PANAMA CITY — A new proposal to develop a 31-unit senior affordable housing complex at the site of the Marie Hotel hit opposition Monday when the Panama City Planning Board declined to even take a vote.
Board members decided not to second the only motion on the table and let it die.
“We didn’t make one,” Planning Board member Mary Sittman said of a decision.
Sittman was the board member who outwardly questioned the new development order, specifically whether the recommendation made by consulting attorney David Theriaque should continue to apply to this order. Theriaque’s expertise was effectively used to shoot down the proposal of 44 units for the property back in September.
Developer Royal American’s attorney Derrick Bennett read the letter from Theriaque. It specifically referred to the piece of property across two rights of way on at Luverne Avenue and Fifth Street. The Marie is situated at 490 Harrison Ave., at the corner of Harrison and Fifth, situated on a quarter of an acre. To fit the specified 31 units on the property, 1.04 acres provided with the parcel across Fifth would be required.
“It’s the separation of two right of ways that’s the issue,” Bennett said.
He then went on to give the example of Panama Commons where the property was bisected by East 10th Court and the City Commission refused to abandon the street with a vote of 3-2. In that instance, the units were split between two locations. The 31 unit Marie would be four stories, with commercial space on the bottom floor.
Sittman thought the comparison between the Marie and Panama Commons was not necessarily apt.
“I would like to see both sides of this correspondence,” Sittman said.
The board was planning to not even make a motion. But Chairman Ray Dubuque made a motion to approve the order even though he had excused himself from a vote because he serves on the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, which Royal American will have to appear before to receive tax credits for the low-income, senior housing complex they want to build.
“It defies common sense,” board member Waylon Graham said about Dubuque’s motion.
City Attorney Nevin Zimmerman decreed that a motion was acceptable from an abstaining member. Still, the motion languished in the silence of the other members.
“Not making a motion on the project is a decision by the board,” Graham said.
The official decision is a denial. The development order will go before the CRA Board and the City Commission Dec. 16; both boards are composed of city commissioners.
City Commissioner John Kady, who has been against additional affordable housing in the city, was in attendance. He believes the CRA meeting, to be held before the commission meeting, will actually be more important to the commission approval or denial of the order.
“CRA approval is required,” Kady said.
The CRA board voted against the initial 44-unit plan 3-2 in a confusing tally Mayor Greg Brudnicki was trying to make sense of days later. Kady’s key point at the time, a point he reiterated Monday, is that the CRA requires a mix of different types of housing in the downtown area.
However, Kady was interested in another element discussed at the meeting Monday. Dubuque asked Bennett if the project would be economically viable for Royal American with only 31 units. Bennett responded that line of questioning is not in the purview of the Planning Board or City Commission.
“That’s something the CRA Board can consider,” Kady said.
Kady added that a denial of a development order is in the public interest, stating most of the voices he hears from are against the Marie Hotel plan.
“Our prerogative is not to stop something, it’s to follow our public obligation,” he said.
In other business, the planning board:
-Approved rezoning 10 properties on Tupelo Drive to residential because all the properties are single family homes.
-Approved the rezoning, land use amendment and abandonment of city right of way at the corner of Bus. Hwy. 98 and Cactus Avenue. Owner G.M. Hobbes plans 19 duplexes and a storage unit for the property.