Staff directed to look into waiving of fees, among other issues
A recent public hearing regarding a petition for a seawall on Siesta Key resulted in the Sarasota County Commission’s request for staff to research a potentially faster process that property owners could purse as they seek to protect land already damaged by storms while they face the potential of new storm threats.
As part of the assignment, staff has been tasked with considering the waiving of fees.
During the June 4 County Commission meeting, an item listed on the agenda as a Presentation Upon Request involved the Siesta Towers Condominium Association’s application for a Coastal Setback Variance to enable it to construct a new, 193.9-foot-long seawall landward of an existing seawall, with the cap of the newer structure planned to be about 18 inches higher than the cap of the existing one, a county staff report explained.
Siesta Towers also was seeking county approval to re-armor a rock revetment “located a maximum of 62 feet waterward of the [county’s] 20-Year Barrier Island Pass Hazard Line,” as a county staff memo noted.
The addition of rock to the revetment would raise the elevation of that structure “by up to 3 feet,” the memo added.
“The new rock [will be] limited to the existing footprint”; it is proposed to be added “within 12 feet” of the new seawall, the memo said.
Further, the memo pointed out, plans call for installing “approximately 3,468 square feet of pavers landward of the new seawall and waterward of the [Pass Hazard Line].”
That memo also noted that the shoreline of the parcel “has been hardened by a seawall since at least 1974, per aerial map review.”
“No dune, mangrove, or seagrass habitat exists within the project area, and therefore, no impacts to these protected habitats are proposed,” the memo pointed out.
The property is located at 4822 Ocean Blvd., on the northern part of Siesta Key, staff materials said. The condominium complex stands 11 stories over parking, the staff memo noted. The site also has two “fishing piers constructed on concrete pilings,” the memo added. They “will be removed and replaced, as necessary, to facilitate construction activities,” the memo continued.
About 130 cubic yards of fill will be placed on the landward side of the new seawall, the memo pointed out.
Usually, county staff places an item on an agenda as a Presentation Upon Request when it anticipates that the issue will not be controversial. However, anyone can sign up to address the issue and be heard, as is the practice during a routine public hearing.
In this June 4 situation, attorney Matthew Brockway, of the Icard Merrill firm in Sarasota, addressed the commissioners, explaining that he owns the adjacent parcel located at 4836 Ocean Blvd., while his mother-in-law owns the property seaward of his, as shown on a map provided by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s Office website.
“We wholeheartedly support this variance,” Brockway told the commissioners.
Then Brockway pointed out, “There are numerous properties along the southern shore of Big Pass that have substantial damage to seawalls.” In fact, he continued, he is representing three of those property owners, one of whom already has applied for a Coastal Setback Variance for a new seawall. His other two clients will be putting in applications soon, he added.
“The seawalls are damaged to the extent where … you can literally see the Gulf of Mexico, standing by the residences, through gaps in the panels,” Brockway explained.
Some of the variance applications that will be submitted “seek to repair and replace like-for-like,” he continued, referring to the planned structures, though they would be “slightly landward” of the existing seawalls.
Yet, Brockway stressed, “This is a months-long process.” The application he submitted last month for one of his clients, he added, is not expected to be heard by the commission until July.
With the other two, Brockway pointed out, the hearings likely will not take place until August or later. In none of those situations, he said, does native or protected habitat exist.
Brockway emphasized, “These property owners are exposed for much of the [existing] hurricane season, if not the entire hurricane season,” which will not end until Nov. 30. “These owners already have [Florida Department of Environmental Protection] permits in hand” for the work, he added.
“There should be a faster process to allow replacement of these existing shore protection structures,” Brockway told the commissioners.
The County Code does allow for an emergency variance process, he noted. Yet, Howard Berna, manager of the county’s Environmental Permitting Division, told him that using that process probably would speed up the issuance of a permit by only a couple of weeks. “And that’s just not a viable solution.”
Those existing emergency processes, Brockway continued, apply to previously developed lots where no protected native habitat exists.
“I would urge you,” he told the board members, “to consider adopting a similar exemption for these type of properties” that need new seawalls. “It’s good governance and enables homeowners to protect their property.”
A ‘board assignment’ proposed
After Brockway concluded his remarks, Commissioner Mark Smith, a long-time Siesta resident, thanked him for his suggestion about the more streamlined variance process in regard to the specific circumstances Brockway had described.
Then Smith said he would like to ask staff to review Brockway’s remarks as part of research for, and preparation of, what the commissioners call a “board assignment.” Each such report explores a specific issue, with options — if any — provided to the commissioners upon completion of the assignment. The resulting documents generally provide a lot of details resulting from staff research.
County Attorney Joshua Moye advised the board members to finish the hearing before delving into that proposal.
