DiamondHead Beach Resort expansion plans to go back to Town Council
Just two weeks after a vote by the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council to send an amended filing for the Diamondhead Beach Resort’s expansion plans back to the Local Planning Agency (LPA), the plans are now being re-rerouted back to the Town Council on Nov. 16.
An attorney from the Diamondhead Beach Resort pointed out to the Town Council on Monday that their vote earlier this month to send the proposal back to the LPA, did not have enough votes. The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted 2-1 earlier this month to remand the DiamondHead Beach Resort expansion proposal back to the Fort Myers Beach Local Planning Agency (LPA), following a change in the plans that removed a proposed 10-story tower from the project. The resort’s owners are looking to add 55 rooms, which they are now seeking to attach to the existing building, rather than build a new tower.
The LPA had voted against the original plan last month.
Neale Montgomery, an attorney for the Diamondhead Beach Resort, told the Town Council on Monday that the town charter requires three members of the board to approve an action. “The effort to remand us was in effective,” Montgomery said. “We are in limbo.”
Town of Fort Myers Beach Attorney Nancy Stuparich said she agreed with Montgomery’s assessment. “It was an invalid vote,” Stuparich said.
At the Town Council meeting earlier this month, Mayor Dan Allers and Vice Mayor Scott Safford recused themselves due to business conflicts. Allers runs a golf cart rental company that does business with the hotel, while Safford’s wife Jacki Liszak is the head of the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce and is organizing the American Sand Sculpture Championship at the resort next month.
That left only three councilmembers eligible to vote. Voting to send the project back to the LPA at the Oct. 5 meeting were Councilmembers Rebecca Link and John McLean, with Councilmember John King voting against sending the project back to the LPA.
An action can only be approved with less than three votes, if it is a majority of the sitting board, at an emergency meeting.
When the Town Council returns on Nov. 16, it will be with a new board composition as King and McLean are not running on Nov. 3 to retain their seats.
The proposed expansion would bring the total number of rooms at the resort to 176. The DiamondHead Beach Resort, a beachfront hotel at 2000 Estero Boulevard, is located next to Surf Song Condominium Association. Surf Song owners had opposed the original plans and had legal counsel at this month’s hearing, as well as Monday’s meeting.
At the Oct. 5 meeting, McLean said he believed the project should go back to the LPA due to the updated renderings and drawings, along with objections raised by Surf Song in the last week following the changes presented.
Link said she felt town staff needed more time to review the changes.
The project originally received approvals for up to 154 units in two phases from Lee County in 1994, and the plans were later amended after the Town of Fort Myers Beach was incorporated. The 11-story hotel currently has 122 rooms.
DiamondHead Beach Resort. Photo by Nathan Mayberg
DiamondHead Beach Resort General Manager Neil Hopgood said the new plans eliminate the tower that was proposed, and instead add on the rooms into the east and west sides of the existing building. Neighbors had expressed opposition to the originally proposed tower at a Local Planning Agency meeting, over its block of views.
Hopgood said the updated plan “represents a meaningful step forward-addressing the concerns that have been raised while allowing DiamondHead to continue investing in and enhancing the property, introducing additional amenities, and maintaining our ability to remain competitive in the market.”
Hopgood said he expects to find out on Nov. 16 with a new vote on whether the new Town Council will send the project back to the LPA or give the hotel’s representatives a first hearing on the new plans. “We support either direction,” Hopgood said. “Plans have not changed on what we planned to present to Town Council on Oct. 5 but we are interested to hear the outcome of the LPA’s public benefits discussion (Tuesday) afternoon.”
The Fort Myers Beach LPA was expected to take up a discussion on defining public benefits yesterday. The term is a crucial word developers are expected to offer the town in exchange for deviations from the town code for their projects. The term has been the subject of much scrutiny over the years regarding various projects, and came up at the LPA meeting where the board voted against recommendation of the DiamondHead Beach Resort’s plans. Hopgood asked the LPA to define public benefit at the meeting, a question the board members had trouble answering.
Fort Myers Beach Local Planning Agency Chair Anita Cereceda said she wants the Town Council to more clearly define public benefit. “Public benefits is a tool to allow a developer and the town to be able to negotiate mutual benefits,” Cereceda said. “We can close this loophole by carefully defining the parameters. This will allow both parties to obtain something not provided for in the Land Development Code.”
Cereceda said the Town Council needs to adopt a definition and likely an ordinance to clarify public benefit. Cereceda said she was expecting the LPA to forward a draft ordinance on public benefit to the council for discussion and approval. “It’s essential that residents and developers of commercial property understand what the rules are and that they are clear, concise and reflect the community’s needs,” Cereceda said.
Cereceda, who voted against the London Bay and Seagate projects, said a public benefit “also needs to be differentiated from an amenity. A restaurant or tiki bar for example are not public benefits but rather amenities included in a project. Public benefits should be perpetual in nature and proportionate to the request. A public benefit should serve a public purpose.”
The issue of public benefit was a central question in the court case involving the approvals given to the Margaritaville Beach Resort, where the term “exceptional circumstances” were cited by Margaritaville’s attorneys from the town’s Comprehensive Plan in allowing them breaks from the town’s land development code.
While the DiamondHead Beach Resort is still seeking approvals for its projects, just last month the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council granted nearly a dozen deviations for a new TPI hotel a few blocks down the road where the former Silver Sands cottages stood. That project received a height deviation from the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council to allow up to six stories and a 60-room hotel by a unanimous vote, over the objections of neighbors concerned about traffic and the encroachment on their residential neighborhood. The Town of Fort Myers Beach Council’s vote to approve that hotel followed a unanimous voted by the LPA to also approve TPI’s resort, known as One Particular Harbour. TPI also developed the Margaritaville Beach Resort.