"Process has been corrupted" -- Capt. Lee Geanuleas, U.S.N. (Ret.) on KANTI PATEL MARRIOTT RENAISSANCE FIASCO THREATENING OUR HISTORIC DISTRICT

As LBJ said to Congress after Selma, "We SHALL overcome!" Thanks to Capt. Lee Geanuleas, U.S.N. (Ret.) for exposing the City staff's complicity in the developer's phony numbers. Have City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E., City Attorney ISABELLE CHRISTINE LOPEZ and Assistant City Attorney DENISE MAY put their professional reputations and licenses at risk? Enough misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance from hick hacks who sell their souls to developers, while destroying our history and our environment and small town way of life.



Posted June 13, 2017 12:01 am
By SHELDON GARDNER sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
San Marco Hotel gets nod, and opposition, at first reading
St. Augustine Record

St. Augustine commissioners moved ahead Monday night a request to rezone land to add to the San Marco Hotel Planned Unit Development, setting the stage for a bigger debate when the ordinance reaches public hearing.

The ordinance is to rezone land on West Castillo Drive from HP-5 to Planned Unit Development and incorporate that into the PUD to create surface parking, instead of building an underground parking garage as had been approved.

The commission voted 3-1 on Monday night in favor of moving the ordinance forward, with Mayor Nancy Shaver dissenting.

“This proposed parking is not a must-have for economic viability for this city, but preserving the livability of Historic Preservation-5 is,” Shaver said.

The ordinance is expected to come back for a public hearing and final reading on June 26. Commissioner Leanna Freeman was absent Monday.

The PUD change, sought by owner Kanti Patel, went through multiple advisory board meetings and was revised and ultimately recommended for denial by the city’s Planning and Zoning Board. But the City Commission recently upheld an appeal of that decision, which meant the rezoning request had to come back fresh in an ordinance to the City Commission.

The hotel is expected to have 89 rooms and 144 parking spaces with the current plan instead of the 114 required in the PUD.

Several people spoke at the meeting, asking for the commission to send the application back for a fresh start. Some said that bad data had influenced the PUD discussion and its parking requirements, and that occupancy rates for the banquet room and restaurant were off. Some also said that the reason for the rezoning is because Patel found that the cost to build an underground parking garage was going to be millions more than anticipated.

“The process has been corrupted,” St. Augustine resident Lee Geanuleas said. “It’s been corrupted by bad data and bad information.”

Patel’s attorney, James Whitehouse, has said the request for the rezoning came after the owner realized developing the property wasn’t feasible based on engineering concerns.

Shaver echoed some of concerns of the public.

“I do not see the role of the mayor and the commission to either second guess our appointed boards or to make sure exceptions are granted to our Comprehensive Plan because a hotel developer underestimated the cost to build according to his approved plans,” Shaver said.

She also said the parking required won’t be enough for the hotel and its venue spaces, and that parking is likely to spill over into neighborhoods.

Commissioner Roxanne Horvath said, while she believed parking is shy of what it should be, that she doesn’t believe hotel patrons will park in the neighborhoods.

In other business

City commissioners plan to talk about whether to embark on a City Charter review. Commissioners started the discussion Monday but decided to discuss the issue more when Freeman is present.

Shaver, who raised the issue, said she’d gotten requests from the public to review the charter.

When asked by other commissioners what the requests were about, Shaver said the requests included the city’s form of government and term limits.

City officials plan to bring back more information on what the process would look like.