Condo project stalled
Planning Board delays
action pending neighbors' appeal
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA
Citizen Staff
KEY WEST — The developers
of a multimillion-dollar condominium project were hit with another delay
Thursday, as the city Planning Board postponed making a decision on the
project.
The board is waiting
until an appeal of an approval by the city's Historical Architectural
Review Commission is resolved.
A group of developers
called Caroline Street Partners want to build 26 condominium units on
the site of Jabour's Trailer Court near Elizabeth and Caroline streets.
The project is called Key West Bight Watermark.
The developers have gone
before the Planning Board twice and HARC a half-dozen times asking for
approval. Each time, residents crowded Old City Hall to voice their
objections to a project they call too big and out of character with the
rest of neighborhood. The neighbors applauded Thursday after the
Planning Board voted 3-2 to postpone making a decision.
HARC approved the project
last month. 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 that the floor area ratio and height exceed HARC
guidelines.
City Attorney Bob
Tischenkel told board members that they may have to re-hear the
developers' proposal if the city's special master rules on the side of
two residents who appealed HARC's decision.
"If the special master
found something wrong with it, it could come back before you,"
Tischenkel said. "So from a practical point of view you might not want
to take definitive action until after the HARC issue is resolved."
The City Commission
cannot rule on the project until the HARC decision is resolved,
Tischenkel said. City special master Jefferson Overby may hear the
appeals at the monthly code enforcement hearing on Oct. 26. However, it
could take him weeks to rule on the appeals, which Tischenkel calls
"complex."
The earliest developers
would go before the City Commission is December, Tischenkel said.
tohara@keysnews.com |
