Another victory. Thanks to PZB, City staff, City Arborist Chuck Lippi, Matanzas Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon, architect and former PZB member Steven Schuyler, Diane Mills and other neighbors.
We defeated 1723 Comares, LLC.
On September 5, 2017, St. Augustine Planning and Zoning Board members unanimously DENIED speculator BRYAN GREINER and COQUINA LAW GROUP's badly-flawed, incomplete, illegal plans to plop 30 town homes with 75% impermeable surfaces on land bordering Salt Run on Comares Avenue, threatening water quality and oyster beds. This is "one of the last healthy rivers" in the entire State of Florida, Mr. Armingeon testified, which would be imperiled by runoff.
Former PZB member Steven Schulyer testified to multiple violations of City Code on setbacks.
By e-mail that I shared, our City arborist, Chuck Lippi said that the trees on site did not appear to be dead, and that he would like to have permission to go one site to examine them closely. The trees are alive testified neighbor Cathy Wassenhauer, and have "come back" since Hurricane Matthew.
I pointed out that there was no percolation test in the record, a sine qua non if a drainage pond is to be built.
Maladroit mouthpiece JEREMIAH MULLIGAN forced nine residents to wait for four (4) hours before imperiously announcing that he was seeking a continuance for two of four items, but said he wanted a vote for a dock, which made no sense whatever, as the four requests were linked. PZB members pierced the porcine pretenses of the flipper and his counsel.
Mendacious mealymouthed JEREMIAH MULLIGAN would talk a starving dog off a meat wagon. His inconsiderate failure to let citizens know he was seeking a continuance -- which he and the developer planned to do since August 12th -- kept me from attending the St. Johns County Commission budget hearing, where four other activists spoke out in favor of police body cameras (opposed by Sheriff DAVID SHOAR and his brother-in-law, "Commander" CHARLES MULLIGAN and his UnderSheriff, MATTHEW CLINE (graduate of a for-profit law school)..
Yes.
St. Johns Law Group (politically-plugged-in son of the former top general in the Florida National Guard, Douglas Nelson Burnett's law firm) actually DUMPED 1723 COMARES, LLC. and its dodgy developer -- notorious impecunious St. Augustine speculator BRYAN GREINER (pictured below with Rudolph Giuliani), whose Comares Avenue project was to be a hotel, then condos and now town homes, with boat slips, a pool and other amenities.
When Douglas Nelson Burnett dumps a developer, you know it's noisome and stinky.
Enter COQUINA LAW GROUP, the brand new law firm of St. Augustine Beach City Attorney (and former St. Augustine City Attorney) JAMES PATRICK WILSON: WILSON's partner, JEREMIAH MULLIGAN picked up the client.
This stinks on ice. The redolent representation by the SAB City Attorney's law firm of a particularly dodgy developer -- dodgy even by St. Augustine community standards -- means WILSON lied to St. Augustine Beach when he was hired that his firm did not represent developers. It now does. WILSON also promised me -- and I recommended him -- that he would not represent developers. He now does -- a particularly stinky one.
Thus, JIM WILSON has now followed in the path of corruption trod by former St. Augustine Beach City Attorneys GEOFFREY DOBSON and DOUGLAS NELSON BURNETT, whose corrupt business plan was to represent governments as a loss leader, then advertise their influence with governments to obtain lucrative business representing developers.
If he still has integrity, JIM WILSON needs to fire 1723 Comares LLC as a client or else resign as St. Augustine Beach City Attorney. The notion of a government lawyer also representing developers in the same county sends the message that the government lawyer is for sale. That's corruption.
What do you reckon?
After their unanimous rejection of the incomplete application, PZB members discussed that it was a precedent. They now agree with me: incomplete applications must be rejected, rather than continuously continued, forcing neighbors to keep taking time off from work and coming to meetings, only to be kicked in the teeth by speculators -- disrespectful dingbat "developers" who can't find financing, lack business skills, don't have plans, keep changing their projects' scope, don't have ethics and can't answer questions.
Cathy Brown warned of speculators cruising St. Augustine as they did in Los Angeles in the 1980s when she was a Realtor there. "No more last minute drops" of application information, Brown said.
The late ROGERS TOWERS partner GEORGE MORRIS McCLURE would be horrified to see PZB enforcing the law, instead of favoring corrupters.
And St. Augustine Record developer beat reporter, developer fanboy STUART KORFHAGE, who wrote goofy PR articles about the successive projects GREINER proposed for this watery site, was not there, the Record was not there, and there was no article about it in the Record this morning.
Yes, "I'm shocked, shocked" to learn that the Record once again is in bed with a developer, this time ignoring a key victory by environmentalists and activists against a lousy project the Record championed.
Earlier, during discussion of PZB member Carl Blow's application for a small retirement home for him and his wife, Mr. Blow used the word "speculator" to describe a home purchaser who bought a nearby home. There it is. For years, when I used the word "speculator," I was stigmatized, both at PZB and at the City Commission, particularly by then-Mayor JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, Jr., the other-directed, slavish servant of the speculator class, who was seen touring the DOW Museum of Historic Homes with speculator DAVID BARTON CORNEAL before CORNEAL bought it from the Daytona Museum of Arts and Sciences.
