BLAKE FLEETWOOD
Contributing Writer
news@lbknews.com
After the two hurricanes wreaked havoc on Longboat Key, the Town extended heavy 
But the extended hours are often taken for all new construction, not just storm repairs. Saturday, the hours will be 8 to 5, which were the hours before the storms.
The longer hours were to expire January 31, 2025. But given the slow recovery rate, they have been extended to May 1st.
Before Helene and Milton construction hours were from 8 to 5, five days a week.
No construction noise is permitted on Sundays.
More than sixty residents discussed the new hours and the heavy construction noise at the “Let’s Talk Longboat” session held last Tuesday, February 11.
The hurricanes resulted in 60 demolition permits being applied for. In many cases, residents decided not to rebuild, which resulted in the sale of empty lots and the rise of what some call McMansions in their place, blocking light and air from the Gulf.
These “Talk” sessions have become a popular, informative monthly series hosted by Town Manager Howard Tipton, Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman, and Planning, Zoning, and Building Director Allen Parsons.
Many residents of Buttonwood Lane were concerned about the commercial construction project at 3150 GMD, being marketed as Brista Commons. Residents of the Diplomat Resort across the street, have been driven crazy by the incessant backup beepers of the heavy construction equipment from early in the morning to past diner time.
Bristra Commons is replacing a lush decades-old green forest. Jim Charles, a resident of Buttonwood Lane, told Parsons, “I don’t see how we can keep issuing building permits.”
Charles referred to commercial buildings and said the town lacks the infrastructure to support unbridled commercial development.
The Brista project, with no natural green sward or trees and bushes dividing it from the highway like the Bay Isles Shoppes, will be a permanent wall of construction on Gulf of Mexico Drive. The new development will be a virtual Strip Mall that will break up the long scenic entrance to the town, which has been blessed by vistas of golf courses, ponds, dunes, mangroves, and trees.
These lots were approved as “office institutional,” with zoning unchanged from the 1960s when LBK was a far different community.
The two other major commercial plazas, Shoppes of Bay Isles and Centre Shops, are largely hidden behind trees and bushes from the highway.
“Too much commercial development will turn Longboat Key into Siesta Key, an overdeveloped community where I wouldn’t want to live,” said Jim Charles.
One resident said that increased development on Longboat Key may be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs if the building department continues to allow strip malls and Mac Mansions along Gulf of Mexico Drive. Reddit called strip malls the first circle of hell. Scott Beyer in Forbes notes that ugly strip malls with fronted parking lots are entirely the creatures of government regulations.
According to Jack E. Davis, who authored a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Gulf, the history of Gulf communities is being destroyed by the “insatiability of human greed.”
John D. MacDonald, perhaps Sarasota’s most famous citizen, wrote in his last detective novel, that our great-grandchildren will live in a land “that is drab, dirty, ugly, and dangerous .. sick and sinking.”
The Strangling of a Resort
In 1983, Paul Goldberger, America’s preeminent architectural critic, wrote a seminal article in the New York Times about how gracious, sought-after resort towns are always in danger of strangulation by greedy developers and shortsighted government leaders drooling over the promise of increased tax revenues. Although he wrote mainly about the resorts of East Hampton, Southampton, Aspen, Carmel, and Nantucket, his warning applies equally to LBK.
“For what is at issue is the question of how a resort town should determine whether it is to be large or small, bust or tranquil, open to all or the province of a few — or even whether it is possible for such a community to determine its destiny at all.”
The resort town of East Hampton responded to this danger by enacting a Community Preservation Fund, which bought up significant tracts of land so that the town would not be surrounded by suburban commercial sprawl. The fund was financed by a two percent tax on real estate sales. At first the real estate industry howled at the idea. But now, decades later, all agree that it saved the town, preserving its essential charm and which has ensured its long-term success as a place to live and to visit.
The town also discouraged the building of more condominiums, upzoned many vacant parcels of land, and forbade chain stores. The same kind of zoning preservation measures were taken in Nantucket and other unique resorts to great success.
It was not easy for EH town leaders to forgo the short-term benefits of real-estate development for the long-term future, but they did it with political courage.
Once land is built on, it is gone forever and can never be brought back.
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Other news from the “Talk” session with town leaders was that LBK beaches will not be restored for years, certainly not before the coming hurricane season this Fall or next Fall. The Town has applied for 20 million dollars in beach funds from FEMA but doesn’t expect to get any relief at least until 2027.
This is a serious issue for beachfront property owners. The latest tremendous loss of dunes, sea grapes, and beachgrass makes LBK beaches and homes vulnerable to future storms. Individual Gulf side owners can, of course, remediate dunes and beachgrass themselves as long as they get the necessary permits.
Contrary to what has been reported, Allen Parsons said the coming of Starbucks to a site adjoining Brista is not a done deal and may not be approved for some time. Any application will have to undergo extensive review and a public hearing and would need to go through a special exemption approved by the Planning and Zoning Board.
