GUEST COMMENTARY: Unintended Consequences

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Santiva Chronicle publishes opinions and letters on topics that are important to Sanibel and Captiva. They may be submitted via e-mail at news@santivachronicle.com.

I’ll do my best to get all my thoughts on this issue as clear as possible. It starts with the City of Sanibel’s “Sanibel Plan” -which is sort of Sanibel’s own Declaration of Independence (now almost 50 years old). In my opinion, it was put into place primarily to control excessive density and height restrictions in order that our island did not become another Miami Beach. These two items have served us well, up until now. Density restrictions have served their purpose.

However, in an effort to preclude high-rise towers on the island, reasonable adjustments to any building height is next to impossible. To compound the problem, City Ordinance, Section 3.10.4 was passed that stated in part “Actions to increase the permitted height of a building or buildings as established in the Sanibel Plan, as constituted on May 4, 2004, may be taken by the city only by ordinance approved by a majority of qualified city electors at the next general election or a special election.” This has handcuffed property owners, planning department staffers, Planning Commissions and the City Council in dealing with the issue.

Had the ordinance allowed some reasonable flexibility to adjust building heights to correspond to the FEMA height requirement, this would be a moot point. On unincorporated Captiva (that also has height restrictions) the maximum building height can be adjusted to a higher level to match similar elevation changes by FEMA. FEMA has adjusted height elevations on Sanibel since 2004. This is not an issue of a change to permit skyscrapers -we are talking about a few feet here. It is my understanding that this 2004 Sanibel Ordinance fixes the height and will not allow any adjustment for a FEMA change without going out to the public via a referendum.

I had an interesting conversation with a former Mayor of Sanibel who helped create the Sanibel Plan. He told me the Plan was never meant to be set in stone but rather a working document. So I asked the question “How did we get into this situation”? Somehow this height ordinance was passed and locked into a referendum in order to make changes. This was not the way it was meant to work. The Planning Department should be able to recommend a change to the Planning Commission, who would then have public hearings and make recommendations to City Council to change any existing ordinance – without going to a referendum. Could City Council use the current “State of Local Emergency” declaration in order to allow additional height based on FEMA’s new elevation rules? Somewhere along the way the train went off the track and we need to fix it. I’m confident that to make such a change to the 2005 Ordinance, in order to fix this issue, it could present more challenges — but we need to fix this and the quicker the better for the benefit of Sanibel’s elected/appointed officials, residents, businesses and non-profit organizations. Keep in mind the longer this takes, it will have several adverse effects — no permitting for new construction; no residents able to return; no resorts open for tourists; and reduced tax revenue for the City’s necessary operations.

Tony Lapi
Former Sanibel Planning Commissioner