No changes to property planned
With no discussion beforehand, and with no comments from the public, the Sarasota County Commission voted unanimously on April 9 to approved the rezoning of 0.77 acres on the site of the Siesta Key Palms Hotel — 1800 Stickney Point Road — to bring that part of the property into conformity with an active zoning district.
The new zoning designation is Boutique Resort Residential/Planned Development (BRR/PD). As the county staff report in the April 9 agenda packet explained, “The BRR/PD zone district was developed in 2017 to allow small existing hotels on the mainland built prior to zoning and often not conforming to current zone district standards to remain and be remodeled or expanded.”
The 0.77-acre segment was zoned Residential Multi-Family-4, the report added, which is an inactive zoning district, though the property had been functioning as “a legal non-conforming use.”
“Should the Applicant attempt to redevelop the property either voluntarily or involuntarily,” as the result of a natural disaster, the memo also pointed out, the non-conforming status in an inactive zone district would not allow redevelopment or reconstruction of the property as currently built.”
The owner of the hotel, which stands at 1800 Stickney Point Road, will maintain the existing 13 units; no additions or changes to the development are proposed, the staff report said. The hotel dates to 1957, the report noted.
Sarasota attorney Charles D. Bailey III, of the Williams Parker firm, had submitted the application on behalf of the owner, Sarasotaville of Siesta Key LLC. The manager of that limited liability company is developer Henry Rodriguez of Osprey, the Florida Division of Corporations notes.
The public hearing was listed on the April 9 agenda as a Presentation Upon Request. No commissioner asked for remarks from either a representative of the property owner or county staff.
The staff report further explained, “The adjoining properties to the east, in the same ownership as the subject property,” and also known as part of the Siesta Key Palms Resort, already are zoned BRR/PD. That section of the site “contains 13 of the 26 rooms that comprise the entire Siesta Key Palms Resort,” the report said.
The buildings on the property for which the rezoning was sought are one story in height, the staff report continued. A 20-foot building setback exists along Stickney Point Road, the report added, within which stands a 10-foot-tall street buffer with 0.1 opacity. A 10-foot wide buffer with opacity of 0.2 is in place along the western boundary of the property, adjoining the multi-family residential development in Key Point Village, which is in the RMF-4 zone district, the report pointed out.
Further, a 6-foot wide buffer with 0.1 opacity exists along Dawn Street to the south, and a 10-foot wide buffer with 0.2 opacity buffer stands along the eastern side of the property, “adjoining the 13-unit hotel development in existing BRR/PD zone district which is part of the Siesta Key Palms Resort development,” the report said.
Access to the property is from Dawn Street, the report added.