The Mythos of the Vision Plan



Mythos - a pattern of beliefs expressing the characteristic or prevalent attitudes in a group.

I find it interesting that my reading of the now "adopted" vision plan differs so greatly from the interpretation of the vision plan being expressed by a couple of the town commissioners.

1. Background - the opening paragraph of the new vision plan states that the entire vision plan is crafted against the background of a momentary economic cycle. I feel that a vision plan should be rooted in prevailing community values and not on ephemeral economic conditions. Whereas the commissioners justified their actions based on business and money, those are hardly the values one looks for when looking for a new home or new schools or community social amenities. The entire vision plan is all about business and commercial profits. Only here and there is any mention made of residents or neighborhoods or town amenities.

2. Vision - the second paragraph also emphasizes commerce as stated "The core values are to create and reinforce a welcoming community and government atmosphere with a common sense approach to managing the mix of resident, visitor, and commercial uses of Longboat Key". Note that two of the three core values are tourism and business.

3. HOW WE GET THERE - in this section of the vision plan we again see an emphasis on restoring tourism and commerce, creatively reinvigorating underutilized commercial areas and supporting restaurants. In 1983 I participated in a sort of vision plan effort in Lake Tahoe. In Tahoe it was all about the people, schools and quality of life. I do not believe any mention was made about supporting eateries. Perhaps the greatest deterrent to families buying homes on Longboat is a lack of good schools. Perhaps we might do better as a community working at facilitating quality education in the two counties rather than what is on the menu.

4. CHALLENGES - here again 6 of the 8 paragraphs deal specifically with the deteriorated condition of businesses and tourist facilities on the island. As far as I can tell if a motel or shop looks dilapidated there is no one to blame other than the owner. Do the current commissioners really expect the taxpayers, most of whom cannot even vote, to devote town resources to prop-up failing businesses that are no longer in demand by island residents? I sincerely hope not.

5. "What is the potential future of Longboat Key if nothing is done? Longboat Key will be a much less enjoyable and convenient place to live, if all basic necessities, from gasoline to groceries to medical needs to entertainment, will only be found off the Island. Visitors will still be amazed at the beauty of the island, but may also come to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing to do here beyond the beaches and possibly the resort. They will opt to purchase homes where they can have both - beauty and the conveniences that Longboat Key should offer."

I find this passage in the vision plan to completely miss the obvious - there really is nothing to do on this island. Except for a ridiculously high priced golf course and a really good community tennis center, what else is there to do for the greater part of the population? Surely the commissioners do not believe that going to an over-priced gas station constitutes something to do. As for aspiring to a robust medical system in our seasonal tiny community, I suggest the commissioners attempt to find an analogous community model somewhere else, before including it in a vision plan. We do need things to do and they are nowhere to be found in the vision plan. We need an adequate community center to the focal point of community activities that appeal to all our residents. We need social amenities and activities scattered throughout the community. We need places for residents and visitors to meet one another and provide entertaining healthy activities.

6. Points of Community Consensus - "The strength of a vision plan is directly proportional to the level of community consensus in support of it. The following points enjoyed a high level of consensus and were valued input in the writing of the plan:"

I do not know of any evidence that here is "a high level of consensus" concerning the vision plan. I was one of the 300 panelists on the original vision plan. My table of 8 was comprised of 100% business people and only two of us were residents. Observers of the process have confided in me that they believed the great majority of the panel members were business people. There is nothing wrong with the business community being the major component of the vision plan so long as that is make that clear. The town hired a $100,000.00 expert named Marlowe to manage the original vision plan effort. Mr. Marlowe advised the town that the then vision plan would not be legitimate without a comprehensive community survey to validate the vision plan. Instead of that we are now given a hand-picked committee and told that that constitutes the new consensus for the new vision plan. I don't believe the vision plan has been validated by the community so it remains illegitimate.

I suggest that the commissioners might better serve the community by finding a way to sell houses since that is our most pressing problem at the moment. What good is a vision plan, drafted by a hand-picked committee, aspiring to resurrect a business and tourist presence that may never have made economic sense, when all we see is For Sale signs everywhere. That, and not what some restaurant is serving for supper, is making the greatest impact on the vitality of Longboat Key.

What's Wrong with Tourists?

Should we label tourists as second-class economic citizens on Longboat Key?

What do tourists bring to our community?

Recent studies have demonstrated that residents and tourists do not mix well. In communities where commercial tourism has expanded, residents most often relinquish territory to the tourists. On Longboat the tourist influx during February and March means crowded roads and restaurants. Residents know better and do not plan trips off-island on weekends when the beaches are filling up or tourists are heading home. We prepare ourselves for long waits at local eateries during season while mumbling about the need for tourism to keep local businesses alive. We modify our life style because of the tourists yet we are the ones who pay all the taxes. Does that make sense?

Do tourists keep our businesses alive? Probably not the same businesses needed by residents such as medical, lawn, municipal, home repair or domestic services. While residents have little need for tee-shirt shops, shell stores or jet-ski rentals. There seems to be very little that tourists and residents have in common except being on the same road at the same time two months a year. 


The residential community realizes almost no financial benefit from commercial tourism except for a small portion of collected sales taxes and real estate taxes which represent a small fraction of the total tax burden.

A few property owners rent their houses, mostly on a monthly basis, with mixed reactions form neighboring homes. The chamber of commerce along with some current commissioner/planners now advocate relaxing the monthly rental restrictions and allowing weekly rentals to encourage more tourists to come to Longboat by offering reduced cost accommodations. We all know that weekly rentals quickly deteriorate into weekend rentals. There are no controls as to how many people can occupy a house. A property owner near me rents to different people for weekends on a weekly basis even though it is illegal. Sometimes there are eight or more people occupying the house including boisterous young children. Our town continues to demonstrate that it is not prepared to effectively regulate residential rentals, nor should it, for the town is not be in the vacational rental business. The weekend rentals continue island-wide, though the economic downturn appears to have reduced rental traffic.

I do not believe that the great majority of our island residents even want monthly rentals much less weekly/weekend rentals. Yet the current pro-business commission appears to be on the verge of approving a vision plan that encourages weekly/weekend rentals. Of course, our chamber of commerce also seeks increased tourism and relaxation of the current thirty day rental restrictions.

If you own a home in a neighborhood where rentals are allowed, and you do not want your neighborhood to be turned into a short-term rental community, then I suggest that you log onto http://www.longboatkey.org/ go to the commissioner's page and email them how you feel about weekly rentals on Longboat Key.

Lastly I want to bust the myth that young Yuppie tourists will become future home buyers on Longboat Key, and that is why we should want hoards of them to be visited upon our beautiful serene residential community. By the time these people are old enough to want to retire to our island, I will most likely be beyond caring and my heirs will also be too old to care.

I believe we should be marketing our island to the retiring baby boomers, not weekly tourists. As soon as the economy recovers we will be looking at a large population of retirees. The more fortunate of those retirees will want just what we wanted when we bought our homes on Longboat Key. Who wants to wait twenty years for the Yuppies to grow up and retire, when there are so many perspective home buyers much closer at hand?

We do not need more tourists. We need discriminating home buyers right now. The best way to attract these people is through sophisticated marketing and advertising.

We do need to spruce up our act, put on a big smile, invent all sorts of things to do as a community and tell the world that we are a wonderful place to live. Did I hear tourist in any of this?

"What our commissioners fail to understand is that the community, not the developers, should define community identity. That is the purpose of the zoning code. Variances should be the exception and not the rule." ... SH 




Is There Too Much Retail Real Estate?

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/