RE Please Deny Rezoning Application for the Shoppes at Sand Key IIIFrom: Everitt, Steven
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 2:13 PM
To: 'JC Simmons'
Subject: RE: Please Deny Rezoning Application for the Shoppes at Sand
Key
Please be advised that the public hearing on the application for Zoning Atlas Amendment from the Business (B) District to the Tourist (T) District (REZ2007-10001) located at 1201, 1241
and 1261 Gulf Boulevard has been deferred to the January 15, 2008 Community Development Board meeting for renotice.
Steven Everitt
-----Original Message-----
From: JC Simmons [mailto:judith_c_simmons@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 4:23 PM
To: Hibbard, Frank; Watkins, Sherry; Everitt, Steven
Subject: Please Deny Rezoning Application for the Shoppes at Sand Key
Dear Honorable Mayor of Clearwater, Members of the
Clearwater Development Board, and City Planning
Department
Thank you for your service and for your time and
attention to development matters within Clearwater.
I am a resident of the Clearwater Sand Key Club. I
have lived there for 10 years. The purpose of this
letter is to ask that you not approve the request to
change the zoning on the Shoppes at Sand Key from
business to Tourist. My reasons for asking you to turn
this request down are as follows:
ELIMINATING THE EXISTING SHOPS WILL DRAMATICALLY
CHANGE THE CHARACTER OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
The Shops provide a major convenience to residents on
Sand Key. There is: 1)a full service bank complete
with tellers, safety deposit boxes and an ATM.2) a
grocery store where we can buy milk, bread, wine and
other groceries, 3)a dentist to fix our teeth 4) a Dry
cleaners to clean our clothes, 5)an ice cream parlor,
6)a donut shoppe, 7)a collectibles shoppe, 8)various
clothing stores with apparel from bathing suits to
ball gowns, 9)a jewelry store with a genius goldsmith
and friendly talkative parrot, 10)a nail shoppe,
11)multiple full service restaurants with both inside
and waterfront seating, 12)multi-use stores where you
can buy collectibles, souvenirs, gifts, beach toys,
etc, 13) a real estate office. Residents and tourists
use these shops every day.
The shops provide us with a sense of community because
we meet our neighbors there and take our guests there.
We know the shop owners and they know us. They tailor
their inventory to what we like to buy. Even if the
new hotel had shops, they would be chosen to cater to
the tourists, not to us, and they would probably be
much more expensive to shop in or eat in. Also, it
would be years before they would be in place. We
would be left with nothing but construction and a mess
in the meantime.
REPLACING THE SHOPS WITH A HOTEL WILL DECREASE OUR
OPEN SPACE AND VIEWS
The addition of a tall building on the intercoastal
would make Sand Key look more like Miami. The current
Shoppes are just one story and have a nice waterfront
boardwalk easily accessible to everyone. That would be
replaced by a 100’ building with limited or no easy
access to the waterfront by residents.
ELIMINATING THE SHOPS WILL INCREASE TRAFFIC CONGESTION
We can walk to the Shops whenever we wish. If the
Shops are replaced by a large hotel, residents would
have to drive elsewhere to get the products and
services provided now by walking to the Shops.
Therefore the traffic on Gulf Blvd and through the
roundabout would be increased dramatically. The people
staying in the hotel would also add to the volume of
traffic using Gulf Blvd and the roundabout.
REPLACING THE SHOPS WITH A HOTEL WILL DECREASE OUR
SAFETY
If there were a need to evacuate Sand Key, those hotel
guests would be competing with us for the 2 paths off
of the island: the path north across the sand key
bridge and through the roundabout then across the
bridge to Clearwater or south to the Belleair bridge
that is under construction. In other words, it would
increase the danger to our lives in the event of an
emergency because we would be competing with more
people to get off of the island.
ELIMINATING THE SHOPS WILL DECREASE THE VALUE OF MY
HOME
While I do not plan to sell, the value of my condo
would go down because I could no longer point out the
advantages we have with the Shops and their services
just down the street. Those Shops are a major selling
point for prospective buyers.
For these reasons, I ask that you vote against the
request to change the zoning of the Shoppes at Sand
Key from business to tourist. Thank you again for
your time and attention to this matter.
Judy Simmons
1380 Gulf Blvd PH8
Clearwater FL 33767
727-593-1199
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