CLEARWATER — Energized residents
along Edgewater Drive will ask an administrative law
judge to decide whether a tall condominium can be
built in their neighborhood.
Kate Belniak, president of the Edgewater Drive
Neighborhood Association, filed an appeal July 8,
just two weeks after the Clearwater Community
Development Board voted 5-2 to allow Valor Capital
chief executive Moises Agami to build a seven-story
condo at the corner of Edgewater Drive and Sunset
Point Road.
The Edgewater neighborhood’s appeal — which seeks a
reversal of the CDB’s decision to approve the
condominium — claims that Valor Capital’s project
fails to meet several non-negotiable requirements
baked into Clearwater Community Development Code
Section 3-914.
That code section states that new development
projects in Clearwater must:
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Be in harmony with the scale, bulk, coverage, density, and character of the properties in which it is located
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Not significantly impair the value of adjacent land and buildings
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Minimize traffic congestion
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Be consistent with the community character of the immediate vicinity
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Not adversely affect visual, acoustic and olfactory senses on adjacent properties.
Neither the
CDB, nor city planning staff, satisfactorily considered the limitations
during the seven-hour hearing, Belniak said.
“They didn’t show that they were conforming with those elements,” she said.
“The staff just made the statement, ‘Oh, they are compliant with Tourist
Zoning.’ But adjacent buildings to the condominium are not tourist, they are
single-family homes.”
Former Clearwater City Councilman Bill Jonson, who represented the
Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition at the hearing, knows the planning
approval process intimately. He has been on both sides of development issues
since the 1980s and believes the city erred in its decision.
The rule that projects must be in “harmony with the scale, bulk … and
character of the neighborhoods” and other development constraints has been
upheld by the Clearwater City Council, Jonson told the Beacon. He points to
the April 21, 2005, council vote to ensure that CDB development applications
“shall meet each and every one of the … criteria.”
He also believes the CDB failed to properly weigh the code constraints
against what he calls “inappropriate development.”
“There were several members of the public that brought up the (Section
3-914) elements at the podium, but for some reason, the majority of the
board chose to not address them,” Jonson said.
The appeal will be heard by an administrative law judge appointed by the
Florida Division of Administrative Hearings. A date for the hearing has not
yet been set.
Edgewater residents and members of various other neighborhood associations
packed the City Council chambers while others waited in the hallways to give
sworn testimony at the June 25 quasi-judicial hearing. Hour after hour,
residents and nearby neighbors went to the podium to argue that the
project’s size ruined the quiet character of the well-established
neighborhood.
Neighbors also urged the board to reject the project because the 80-unit
building will block the views of St. Joseph’s Bay that the neighborhood has
enjoyed for generations.
Agami’s lawyer, Brian Aungst Jr., and experts hired by the developer argued
that the project was already allowed in the neighborhood, which has a zoning
designation of “Tourist.” To build the 92-foot-tall building, however, Valor
Capital needed what is known as Level 2 approval from the CDB.
The appeal also accuses the CDB of improperly limiting the “admittance of
photographs, illustrative evidence, drawings, documents and other evidence”
during the hearing.
Belniak, who got up off the mat after losing before the CDB, said she will
continue the battle.
“We’re very much an old Florida neighborhood, that’s why people enjoy living
in our neighborhood,” Belniak told the Beacon. “Other tall buildings will
ruin the community feel.”
City Clerk Rosemarie Call said the appeal hearing has not been scheduled. It
will be preceded by a legal notice announcing the date and location of the
public hearing.