Longboat's Looming $54 Million Gift to the Gulf

http://www.lbkbeaches.com

Let me be perfectly clear. I am 100% committed to maintaining our beautiful beaches. I believe they are key to the value of our homes and attracting tourists.

For the past 10 years my problem has been how we maintain our beaches. I have never agreed with the town manager's unwavering approach to expensive dredging projects while rejecting examination of possible alternatives suggested by numerous coastal engineering and technology companies. My question has always been how do we know what is available if we never ask. In the past the town manager has responded to this question by saying we do receive professional advice from the coastal engineering consultant the town has retained for over a decade, and that the town's consulting firm continues to advocate sand replenishment on a periodic basis.

"In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 1427, known as the beach management bill, which contained an Inlet Management Initiative that strengthens DEP’s ability to manage sediment around the more than 60 navigational inlets located throughout the state. These inlets, which interrupt the natural flow of sand along beaches, account for more than eighty percent of Florida’s coastal erosion" - NOAA quote. Knowing this, for the past several years my question has been, why not farm the inlets on a regular basis and return the sand to the beaches from whence it came?

The town manager has asserted for the last decade that inlet management is not feasible on Longboat Key, and that dredging from more and more distant underwater sand deposits is our only viable solution. After the passage of HB 1427, the town manager finally initiated an inlet management study of Longboat Pass. I do not feel comfortable with the town manager's decision to hire the same coastal engineering company to do the inlet management study that the town uses for its sand replenishment programs. It seems reasonable and logical to seek new fresh ideas from several qualified sources.

The town manager also rejected a recently completed comprehensive Humiston & Moore study of Longboat Pass even though the H & M work had previously been funded and approved by the Florida Department of Natural Resources, the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) and the the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville.


Commissioner Brenner has recently expressed his own concerns regarding our present beach management program, where half the deposited sand washes into the Gulf in the first two years "by design", followed by incremental losses in following years, until our beaches reach a depleted state and we do it all over again.

The truth of the matter is that many communities use many different means of controlling beach erosion. Coastal engineering appears to be an inexact science beset with constantly changing conditions and events. Still the time may have arrived when we need to look outside the box at what other communities are doing that works, and to see if their solutions are applicable to our island.

Further I want to know why we need to be looking at a beach bond referendum this year. If Port Dolphin has not indicated if and when they will begin their project, are we still obligated to remove sand from the impacted borrow areas by a certain date or is that date predicated on the commencement of the actual Port Dolphin project?

Second, exactly how many cubic yards of sand will be used from the Port Dolphin borrow sites in the proposed 2011 beach project, given the darker color of the sand from the Port Dolphin borrow sites? Is the town reimbursed on a yard-by-yard basis, and if so, how much money are we actually talking about coming from Port Dolphin, if they do decide to build the pipeline? What does the town get if Port Dolphin does not commence work until after our beach project is complete? Is the Port Dolphin sand the best choice at the least cost if the Port Dolphin project fails to materialize?

If we do not really need to replenish the beaches in 2011, and the north end danger is alleviated by the current project to add some sand to the north end beaches, might this not be a good time to pause and take another look at how we manage our beaches and postpone the bond question to 2012 when it was originally scheduled?

I hope we ask for opinions from a number of experts and look to see what is working for other communities.

In case you are wondering about the $54 million figure in the headline, I have always disagreed with the town's way of defining public debt (i.e. bond cost). The town never uses the true debt cost, which is the bond amount plus the interest on the bond. In the latest $40 million beach management bond proposal, the actual levy against the properties of Longboat Key is approximately $54 million. That is the amount that will be added to your yearly real estate taxes for the next decade.



Be a Booster for Beautiful Longboat

This week's Observer listed a 2009 - 2010 September home sales decline of around 45% for condominiums and 65% for houses.

Perhaps a little less gloom and doom by commissioners Brenner and Brown might be advisable given the negative September sales trends on the island.

I do not see that negative public assessments of our island will contribute to real estate sales. 

In a previous blog, and article in the LBK News, I argued that our community needs immediate help in the area of real estate sales, as opposed to the cure being proposed by Messrs Brenner and Brown, who advocate a long-range build-up of tourist lodging to the point where  retail stores will flourish. Who knows how long that will take given our economy.
http://lbk-folk.blogspot.com/2010/09/longboat-needs-great-marketing-campaign.html

I have been on this island since 1979 either as a visitor or resident. I never saw retail flourish. Demographics have changed over the years and the business environment has morphed into one that fills the current demand for goods and services.