Speculators long held sway in St. Augustine and St. Johns County. Any foreign-funded "developer" with the ability to hire GEORGE McCURE got their way. Let me count the days. The gut-wrenching clearcutting and ugliness threatens to turn St. Johns County into Broward County.
But the days of boot-licking board members and somnolent, supine, submissive City Commissioners may be ending. A PZB member actually used the word "speculator." And PZB rejected an incomplete application from a dodgy developer, instead of kicking the can down the road with a continuance.
Viva!
Speculator BRYAN GREINER with RUDOLPH GIULIANI
JEREMIAH MULLIGAN
JAMES PATRICK WILSON
STUART KORFHAGE
Now for some Fake News: A day late, the failed St. Augustine Record (under new ownership come October 2nd) quotes none of the public hearing testimony. No Record reporter attended the hearing and either ignored or did not watch the tape. Here's Faustian Fanboy STUART KORFHAGE's shallow 561 word story. based on talking to the developer's maladroit mouthpiece, JEREMIAH MULLIGAN:
Posted September 6, 2017 06:24 pm
By STUART KORFHAGE stuart.korfhage@staugustine.com
Online headline: Townhouse project on Comares Ave. reduced to 30 units, continued by Planning and Zoning Board
Print headline: Comares project heading to final draft -- Changes include reduced number of townhouses to 30
A townhouse project on Comares Avenue is truly inching toward a final proposal despite another continuance before the St. Augustine Planning and Zoning Board, an attorney for the project said.
Jeremiah Mulligan, representing the development called Cortez on the Water, said multiple changes have been made after meeting with neighbors.
He said a July 25 meeting resulted in several alterations, and subsequent meetings with city building staff also prompted some changes. Therefore, Mulligan said there wasn’t time to get a final copy of the proposal to the PZB.
Members of the board agreed to a third continuance of the item at Tuesday’s meeting.
When the board does look at the detailed final plans of the development, Mulligan said he thinks it will be more appealing than previous ideas.
“One of the things the city was looking for was to make sure we were protecting the tree canopy on the south side of the property, and so we generally shifted the pond and a lot of the units to the north to kind of protect that tree canopy,” Mulligan told The Record on Wednesday. “And we also broke up the units to kind of allow the vista to be better enjoyed and that it wasn’t a big block building.”
Among the issues brought out at some point in the ongoing pre-approval process are the impact to the trees that Mulligan mentioned, block-type developments obscuring views and an access road that would have affected Inlet Place to the south.
The new design, which was barely discussed at the Tuesday PZB meeting, should ease those concerns, Mulligan said. He added that the road issue appears to be mitigated by having a turnaround at the end of a private road in order to make it accessible to emergency vehicles and not impact neighbors at Inlet Place.
“The neighbor directly to the north is pleased,” Mulligan said. “It seems like the neighbors in Inlet Place are still wondering what the final product will be, but their strenuous objections have seemed to wane a little bit.
“The other concerns from folks in the community we’ll continue to take seriously and try to address that’s good for everybody.”
The developers of the property that fronts Salt Run have not been afraid to change the plans, sometimes quite drastically. The property has actually been approved for a 39-unit condominium development, but that was abandoned. It was also designed as a hotel at one point.
Bryan Greiner, chief investment officer for the Augustine Development Group that is doing the project, said in July that the move from the hotel idea was in direct response to concerns by neighbors, who preferred a quality residential development instead.
Just a few months ago, the plan was to build a 34-townhouse project. But the plan Mulligan and other representatives will bring forward at the next PZB meeting is expected to be just 30 townhomes and 30 boat slips.
“I think when they understand that there’s already a permitted 39-unit condominium complex that what we’re proposing now is better a design and something that will have a better streetscape and look better in the community,” Mulligan said. “We’re right on the edge of having that finished product, and hopefully we’ll get in here in the very near future and people can have a look and (we will) continue to receive constructive criticism and positive feedback.”
Comments
1. Watch the tape. The proposal was denied -- not continued -- because the application was incomplete and the developer has no clear idea as to when a revised application might be filed. After the vote, PZB members discussed this "new precedent" -- incomplete applications will be denied, not continued.
2. The sole source for this article is the project's attorney. The reporter did not attend the hearing, He did not quote any of the evidence. Why? Unrebutted testimony by Matanzas Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon established that 75% impermeable surface threatens contamination of our oyster beds and water quality in Salt Run and Matanzas River, one of Florida's last healthy rivers. City Arborist, Chuck Lippi, examined the site and stated in an e-mail that he saw no dead trees, rebutting prior applicant assertions. Architect and former PZB member Steven Schuyler testified that the proposed development would violate setback requirements.
3. The developer admits it knew August 12 that it would seek a continuance, but rather than so state brefore the hearing, it wasted 5.5 hours of time of nine witnesses, showing disrespect for us and for six PZB members, and City staff. Its attorney seemed unfamiliar with basic planning and zoning law and procedures. Watch tape.
4. The project's attorney is from Coquina Law Group, owned by St. Augustine Beach City Attorney James Patrick Wilson, who upon being hired (at my reommendation) stated in 2016 that he does not represent developers. He does now, and this developer is dodgy, even by St. Johns County standards.
5. We need investigative reporting on proposed development in wetlands and coastal areas. Enough unbalanced, one-sided, pro-developer stories.
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