Hearings add input from residents
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA
Citizen Staff
KEY WEST
The creation of a master
plan for the Truman Waterfront is a daunting one, with as many
restrictions on the land as there are wants and needs for the 33 acres
of seaside land given to the city by the Navy.
Architects and urban
planners are holding public workshops this week with city port officials
to solicit residents' opinions on the multimillion-dollar project.
Hearings were held Monday and Tuesday and will continue Thursday
afternoon at Old City Hall.
When the Navy gave the
city the land it wasn't with a do-with-it-as-you-please attitude. The
city must keep 60 percent of the land as open space, keep boats 100
yards away from Navy vessels and build structures 100 feet away from
Navy buildings. The boat ramp must be accessible to the Navy.
The Truman Annex Master
Property Owners Association also has its requirements. The association
owns a section of Southard Street and allows the city to use it. The
group wants to limit traffic using Southard Street to access Truman
Waterfront to Navy and Truman Annex residents' vehicles and the Old Town
Trolley, which picks up and drops off cruise ship passengers from the
Outer Mole Pier.
This means traffic might
have to be diverted to Olivia, Petronia or Angela streets, or all three
of the narrow Bahama Village streets, planners said Tuesday night. Or it
could mean that some of those streets will be converted from one-way to
two-way roads, they said.
Some residents who
attended Tuesday night's meeting objected to more vehicle traffic in
neighboring Bahama Village and pushed for more bike and pedestrian
traffic.
"They are going to be
taking away parking spaces," 25-year resident Tom Joris said of making
Olivia Street a two-way road. "We need to encourage pedestrian and bike
traffic, not car traffic. We don't want more cars in our neighborhood."
Local developer and tour
mogul Ed Swift requested that more parking be built off Petronia Street.
This would help bring in patrons to Bahama Village businesses, but not
bring in more vehicle traffic, he said.
Architects and urban
planners with the firms of DMJM and Harris, Inc., Sasaki and Spillis
Candela discussed not only the restrictions, but heard residents' wish
lists for the property.
"Key West is a unique
community, more so than a lot of communities," said Richard Heidrich,
vice president of DMJM. "Our task is to capture that uniqueness."
For the past eight years,
the city has wrestled with the idea of what to do with 33 acres of
oceanfront property at the Truman Waterfront. Residents who attended the
public hearings talked about the need to place affordable housing and
park space on the property.
"The housing there should
be 100 percent affordable," resident Tom Milone said. "That is our
number one need in the city."
The city will be limited
to where it can put housing, because planners said some of the property
is contaminated.
Some residents talked
about the city using some of the space for concerts. One woman asked if
another Sunset Celebration event could be started at Truman Waterfront.
Others expressed the need
to connect the piers along Truman Waterfront to those at the Hilton Pier
and Mallory Square.
City officials want to
place a marina on the property, which would help the city generate money
for parks and projects. Milone said he wanted to make sure that if the
city rented the property out to a private marina operator the business
would not restrict public access to the waterfront, he said.
In May 1996, the Navy,
under the guidelines of the Base Realignment and Closure program,
declared Truman Waterfront excess property and began working to hand
over the property to the city. By Sept. 8, 1999, the city came up with
its base reuse plan.
The city will share some
of the property with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
Foundation, which was given a building and 3 acres for a visitor center,
research library, theater and regional office for sanctuary workers.
tohara@keysnews.com |