It is all well and good to discuss long-range development on Longboat. However, given the current and projected economic conditions, along with the demise of the baby-boomer 401Ks, it may be more effective to look at more immediate ways to attract home buyers to Longboat.

I suspect most residents are not concerned with the distant in the future profits that will be made by developers if they are allowed to build hi-rise hotels on the north end of Longboat.

Residents need help today not a decade from now.

Every time a read another article about Messrs. Brenner and Brown, telling us we are a decrepit aging declining community, I feel sad that the very people who should be our most outspoken promoters appear to be our most prominent detractors.

These two gentlemen may be the best planners to ever grace our community, but I believe they may not fully comprehend what it is about Longboat that makes us one of the premier residential and retirement communities in America. Perhaps it is their urban background that contributes to their future vision of Longboat as a built-up tourist based economy.

I believe we attract discriminating residents because we are not a tourist based community.

I grew up in Larchmont New York. Elisabeth and I visited friends there in August. As far as I can tell very little has changed in the past sixty years. All the homes are at least eighty to ninety years old. The commercial area is small, ragtag and typically suburban New York. Retail have not expanded appreciably over many decades yet Larchmont homes are outragously expensive for what they are.

Larchmont appears to be prospering and filled with the young families that Brenner and Brown think we should be attracting. Believe me when I tell you there is a lot of money in Larchmont.

There are few tourist establishment in the Larchmont, yet the community prospers.


Having worked with New York State schools for a decade, I can attest that Larchmont has some of the top ranked schools in America. Why would an educated professional family move their children to Longboat Key, when our local schools rank poorly? Improve our local schools and I believe the affluent families will come.

Elisabeth and I recently entertained friends from Evanston, Ill. Their visceral and enthusiastic response to Longboat and the village was one of awe and great pleasure, realizing they had arrived in paradise. We walked to the Mar Vista and dined under the Buttonwood trees beside the water. Paradise!

Our guests spent three days with us. As I listened to the many accolades they bestowed on our community, I had a difficult time reconciling their perceptions of Longboat with the dure and alarming assessments coming frequently from our two planner commissioners.

I have never met anyone who did not love our aesthetically beautiful serene island ambiance. From spending time with many of these people, I have come to understand that there are "different strokes for different folks" and that people who fall in love with Longboat do not want to be in the hi-rise world of Boca Raton.

I encourage our planner commissioners to become Longboat Key boosters instead of detractors.

We need a great marketing campaign now if we are going to enable residents to sell their homes rather than their heirs.

Representative Government on Longboat Key

Representative Government: a form of government in which the citizens delegate authority to elected representatives.


A large percentage of our residents do not in fact enjoy representative government, because they are  non-residents or foreign nationals. These people cannot vote. They have no say about taxes or town codes or vision plans.


We are told by our representative government that this is the price one pays for having a second home in paradise. Yet the disenfranchised group pays a large percentage of our taxes. They are forcibly a part of a silent majority without voice or political power. No one asks them how they feel. A few individuals write letters. One or two attend town commission meetings. But in large part this group of unrepresented taxpayer residents go unheard.


Now we have a few commissioners who say over and over that the great majority of residents have approved the previous vision plan. Of course we do not know how the unrepresented taxpayer residents feel about the previous vision plan, or the new improved vision plan, because no one will ask them how they feel.


No matter that very few residents were given an opportunity to express their views about the old vision plan. No one really asked any taxpayers if they wanted to spend 100 thousand dollars on a piece of paper that will never see the light of day.


Only a few chosen people are being included in the new vision plan process. The old vision plan process at least included a few hundred business and real estate people and a smattering of regular residents of which I was one. The makeup of the new vision plan committee includes representation from the chamber of commerce and seems to be oriented mostly towards the business community on Longboat. I feel any vision plan should focus mainly on the residents who after all pay over 95% of the taxes.


I suspect we will be informed that since the previous vision plan was overwhelmingly approved by the residents, which it was not, because no one ever saw the old vision plan, the new vision plan need not be approved by anyone save the chosen group. After all isn't one vision plan is just like another vision plan?


I am amazed at what is now being created out of whole cloth.


I am wondering where representative government enters the picture. A sizable part of the residents have no representation at all, and now the residents who are able to vote are also being left out of the vision plan process.


The highly paid expert, who was hired to moderate the old vision plan process, told the town that the plan was not valid without carrying out a legitimate survey of the community. His words went unheeded.