While Brockway remained at the podium, Commissioner Teresa Mast took the opportunity to ask him about the county fee a person has to pay to apply for a Coastal Setback Variance. Adding that she thought she already knew the answer, Mast pointed out that the figure is a hardship for some homeowners, who also end up paying fees for technical assistance, too, before submitting their applications.
The fee is $3,000, Brockway told her.
Typically, Brockway continued, a property owner also has to pay to hire an engineer to design the replacement structure. Thus, he noted, “It’s a many … tens of thousands of dollars’ investment” to try to win approval of a Coastal Setback Variance (CSV). Those homeowners in many situations “also [are] undertaking the risk that something happens during this process.”
In fact, Brockway said, one of his clients has been calling him almost on a daily basis, checking on the status of that person’s CSV application. That client is greatly distressed, Brockway added, about the lack of a functioning seawall in the meantime.
Mast told him she had spoken with homeowners in similar situations who said “their insurance may be significantly impacted because they haven’t been able to make the necessary modifications …”
Chair Joe Neunder then asked that Berna, the manager of the Environmental Permitting Division, come to the podium.
Because of the 2024 hurricane season’s disastrous effects on county property, Neunder said, he was aware of a process enabling staff to issue some county permits faster than usual. Neunder then inquired about the process that Brockway had referenced as being “several weeks faster.”
The County Code, Berna explained, allows for Class I and Class II emergency variances. Class I provides for staff authorization of the use of sandbags, as well as removal of storm debris, he added, as examples.
The Class II variance allows for what Berna described as temporary shoreline support. “We’ve had a couple of those over the years,” he noted. One of them involved a temporary seawall.
In the latter case, Berna said, the property owner had to get County Commission approval of the Class II variance and then return to the board at a later date to request that the structure remain in place longer.
The Class II variance process is “a little faster” than the handling of an application for a routine CSV application, he added, but he stressed that the County Commission ends up dealing with the issue twice, given the need for a permanent solution after the temporary one has won approval.
In regard to the CSV application that Brockway reported having been scheduled for a July commission hearing, Berna said that the application was submitted to staff “a few weeks ago. … We’ve jumped on that urgency.”
In fact, Berna noted, staff was handling it faster than staff typically would deal with a Class II emergency variance.
Then Berna explained that projects entailing repairs and maintenance “can be authorized by staff” through the county’s Water and Navigation Control Authority (WNCA) process. (The County Commission sits as the Water and Navigation Control Authority as needed to handle specific types of county business.)
That allows staff to authorize the removal of a seawall and the replacement of that structure with the same dimensions in the same location, he explained. “That’s a 10-day permit,” Berna noted.
Staff could have handled such a process for Siesta Towers, he said. However, Berna added, Siesta Towers wanted to keep the existing seawall and construct the new one landward of it, which necessitated a CSV application.
Commissioners whose background is in the private sector hear a lot about problems with government bureaucracy, Neunder told Berna.
If it would take only a couple more weeks for staff to seek the board’s approval for a Coastal Setback Variance application, Neunder added, “I believe it’s in the best of everyone’s interest to do that process.”
“How do we figure out a way,” Neunder continued, to expedite the process?
Berna told him that if someone seeks a Class II variance, staff talks with the individual about the process that would take “just another few days” to conclude with a single appearance before the County Commission.
Mast then brought up the fact that the county waives certain fees under extenuating circumstances. When she asked Berna whether staff has done that with CSV petitions, Berna responded that, in some cases, staff has waived the fees for Class I and Class II applications, “but not [for] the regular variances.”
‘Some very specific language’
After Neunder closed the hearing, Mast made the motion to approve the variance, and Commissioner Smith seconded it. That motion passed unanimously.
Mast thanked the Siesta Towers representatives in the audience for making the investment to protect their property, which serves as an investment for adjacent property owners, as well, she pointed out.
Following the vote, Mast again broached the idea of the board assignment, saying she would like “some very specific language brought forward” about the potential for exemptions, as well as the waiving of fees and expediting the process.”
She pointed out, “Water does do a significant amount of damage [to property].”
Commissioner Smith added, “I believe … strongly that we need to look [at this],” including the implication that adding a new seawall strengthens the old seawall.
“We haven’t been hit like we were hit in 2024,” he pointed out of that storm season and its effects on much of the county, including Siesta Key. “The fact is, this could happen every year,” Smith added.
If going through the process to protect property takes up “a good bit of that year,” Smith said, a property owner could end up dealing with even more damage. “Time is of the essence on these things.”
Moreover, Smith reminded his colleagues, waterfront property that suffers damage again and again ends up with a lower value, “which does not help our tax base.”
Mast’s motion calling for the board assignment also passed unanimously.