What happens when moratoriums, vacation rentals and large multi-bedroom homes are mixed together in Bradenton Beach? Trouble.
City commissioners held the first public reading July 21 of a proposed ordinance on a six-month building moratorium for the Nov. 8 ballot. Voters are to decide whether the city will adopt a moratorium.
According to building official Steve Gilbert and city planner Alan Garrett, the moratorium could mean a drastic reduction in building permits being issued or reviewed in Bradenton Beach.
A moratorium was proposed and rejected several times by Bradenton Beach officials.
The newest motion comes from a citizen’s initiative petition. Headed by resident Priscilla Van Ahnen, the initiative gathered 79 signatures and required the commission to act on a proposed six-month moratorium on new residences with four or more sleeping areas.
The Bradenton Beach charter allows electors to propose ordinances, provided they have a minimum of 50 signatures or 10 percent of registered voters who participated in the most recent city election.
The petition must be circulated with a draft of the proposed ordinance.
The moratorium would allow a window of time for the commission to consider ordinances that could rein in oversized homes and the short-term vacation rental business.
The commission decided June 16 not to adopt a moratorium, causing the question to go to the voters on the Nov. 8 ballot.
At the June 16 meeting, Gilbert warned commissioners the moratorium needed to be amended to clearly define what constitutes a sleeping area.
“The language needs to be amended to define the difference between a bedroom and a sleeping area. We’re going to have a problem on what we can accept,” Gilbert said June 16 of the building department. “We have to count all the rooms. Which means nobody’s going to get accepted.”
The moratorium Van Ahnen presented to petitioners for signatures in Bradenton Beach was modeled after a past Holmes Beach moratorium.
However, Bradenton Beach city attorney Ricinda Perry said Holmes Beach had different rules in place to for its moratorium.
“What works there doesn’t work in Bradenton Beach,” she said.
Van Ahnen began working with Garrett and Gilbert July 19 to create a clearer definition of a sleeping area and bedroom.
But Garrett said July 21 that if the moratorium is approved Nov. 8, a permit application for a typical two-bedroom residence would be denied.
Perry told Van Ahnen at the July 21 meeting it was “too late” for an amendment.
Perry said the city couldn’t amend the moratorium because the amendment wasn’t presented when it was signed by petitioners.
“We can’t do amendments this late in the game,” Perry said. “The city would have to get approval from every petitioner.”
“It’s pretty clear what it means,” Van Ahnen said. “We never intended that nobody gets permits. This is ridiculous.”
Commissioner Jan Vosburgh, who has advocated for a moratorium, told Van Ahnen to “let it go.”
“I’m behind you 100 percent, but it’s too late,” Vosburgh said.
The final reading for the moratorium vote and the commission vote for adoption is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4, at city hall.
If commissioners vote against the ordinance, preventing the question from going to a vote in November, they could be in violation of the city charter and open the city to a legal dispute.
The voters would have to decide Nov. 8 whether to adopt the moratorium not knowing it could bring a halt to most new residential construction in the city.
Van Ahnen said she hoped voters would move forward with the moratorium, knowing what was intended. “(The commissioners) want it to be stopped,” she said.