Commissioners are now saying that the community approved the old vision plan, and by extension they approve the new vision plan.


What do you think?


I have been an active advocate of community participation in local government. That cannot happen if the government is not willing to engage the community.


Our current set of commissioners seems to ascribe to some sort of  "Noblesse oblige".

I cannot imagine that any sort of unvalidated vision plan, that may severely affect the fortunes of our residents, would be legislated into power without asking the people how they feel.


I believe we need a through examination of any proposed vision plan by the community at large. To me to have four or five commissioners impose some sort of illegitimate vision plan on the community is the antithesis of the spirit of representative government.

Amendment 4 - Vote Yes

Amendment 4, called Hometown Democracy, empowers voters to control growth and abuses by developers within their own communities.


Amendment 4 is the result of too many developers being able to control local town governments in Florida by buying elections of local officials.


The state of Florida has some of the most lax development laws in America.


Why should Longboaters care about Amendment 4 on the November ballot?


To begin with we are currently paying the price for over-development in the Florida market as is reflected in  the selling price of our homes.


In a world of supply and demand, Florida is experiencing the consequences of unbridled development and too many houses on the market. Other parts of the country are not experiencing devastating property value declines; communities that have regulated growth for the benefit of their residents.


Amendment 4 simply says that the people of a community, not three of four commissioners who are in office because a developer spent a lot of money to elect them, should be able to decide whether a development, that requires changes in land use, should be allowed in their community.


Of course developers, builders, chambers of commerce and the real estate community are against Amendment 4. None of these people usually reside in the community they want to develop for profit.


Ask yourself if the above interested parties would object to Amendment 4 if no one made money building developments.


Amendment 4 is vital if we are to control tourism and tall structures on our island.


One need look no further than the tragedy that has destroyed Panama City Beach. A very few years ago PCB resembled our own low-density residential/tourism mix community. Then the developers were able to influence local elections, A group of pro-developer officials were elected. Now Panama City Beach is little more than seven miles of shoulder-to-shoulder 22 story condo-tels that are vacant and bankrupt. Buss-loads of college-age revelers are brought in on weekends to have a good time and help pay the bills.


If you do not believe that the same could happen here - think again - it can.


As I write this article several commissioners are hard at work rewriting our land use codes and Comprehensive Plan to make our community more inviting for developers.


Do you want to live in a community where tourism controls our economy?

Do you want to see buss-loads of young people using Longboat Key for their parties?


Do you want traffic grid-lock every time you leave your home?


If you would not want to buy a home in a tourist town then you may want to vote for Amendment 4 to protect the value of your property.


There are a few myths being promoted by the developers and real estate community.


Myth 1: Amendment 4 will require many expensive elections
Fact:    Votes are held at normally scheduled election time.


Myth 2: Amendment 4 will cause many changes to our Comprehensive Plan.
Fact:    Longboat seldom addresses lands use changes.


Myth 3: Voters will not be able to understand proposed land use changes on the ballot.
Fact:    Proposed changes must be clearly described in 75 words or fewer.

Myth 4: New residential developments bring in more tax revenues.
Fact:    It costs the counties $1.30 to pay for each $1.00 received from new development.

Remember that 80% of your taxes are collected by the county. Longboat taxpayers are subsidizing developers in Manatee and Sarasota counties which includes development within our community.

Link to Amendment 4 - Yes web site. http://floridahometowndemocracy.com/

Please be well informed when you vote. It's your wallet.



To Rent Or Not To Rent

Some Longboat commissioners want to re-examine the rental policies of our community, that were overwhelmingly supported by our residents in a referendum vote. These commissioners, in their zeal to increase tourism, want to relax the rental rules, to allow daily and weekly property rentals where only monthly rentals are currently allowed.

My question is, at what price to our community do we underwrite a few local merchants?

Renters: neighborhood contagion, or a lifeline to beleaguered homeowners?

edited from a Smart Money article

In growing numbers of American towns and subdivisions, that question has become anything but academic, as homeowners associations abruptly ban rentals. Blame it on the huge slump in the housing market. For owners who have to move or who own houses as investment properties, short-term rentals can bring in some cash and keep them from having to sell at a big loss.

But instead of greeting renters with hosannas, many towns and subdivisions are barring their doors, arguing that tenants usher in neglect, misbehavior and even violent crime. Almost 60 million Americans live in developments governed by homeowners associations, and by some estimates as many as 40 percent of those communities enforce restrictions that keep owners from becoming landlords.


