Several Commissioners are eager to drastically alter both the vision plan and the town's comprehensive plan in order to save retail on Longboat Key, they say. The town attorney believes the vision plan and the comprehensive plan are virtually one in the same.
The commissioners are paying special attention to Whitney Plaza at the north end, which is now even more closed than it has been for past several years. More on WP later in the blog.
Anyone with a modicum of sense can reason that there is a causal relationship between population and the number of retail stores that exist in any locality or neighborhood.
National and regional demographics highlight the decrease in the length of time snowbirds spend in Florida and the fewer number of trips people make to neighborhood stores. The internet is an ever increasing percentage of retail sales world-wide. Both the retail shopping habits and the vacationing habits of Americans are changing.
The bottom line is that there are progressively fewer year-round residents on Longboat and the snowbirds are staying progressively fewer days.
If our community sacrifices exclusivity for tourism we will no longer attract the high-end of the residential market. Studies have shown that residents do not like to mingle with tourists.
Fulfilling the resource requirements of a growing population ultimately requires some form of land-use change--to develop the infrastructure necessary to support increasing human numbers.
Conversely fewer people require fewer retail stores and less commercially zoned land.
A resident spoke to the commission earlier this year about the over abundance of commercially zoned land on Longboat and expressed his belief that places such as Whitney Plaza would be better used for residential homes in keeping with the north end ambiance.
Perhaps the commissioners might work towards affordable family housing at Whitney Plaza for some of our employees. One year-round family of 4 is equal to 12 snowbirds in terms of purchasing power on the island.
Longboat Key was originally platted for a population of 75,000 residents, along with open space and land set aside for commercial and retail development to serve that community. At a later date the island was re-platted for a maximum population of 25,000 residents, or 1/3rd the original population.
The community planners did not adjust the land set aside for commercial use, which created a plethora of commercially zoned land, that could never be profitably utilized for retail business given the drastic population down-sizing that occurred.
Unfortunately three retail centers had already sprung up on the island and an insidious struggle ensued between the three shopping centers with, I believe, an inevitable outcome.
When there is three times more commercially zoned land than is required to adequately serve a community, two things occur - there is not enough business to support all the stores, and merchants migrate to the most profitable locations. In our case the Center Shops appears to be the winner.
Retail has virtually disappeared from Avenue of the Flowers and Whitney Plaza. Publix may build new retail space when and if they redesign their commercial real estate holdings. However, the inevitable functional ratio between population and needed retail business will remain, there will be two remaining shopping centers and a new struggle will begin.
At the end of the day only so many retail stores are required to effectively service a given number of people.
Tourism: the commissioners, who are eager to change our land use codes and comprehensive plan, assure us that greatly increased tourism is all that is needed to bring back the golden era of business on Longboat.
The truth is there was never was a golden age for retailers. I was here, and it was always a seasonal struggle. Longboat morphed into a highly desirable seasonal residential community.
Real estate prices skyrocketed along with land values and taxes. Florida has a "best use" tax system that penalizes commercial property when condominiums are worth far more. Taxes collided with declining seasonal business and many smaller tourist facilities converted into still more seasonal residences. The death spiral continues whether we like it of not.
Home owners did very well for three decades as their property values and taxes increased year after year. The activist commissioners site the post 2008 decline in real estate values as some sort of continuation of Longboat as a declining community, desperately in need of tourism. If that is the case then all of America is in need of tourism. Their arguments are ridiculous.
The types of retail stores that prosper in a tourism community are seldom the same as those that flourish in a residential community. Tourists do not need hardware stores for dry cleaners or doctors and dentists. Tourists want tee-shirt shops and jet-ski rentals.
Location, location, location: if our activist commissioners get their way we will have as many tourist facilities as it takes to make Whitney Plaza and the Center Shops and the ghost town called Avenue of the Flowers all profitable. How long will it take to build all this stuff. Who will be the first brave developers to risk money in a seasonal residential community? What will be the critical mass of tourism that will be needed to attract tourists to Longboat as opposed to Siesta Key or Boca Raton?
Finally, given the "best use" real estate tax system used in Florida, how many stories tall will a tourist facility have to be to be profitable? If our activist commissioners have their way we may need to be prepared for very tall hotels and greatly increased density at the north end.
I believe what we really need is a whole lot more community image building on a national scale and a lot fewer ill-conceived schemes to profit a few developers.
http://lbk-folk.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment