Sunday's Pensacola News Journal is an entertaining read if you like horror stories. The main feature is Jamie Page's "One Beach, Two Visions" which recounts the ongoing, titanic struggle that poses this dramatic question: Which ugly creature with an outsized footprint will get to ruin Pensacola Beach first? Will it be high rise condo-hotels or high rise hotel-condos?This monster fight became inevitable years ago when Portofino's politically-connected progenitor, the late Allen Levin, was permitted to tie up all the remaining residential units on Pensacola Beach which were allowable under Escambia County's Master Land Use Plan. Predictably, as Portofino nears completion other developers have begun angling for new ways to evade the residential cap and Levin's successor wants to keep the residential unit monopoly.
One side's current strategy is to redefine the English language (and county law) by calling a residential unit a "hotel room." We reported on the first skirmish in this definitional war soon after Hurricane Ivan. Then, when almost no one was paying attention, a handful of hotel developers and real estate brokers tried to horn in on Portofino's action by urging the Santa Rosa Island Authority to redefine maximum size and occupancy rules for island "hotel" rooms.
PNJ reporter Jamie Page does a creditable job of presenting some of the history and arguments for and against each of the contending monsters (although he neglects to interview any of the principals from former county administrator Barry Evans' administration who saw this coming a decade ago and enacted the rules that are now at risk.)
Sad to say, the Pensacola News Journal's editorial page more or less wimps out:
Who is right?It's hard to believe this is the same crusading newspaper that once upon a time saved Santa Rosa Island from a similar class of money-grubbers, as former editor Earle Bowden has documented. Still, at least the paper backs a palatable temporary solution:
Frankly, it is hard to say. Big money is clashing, and what's really at stake -- other than dollars -- can be hard to determine for those not involved in the high-stakes finance involved.
County Commissioner Grover Robinson, whose district includes Pensacola Beach, says the matter needs more study -- and public debate -- and should be forwarded to the Santa Rosa Island Authority for a thorough review.The emphasis here should be on the word "thorough." A lot of misinformation is being repeated by those who argue for changing the county's "hotel" rules -- misinformation about hotel and condo financing, zoning rules of other communities, taxation, developer expenses, public use preferences, infrastructure implications, and environmental impact. The Island Authority is in a good position to uncover the truth, but only if county commissioners allow their SRIA appointees sufficient independence to make an honest and objective factual assessment.
We agree.
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