Indeed, many associations are enacting even tighter anti-renter rules — even in the parts of the country hit hardest by falling prices. Often the backlash comes after the rowdy-tenant threat becomes a reality.


In Sacramento an active-adult community recently erupted into a geriatric war zone over rental rules after tenants got blamed for diapers in the pool and other transgressions. The city of North Las Vegas had so much trouble with crime and vandalism, much of it attributed to renters, that it forbade new home buyers from leasing out their homes within two years of purchase.


Other communities see the restrictions as a way to put a floor under falling prices: The mayor of Madison, WI, for example, began tightening that town's rules after the downturn started depressing prices.


The conflicts help explain one of the more bitter ironies of the real estate scene. Even though demand for rentals is at an all-time high, there are now 18 million vacant housing units in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. More than a third of those properties are being left vacant by their owners intentionally, a trend that’s being exacerbated by local renting rules. To be sure, some communities are easing restrictions in a bid to lure buyers. But other subdivisions are digging in their heels even as homeowners beg for relief.


To see how the conflict is playing out, Smart Money caught up with owners in communities from the bubble markets of California to the stable South, on both sides of the tenant divide.


Why Are Renters Seen as Undesirable?


The idea that renters are about as good for a neighborhood as an infestation of termites has been around for a long time, particularly in upscale communities. In May, in a ruling that upheld rental restrictions, the Indiana Supreme Court observed that it is “undisputed” that “an owner-occupant is both psychologically and financially invested in the property to a greater extent than the renter.”


Thus, the thinking goes, renters are less likely to maintain and improve their homes. But proof that this phenomenon affects property values isn’t overwhelming. A California study found that homes fetched lower prices in communities where more than 30 percent of properties were renter-occupied, but that study dates from 1987. Whether governed by perception or reality, anti-renter sentiment is pervasive: Even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refuse to underwrite mortgages in condo projects where a majority of units are rentals.


During the boom years, antipathy toward renters was heightened by the easy availability of credit — when any monkey could get an ARM, someone who couldn’t get approved for a mortgage seemed truly untrustworthy. This skepticism fueled a huge surge in restrictions, according to Joseph Cusimano, a Cleveland attorney who represents almost 500 condo and homeowners associations.


Some policies limited the number of homes that could be leased within a subdivision, while others banned rentals altogether. The rules don’t discriminate between hardened speculators and owners who have more benign reasons for renting.

The Upside of Having Renters Around

While short-term residents may have their downsides, so does a street full of vacancies. More than 7.5 million homeowners are underwater on their mortgage, meaning they owe more than their house is worth. There’s little to stop such strapped owners from mailing the keys back to the lender — “jingle mail,” it’s called — and letting the property sink into foreclosure.

Numerous studies demonstrate the ruinous effect foreclosures have on home values; one, by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Woodcock Institute, showed that a home’s value declines by about 1 percent for each foreclosure within an eighth of a mile.

New Barriers to Renting


The city of Madison, WI recently erected yet another set of barriers. Today anyone planning to rent out a home must pay a nonrefundable fee to the city, plus post costly surety bonds -— the latter process not unlike a prisoner posting bail. Although the ordinance specifically targets “absentee landlords,” in practice it punishes real estate investors of all stripes.

Leaving the Ship

The Key Club project is most likely capsized and perhaps even sinking. Perhaps Mr. Lesser finally tired of protracted legal costs and delays with no positive results. Perhaps a New York lawyer looked at what the town was attempting, by changing the town's Comprehensive Plan and land use ordinances to effectively spot-zone Mr. Welly's grand design, and advised Lesser that the Longboat Key Club was losing value with every passing year that the town commission tried to fit a square peg into a round hole.

This week Longboat Key residents learned that not only is the KC being sold, we also found out that the club manager is leaving. We may never know if he was let go because his grand design, for the KC expansion, became mired down in litigation for the past three years. I feel much of the blame belongs to the current commission, and their willingness to bend the rules for the KC proposal.

I hope the new owners of the Key Club work with local property owners at Islandside to create a renovation of the Key Club that also preserves the investments of hundreds of property owners within the planned unit development. If done quickly enough perhaps the IPOC people can withdraw their latest suit and save the town commission possible further embarrassment. 

At this point only the new KC owners have any sense of what is to follow at the Key Club. Perhaps they will enlist a golf course management firm, such as Troon from Arizona, to revitalize the golf course.  Someone needs to come up with a way to increase memberships and course play.