The Fort Myers Beach LPA meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday, September 10th was canceled this week due to the lack of time for the town staff to be fully prepared to make a recommendation. Seagate’s Red Coconut proposal was expected to be on the agenda.
The LPA just met on Tuesday, September 2nd and both the LPA and town staff are now dealing with a slew of big development projects that are ready to be presented. The Estero Island Beach Club project was heard on the 2nd. Seagate was scheduled for the 10th and standing in line are The Neptune and The Arches at Moss Marina. Also, lingering out there is London Bay’s Outrigger project and The Salty Crab that will need to be heard. All of these bigger projects will be pitched in addition to the regular LPA business which could include a 2 foot setback on a house, where to place an air conditioner and whether or not to eliminate parking for a business rebuilding.
LPA members have been discussing with town staff whether or not they have enough time to review all of these projects and have special meetings held. Not to mention LPA members having to review an agenda packet that could run 400 pages 3 days before a meeting. In a typical year, the LPA holds one meeting a month. The developers have been pushing LPA members and staff to hold additional meetings so they could be heard before the November election. Some might fear that if Greg Scasny wins a Town Council seat in November it could be a lot harder to get their projects approved.
The next regularly scheduled LPA meeting is October 8th.
After being alerted to the town’s decision to cancel, Seagate CEO Matt Price said, “We are in support of the town manager’s decision to cancel the meeting and are working with staff to make sure we have all the information in the hands of the LPA in time to review for this important meeting. We are also working with town manager on the possibility of scheduling a meeting sooner than the next scheduled meeting, but that is ultimately the town manager’s call. We look forward to making our case to the public and LPA as soon as possible.”
The Seagate proposal includes 2 buildings that are home to a total of 137 condo units, 4 single family homes, 3 parks, a restaurant open to the public, a 240 foot view corridor on the beach side of the property, a private pedestrian walkover and a private beach club.
Seagate will be asking for more height (and other deviations) than what’s allowable on that property. The north condo building is 15 floors over 2 floors of parking with 69 condo units. The south condo building is also 15 floors over 2 floors of parking with 68 units. The Seagate team believes what they are returning to the town in public benefit should help them get the height they are asking for. The question for the residents may come down to do they want taller buildings with more of a view corridor or short spread out buildings with no view corridor at all.
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For those advocating a return to the county, I dont believe that the recent BOC has ever turned down a project. Just look at the project on San Carlos Island. It was stopped by a judge and then overruled by Desantis. Now they are going back to the county for more, over the objections of most residents.
They should not be any larger than the units there prior to Ian. Keep it to 3 maybe 4 floors over parking and the Town residents would likely be much happier. Hear the residents !
What they want and what they will get are 2 different things.
Get realistic and stop trying to cram this down our throats.
As mentioned in the density article,
It all comes down to the FMB voters! There is no rule that says you have to vote for 3 people on the council in November. It’s pretty simple. If you want a smaller town feel with less height, vote for Greg Scasny ONLY! Leave the other two options blank.
If you want bigger buildings etc, then vote for the other 3.
FMB’s destiny will be decided….
If we are not going to follow the desire of the residents why are we a town. Lee County forced the beach residents into incorporation by approving Diamondhead. If the council ignores the wish of the residents we should return to county rule. Why pay taxes to an authority that disregards your wishes
I totally agree with the above comment.
I agree as well. They do what they want and ignore the wishes of the tax payers. Think back to when they kept pushing for “work force housing” when the tax payers clearly said over and over “NO WORK FORCE HOUSING”. I’m sure that is still their agenda but they just stopped talking about it because they knew the tax payers didn’t want it.
LOL I don’t think there are any developers talking about workforce housing on FMB. The land and construction costs are simply too expensive.
In a quick back of the envelope calculation, it seems that if the units were just over 2,000 sq feet instead of over 3,000 sq feet they would only need 10 floors over parking. This might bring it down to no taller than Diamond Head. Just a thought.
Diamondhead was too tall just as Ed insinuated.