Hidden Provision of SB 360 and the Gulfstream Hotel

Tomorrow, the City Commission will be meeting at 5:30 p.m. to hear yet another appeal by Charles Celi of the Historic Preservation Resource Board decision to extend the Certificate of Appropriateness approval for the historic hotel property. I am not going to go into the details of the dates, what the approval was for or any of the multiple and nonsensical arguments that Mr. Celi continues to make before the City Commission. I actually pity them for having to repeatedly hear the percieved items that were somehow overlooked by the HRPB in the decision making process.

However, we may be spared in that there is a provision in SB 360, recently signed into law by Governor Crist, that allows for a blanket two-year extension of all development orders issued by local governments. Click here for applicable passage from SB 360 and notes from the committee that put the bill together.

By the way, as I have stated before, I think that SB 360 is bad legislation that wrongfully identifies non-urban areas as urban and severely weakens traffic concurrency requirements. But, the law is the law and this is a case where state law would prevail. My point is that Mr. Celi's appeal is moot now due to this blanket statewide time extension. He should not be wasting the time of the Commission and city staff with this matter - again, some more.