: September 21, 2016 - 5:52am
By STUART KORFHAGE
stuart.korfhage@staugustine.com
Vilano Beach residents staged something of a whiteout at Tuesday’s St. Johns County Commission meeting with the intent of convincing commissioners not to support a proposal for a luxury resort to be called Watermarke along Florida A1A.
They had to wait until the daylight waned for the answer, but it was the one they wanted.
After hours of presentations and debate, the Watermarke plan failed to gain approval and was formally withdrawn before a motion to deny could be considered.
Commissioner Rachael Bennett made a motion to approve, but none of her fellow commissioners offered a second, killing the motion. As Commissioner Jay Morris made a motion for denial, attorney Ellen Avery-Smith, representing ownership of the project, withdrew the Comprehensive Plan amendment. The group can now amend the project and resubmit if it chooses.
In August, the Planning and Zoning Agency voted 5-1 in favor of the plan to build a 120-room hotel, 50 beach villa rentals and a 39-slip boat dock on a 43.5-acre parcel of land just north of the Usina Bridge. They also wanted 70,000 square feet of commercial space to complement the resort.
The owners of the property were asking for a change in the Future Land Use Map designation from Conservation and Residential-C to Residential-D for approximately 23.5 acres of the land and from Conservation and Residential-C to Conservation for approximately 20 acres of land. Residential-D designation is required for property to have a hotel.
In 2007, the property was rezoned from Open Rural, Residential Mobile/Manufactured Housing and Planned Special Development to Planned Unit Development to allow 79 housing units, including 45 single-family homes and 34 multi-family homes.
As Morris described it, the crowd was a “snowstorm” of a few hundred people wearing white — including many “Save Our Vilano” shirts — in order to show their opposition to the Watermarke plan.
More than 20 people offered public comment to the commission, all but one voicing opposition (she was neutral).
That audience participation and the long explanations, review of traffic studies over and over again, pushed the discussion of the item into the 5:30 p.m. budget hearing, which by law had to start then, and into the evening. More than five hours passed before a decision was made.
“This has been a really engaged base of citizens,” said attorney Jane West, who represented the Save Our Vilano group. “And what has been fun working with them is not only are they really engaged and they have the ability to show up to these meetings, they’re really smart.
“Everyone had a unique, personal vignette that really resonated. I thought a lot of good points were made during public comment.”
The main issues the proposal has generated, even before it was heard by the PZA, included traffic impact, hurricane evacuation concerns and overall compatibility with the surrounding community.
There were many arguments made about those issues, and each side produced experts or examples that proved their point. County employees said the traffic and evacuation would be basically the same or less of an impact as a resort compared to a residential development. West’s experts disputed this.
But perhaps the No. 1 sticking point was a text amendment in the proposal that would have granted the owners the right to go ahead and develop the property as the 2007 PUD allowed if the resort was never built. Or it would allow them to transform the property into 79 multi-family units (likely condominiums) if the resort was built but not successful.
To Morris, it showed a lack of commitment to the resort project.
“I’ve never seen that put in where you kind of want your cake and eat it, too,” he said. “If you’re not going to sell it to somebody else, to me, that would be the only reason for the fallback plan.
“That’s the biggest concern I have going into this.”
He also took issue with part of the text amendment that said “and other related amenities” as permitted uses of the property.
Avery-Smith explained that it was only related to resort activities.
“The ‘other related amenities’ was really just a catch-all for the resort,” she said.
The text amendment was eventually changed before the commission officially considered it, but Morris and the other commissioners never did change their perception.
“I look at that [fallback] as not as a real dedication to see a project through if it gets approved,” Morris said prior to the changes.
Steve Magiera, one of the ownership partners, said he was dedicated to the project and simply wanted some financial safety if the market turns sour. He said his investors want to build a “Five-Diamond” resort.
“I can tell you there is no shortage of dedication to this project,” he said. “We wouldn’t have gone through this for seven months if we weren’t dedicated to this project.”
Added Morris: “I shouldn’t question your dedication. I hope you build this project. You’re building it in the wrong location. That’s my opinion.”
West said she was glad Morris saw the situation the way he did.
“He nailed it. He absolutely nailed it,” West said. “He’s a savvy businessman. He understood they were trying to provide economic cover for themselves, but quite frankly, as he correctly noted, this is a government agency. They are not in the business of trying to protect your economic investment.”
Where the project goes from here is unclear. The owners could go forward with the residential development or try a variation of the resort plan.
“What they have is a pretty good vested right,” West said. “Seventy-nine residential units on Vilano, that’s not so shabby. I don’t think we’re anywhere close to being done.”
COMMENTS
sponger2 09/21/16 - 04:26 am 61Only Bennett the snake approved...
Because she's the poster girl for development and has nothing to lose, as she is leaving. She and Steve sack o' s*^t should get married and spawn a litter of development bobble heads for the next generation of destruction. This buys us at least another year of relative peace, but the the land use map should NEVER have been rezoned from open rural. The PZA should be hung in the public square as far as I'm concerned.
Mikel01 09/21/16 - 06:22 am 30People's voice
Thanks to all those who showed up. This property would make a great nature preserve park. I'll bring the tar and feathers as well as the rail for the PZA.
martystaug 09/21/16 - 06:48 am 10Planning and Zoning Agency
According to the county website, these are the Planning and Zoning Agency members who are appointed by the commission.
Dick Williams, Jon Woodard, Archie Wainright, Dr. David Rice,
Jeffrey Martin, Mike Koppenhafer, Brad Nelson.
One wonders who they are, and why they continue to rubber stamp every request that passes through.
mach12.1e 09/21/16 - 08:33 am 30A victory at last, of sorts.
Looks like it takes a concerted effort to be heard around here, but it can be done. That is, at least until election day. As was pointed out so eloquently above, we need to rid ourselves of the PZA and have the county go on a strict diet of conforming to the land use map as it was, rather than the constant changes that even allow for the 79 houses that weren't allowed until the county government approved the change from open rural to whatever they are trying to call it now.
ANTHONYSER 09/21/16 - 08:40 am 00Marina
The marina docks will be used for all Golf and Jaguars home games
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