By Mark Hebden, Holmes Beach
Aggressive county and state tactics are unnecessary.
Manatee County and Anna Maria Island leaders have been in meetings about the issues of parking for public beach access.
Why not continue the engagement of discussing options and solutions and working through the process of doing the right thing for all interests?
Also, why selective legislation aimed specifically at Anna Maria Island?
Why is there not a countywide or statewide approach and study of public beach access, available parking and environmental impacts which would inform reasoned decisions?
The tactics of simply surprising the local elected officials with these proposals and pushing them through votes without further engaging discussions with the local government indicates bad faith and a power-grab for control by county and state representatives. These uncompromising tactics indicate an arrogance of elected leaders who believe they know best rather than acting as a representative leader truly interested in doing the right thing.
Can we just work together to answer the question: What is the right thing for preserving the barrier islands for the public and residents to enjoy?
Does it make sense to bring more cars to an island with limited land area?
The dense traffic on the island already proves the local roads are overburdened by vehicular traffic. Bringing more vehicles to the island presents multiple negative impacts on stormwater runoff and air quality, increasing the negative environmental burden on the island.
Does it make sense to pave more land area with parking garages on an island that has already reached its limits in terms of stormwater drainage?
The AMI cities are spending significant funds to address the current overload of stormwater runoff due to overdevelopment and increasing density. All the AMI and other barrier island communities should be proactively urged by county and state leaders to promote ordinances that support less development density and reduced paving and storm water runoff, not more.
Does it make sense to have limits on how many people come to any barrier island that has physical and environmental limits?
AMI and its beaches are a public natural resource and the properties on the island are private resources or assets. The natural preservation and access to the beaches by the public should be in balance with the quality of life of private residents; the same quality of life that the county and state representatives would like to preserve in the communities in which they live.
All the barrier island beaches, not just AMI, should be curated and cared for as a natural resource, to be preserved, like a state or national park.
National parks are finding it increasingly necessary to limit vehicular access to the parklands due to the damage and environmental stress caused by more vehicles and limit the impact of higher density of visitors to preserve the quality of the environment.
There are other options:
If county and state representatives were serious about doing the right thing for all citizens and governing as representatives of the people rather than overlords, then they would be considering other options, working alongside local island leaders, not just defaulting and focusing on Holmes Beach as the location for a parking garage.
There are at least three other options to evaluate in addition to the Manatee Public Beach, Holmes Beach parking lot:
Manatee Public Beach, Holmes Beach: On a busy beach day, the visually confirmable density of people at the beach indicates that the ratio of available beach, picnic and recreation areas are maxed out when the lot is full.
If there is no more parking available at the parking area and the hundreds of available spaces around the island are full, then where do people go who are visiting the island?
Do they drive home, deprived of accessing the beach, as the state and county representatives would have one believe?
No, they have the option to park and have beach access at what may be the most picturesque beaches on the island, Coquina Beach in Bradenton Beach.
The Coquina parking area, when fully available provides adequate capacity for visitors.
The current Holmes Beach parking area will likely be an expensive and inefficient site to build a parking garage.
The current parking area is a permeable gravel surface. A parking garage will be a significant addition of impermeable concrete surfaces which will generate significant new storm water runoff.
Where will this runoff be directed and how much funds will need to be added to account for this new storm water runoff load on an island already challenged with storm water flooding?
If county and state representatives are able to bypass elected local government, ignore environmental impacts and force this garage into the local communities, then it still remains unclear as to why it is necessary to exceed the current height limitation?
Based on an efficient garage footprint, keeping the ground level of the garage at approximate the current parking level, with a common 10-foot floor to floor height for parking decks, the current ordinance would allow three added decks of parking above the ground level or about an additional 450 to 500 parking spaces.
Adding a fourth level will likely significantly increase foundation costs. There is no need to change the HB height ordinance, assuming it is only to justify building a parking garage.
With no need to change the ordinance, then there is no need to work around the current ordinance.
The visual aesthetics of placing a parking garage at the Manatee beach parking area would result in a great wall at the end of Manatee Avenue, cutting off any view or orientation to the Gulf.
