There were two things that surprised me. One - about the Dolphin Village project - that the developers had made some major changes in their plans as a result of voters input, and that due to voters complaints about not understanding the impact of more condos in that plan - the Council would be> holding an open discussion/presentation of the Village plan on the 20th at 7PM. I doubt if they will have much of a turn-out for that meeting – given it's five days before Christmas and everybody very busy. Since this project was approved in the Nov election - does that mean it doesn't require another vote as part of the overall plan that the City is trying to put on the March ballot?
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From: spbcd3@yahoo.com
Sent: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 5:15 AM
Subject: Re: Question
Good morning
First I must clear up a major misunderstanding. Although much of the information presented by others, including those very biased statements by the city and the mayor, the vote on the Division 43 issue, which was the last item on the November 7 ballot, was not about Dolphin Village. Dolphin Village tried to make the voters believe that it would create a large nice new Publix, among other things, but they very carefully avoided telling the public that the issue was really whether they could build a major condo project on that site. They did not need any vote or referendum defeat to be allowed to rebuild the Publix, or any other commercial redevelopment on that site. It was about being allowed to build 175 condo units there. And, nothing in the vote on that issue approved anything that they wanted to do beyond giving them the right to request the necessary zoning change to pursue their condo project. No part of their proposal is approved and nothing that they will propose will go to the voters for approval in the future. It is
also not in any way related to the discussions for Comprehensive Plan changes that are currently being conducted, and in fact, if the Comprehensive Plan changes were allowed to go forward, then the Division 43 zoning rules would no longer be relevant or allowed at the Dolphin Village site.
During the 12 December meeting I don't believe that I said anything about major changes to the Dolphin Village proposal, nor did I say that any discussions of their proposal would be brought about because of the condo portion of the plan. What I did say was that the proposed plan will be discussed by the Planning Board on 20 December at 7PM as a part of the first step to changing the zoning of the affected property from Commercial to Planned Development. I did indicate that they had made some changes to their proposal, but I don't recall if I gave any details on the changes. I have a copy of their original proposal and their current proposal, and although I have not completely reviewed the new proposal, and have not compared the two, I have been told that the only change between the two is that they REDUCED
the amount of commercial space in this new proposal because in the original proposal they exceeded the total allowed combined commercial and residential intensities. I find it interesting that after all of their advertising about the wonderful new shopping district they wanted to build there, the commercial was reduced now, but the condo portion is still 175 units. It is very clear that they told the public the goal was to build commercial, but the true goal was to be able to build condos, with the commercial redevelopment just the requirement that would get the city to allow the condo project.
On a final note, let me make it very clear that it is the Planning Board who will be reviewing the proposal and making their recommendations to the commission, and the topic is the change in zoning for that property from CG-1, Commercial, to PD, Planned Development. It does not approve their proposal, although it does provide for public comments on their proposal and it will be interesting to see the response by the developer to that public comment. The City Commission will not be discussing this project until sometime next year, and then it will, hopefully, undergo several public
hearings and discussions before the final version of the project is approved, or denied. I had recommended public participation and or viewing of the Planning Board meeting as a first glimpse of what the developer was proposing for that property at this time. Hopefully that will answer a lot of questions, (and perhaps create a lot more questions), about the project and the possible future of Dolphin Village. Again, the meeting is for the Planning Board on 20 December, 2006 at 7:00PM in the Commission Chambers and on cable Channel 15. Also please check the Channel 15 schedule information
for updates as sometimes these meetings get rescheduled for a later date or canceled until further notice. If any schedule changes need to be made, it should be posted on Channel 15.
Please let me know if this addressed all of the concerns and if you have any more questions.
Ed.
