Residents appeal condo approval
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA
Citizen Staff
KEY WEST— Two downtown
residents have challenged a city board's approval of a Key West Bight
condominium project that has pitted neighbors against developers.
Residents and a
development group called the Caroline Street Partners have battled for
months over a project called Watermark, made up of 26 luxury
condominiums that critics say will change the skyline of historic
downtown.
The Historical
Architectural Review Commission voted 3-2 last month to approve the
Watermark condominiums, which people can buy and rent out to tourists on
a short-term basis. Plans for the Watermark call for a concierge, day
spa and other upscale hotel amenities.
Bight residents Bill
Barry and Gary Lichtenstein have filed separate appeals with the city.
The appeals claim that the project is too massive in scale for the
surrounding neighborhood of old, wooden frame houses, and the floor area
ratio and height exceed HARC guidelines.
The appeals will go
before city magistrate Jefferson Overby in a special hearing. The
project, to be built on the site of Jabour's Trailer Court near
Elizabeth and Caroline streets, is slated to go before the city Planning
Board on Thursday. Some are requesting the board postpone a decision
until the appeals are ruled on, Old Town resident Shirley Freeman said.
A group of residents met
with the developers Thursday to work out a compromise. Residents asked
for a redesign and offered suggestions to make the project look more
like the Marquesa restaurant and inn, Sunset Key and Little Palm Island
resorts, Freeman said. The developers declined to redesign.
Neighbors and developers
have debated the size and height of the project for months. At several
public meetings, residents showed up with a model of the project to show
that the project is out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood. The
developers have reduced the number of units, most recently from 33 to 26
units, but have increased the size of the units. The city initially
approved 101 units on the site, but the state Department of Community
Affairs, which regulates growth in Monroe County, would not approve more
than 80.
"They have gone from 80
one-bedroom units to like 30 spacious three-bed units," Freeman said.
"It isn't any smaller."
The project is 21/2
stories over parking, but residents say the half-story is larger than
half the size of the floor below it, which violates land-use
regulations. The two sides have battled about the pitch of the roof.
Residents say the developers chose a roof that would allow them to get
around height requirements. The developers are proposing a mansard roof,
a shingled roof that covers the top story.
Mansard roofs were the
peak of fashion in France between 1855 and 1875. It became popular at
that particular point in history largely because of a tax designed to
target rich property owners. The tax was based on the height of the
building, since rich people lived in buildings with higher ceiling and
with more stories than poor people. Height was measured from the lower
edge of the roof. It didn't take long for builders and architects to
figure out that they could save their clients money by disguising the
top floor as an attic, according to a research paper written by a member
of the Institute for the Northern Ontario Research and Development.
"The tax-evading mansard
roof is perfect example of the way the property tax system can affect
the behavior of builders and the look of cities," economics professor
David Robinson said.
tohara@keysnews.com |