This would be a sad, unwelcoming entry for visitors coming to the island. Future generations will look back at us in disbelief and disgust and we will be remembered for our ignorance for building a garage on a barrier island. If county and state leaders insist this garage be forced on the local communities, then we must insist the garage must be named the “Van Ostenbridge and Robinson Garage” so they get all the credit when future generations recognize their ignorance.
Parking garage at 75th Street and Manatee Avenue in Bradenton:
There are large areas of underutilized parking on both the north and south sides of this intersection. For the sake of preserving the island as a natural resource this is a worthy option to consider.
This option utilizes the Manatee County Area Transit service to the island. In addition to not increasing the negative impacts of bringing more vehicles to the island, there is the benefit of reducing traffic on the bridges.
A parking garage in this location offers the potential for expanded access to current business and the development of new community-based businesses to benefit Bradenton. A potential secondary benefit is to charge an optional annual fee to island residents to be able to reserve a parking space in the garage for temporary vehicle safety refuge during storms.
Parking garage on Longboat Key:
What share of parking for beach access does Longboat Key provide for the county and state?
Why not equitably consider adding public beach access and related parking on Longboat Key as a way to distribute the density of visitors across Anna Maria Island? The pushback, the reasons for opposition to putting a garage in Longboat Key are the same reasons as Holmes Beach. Longboat Key already has high rises and is considering parking garages. So there is precedent and no need for the state or county to overrule local ordinances.
The Longboat Key Observer reports on major redevelopment projects of aging properties, including the construction of a parking garage dedicated to the private development. Why isn’t the county engaging Longboat Key leaders and developers to include the construction of additional public beach parking and access, as a public consideration, as part of the approval process for these projects?
Parking garage at Coquina Beach:
This option may have the most potential for balancing environmental, public and private interests and effectively planning the distribution and density of parking and traffic and use of public beaches.
The ongoing incomplete projects at Coquina have cleared hundreds of mature trees and there is an incomplete construction area which could be cost effectively developed into a parking garage.
Stormwater drainage generated by a new parking garage will likely be able to be addressed more efficiently in coordination with the ongoing projects at Coquina and the proximity of drainage outfalls due to the narrow footprint of the island at Coquina.
Locating a parking garage at Coquina more effectively distributes public parking and beach access along the miles of beach and recreation areas at Coquina. Also, this location aligns well with the increased traffic capacity of the future proposed replacement of the Cortez Bridge and the ferry shuttle at the Coquina boat ramp.
There are surely many issues with each of these options which need to vetted but it seems like the county and state representatives have skipped the vetting process. Before pushing through any “work around” legislation, a complete study of these options is needed to:
• Validate the actual demand for public beach parking spaces on the barrier islands;
• Compare the distribution of public beach access and develop a comprehensive county-wide plan for healthy distribution of public parking for all the barrier islands;
• Complete an environmental impact study of bringing more vehicles to barrier islands;
• Compare the environmental, traffic and quality of life impacts of public parking options;
• Learn from how other barrier island communities are addressing these issues.
Why the aggressive tactics by county and state leaders?
The county commissioners were previously engaged with AMI leaders in discussing parking for public beach access.
The county and state leaders have chosen to ignore the continuing of ongoing discussions, studies and evaluations and are proposing legislative tactics to change the structure of three local municipalities as a “work around” to force their opinions and agendas.
Their lack of communication, the surprise use of these tactics, combined with the singling out of AMI raises necessary questions about the motives of the county and state representatives.
Why are county and state leaders attempting to bypass a study to validate the actual and equitably planned distribution of public parking for beach access across all AMI and LBK communities?
Why the shoot from the hip default to focusing only on Holmes Beach?
Why are county and state representatives not calling for Longboat Key or other communities to provide more of a share of public access and parking?
How does Holmes Beach public parking compare to Longboat Key in terms of meeting the county requirements?
Are there too many influential donors saying no to these state and county representatives?
Why focus on AMI to locate a parking garage?
Why is it so important for AMI to change its height limitations?
Why not just propose a garage that stays within the current height ordinances?
Are these representatives influenced by, or are they representing developer interests that are part of their own personal financial or business interests?
Why go to the extreme of going around local voters by manipulating the local municipality structures?
What other interests do these state and county representatives have which influence their singular insistence on one option and a change in the ordinances?