4 hotels (300 rooms) potentially built in SoWal with no beach access

[Smiling JOe]

Pastels Conceptual PUD, once known as Terra Villa PUD, is going before the WalCo Board of County Commissioners on Nov 27 (Defuniak Springs). It cruised by the Planning Dept with approval. If you have any concerns regarding it, please email all five County Commissioners addressing the problems, or go to the meeting and speak up.

Pastels is planned to be built at the NW corner of Hwy 98 and Hwy 393. The property consists of four lots, and potentially gives them the ability to build four 75 unit hotels, in addition to many other things, like apartments. They also plan for a grocery, pharmacy, restaurant, general office space, medical office, and general retail. What is the big deal you might ask? The big deal is that the closest public access to the beach for the people staying in the hotel, will be Ed Walline Park, located at the south end of Hwy 393, across from Gulf Place. The existing parking at that access is so limited that the County is currently leasing the land across the street (formerly Capo's) during the tourist season for additional parking, and it too, gets filled, and people end up parking along the roadside of 30A, which is a hazard to everyone in that area. The Planning Commission refuses to deal with issues like beach parking when considering these developments, and the County Commissioners typically approve everything which the Planning Commission recommends for approval. HELLO! We have a major parking/transportation problem and this project will add to it if it goes through as planned. In addition to something like 228 apartments, they could have 300 hotel rooms. On the big weekends in the summer, if they sell all of the rooms, we could see an additional 250 cars trying to find a parking place at Ed Walline Park, which has about 30 parking spaces.

Please email all of the County Commissioners and ask them to address this issue when considering "Pastels Conceptual PUD."

BlueMtnBeachVagrant, I expect you to jump in on this one.

 

[Matt J]

I'm not disagreeing, but I don't see the parking as an issue. Assuming 300 hotels room and only 2 people per room, that's 600 people. I would think to keep it viable they would probably use a shuttle bus/van. This then becomes the issue of 600 additional people crowded onto the beach in front of the beach access. I'm sure the surrounding developments will very quickly employee the rent-a-cop approach.

 

[wrobert]

Pastels Conceptual PUD, once known as Terra Villa PUD, is going before the WalCo Board of County Commissioners on Nov 27 (Defuniak Springs). It cruised by the Planning Dept with approval. If you have any concerns regarding it, please email all five County Commissioners addressing the problems, or go to the meeting and speak up.

Pastels is planned to be built at the NW corner of Hwy 98 and Hwy 393. The property consists of four lots, and potentially gives them the ability to build four 75 unit hotels, in addition to many other things, like apartments. They also plan for a grocery, pharmacy, restaurant, general office space, medical office, and general retail. What is the big deal you might ask? The big deal is that the closest public access to the beach for the people staying in the hotel, will be Ed Walline Park, located at the south end of Hwy 393, across from Gulf Place. The existing parking at that access is so limited that the County is currently leasing the land across the street (formerly Capo's) during the tourist season for additional parking, and it too, gets filled, and people end up parking along the roadside of 30A, which is a hazard to everyone in that area. The Planning Commission refuses to deal with issues like beach parking when considering these developments, and the County Commissioners typically approve everything which the Planning Commission recommends for approval. HELLO! We have a major parking/transportation problem and this project will add to it if it goes through as planned. In addition to something like 228 apartments, they could have 300 hotel rooms. On the big weekends in the summer, if they sell all of the rooms, we could see an additional 250 cars trying to find a parking place at Ed Walline Park, which has about 30 parking spaces.
BlueMtnBeachVagrant, I expect you to jump in on this one.

I make these comments because I am trying to get a better understanding of what the thinking is on this stuff. So you are against any more developement that could lead to more people going to the beach in SoWal? Every hotel room will be occupied by someone whose sole purpose is to go to the beach? The WCTA has a non scientific analysis of the use of that parking lot here, http://www.waltontaxpayers.org/30-A Parking Lot.htm, and it does not appear that parking was much of a problem after it got opened. No one seemed to be using it. Is that because no one suddenly was going to the beach after July 13th?

I will give you this, Ed Walline does fill up at times. Since the State of Florida owns so much land around here, you have to wonder why they do not do more to allow parking and public access to those places.

 

[Smiling JOe]

No, I am not "against any more developement that could lead to more people going to the beach in SoWal." What I'm against is the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners conveniently forgetting about our need for parking at Public Beach Accesses and forgetting that we, the County, should be thinking about some system of public transportation prior to approving new off-beach developments. You need to keep in mind that the existing lots of record in SoWal are not even close to being built out. Once these get built, it will be too late to reverse things. The County doesn't require that developments consider what the future holds when the existing lots are built upon and the impact they will have on our services and beaches.

For the record, the additional parking leased across from Ed Walline Park is only leased and could be sold at anytime, leaving the County and beach goers screwed again.

 

[Smiling JOe]

WaltonGOP, I just read the link provided, and see that the unscientific survey taken by the group was conducted by going to the parking lot only once a day anytime between 11am and 1130am. That is hardly evidence for actual usage. As for keeping taxes and wasteful spending down, I'm all for it, if safety and services are not sacrificed. If the County spends only $200 per day to try and create a safer parking place, that is much cheaper than the cost of one life which may be saved by doing so. Get the WCTA to get real stats on peak usage, because that is really what matters, and I'll take another look. ;-)

One other note regarding the WCTA link, you should probably inform the person in charge of it that they are in copy write violation, using the phrase, "We report, you decide," which belongs to Fox News.

 

[Scooter]

Don't we have enough hotel rooms in Destin?

 

[Smiling JOe]

Let me further clarify and state that I'm not against hotel rooms in SoWal (east of Sandestin). In fact, for people who cannot afford a week's stay in a house, a few hotels might be a good thing, especially off-beach hotels which could provide less expensive rooms than beach hotels. >>> Beach parking needs to be considered as much a part of infrastructure as the parking lot at the off beach hotels.

 

[seacrestkristi]

Well, kind of makes me think about The Seacrest Inn on the east end. Besides increasing beach traffic, it certainly doesn't help vacation rental homeowner's either or to maintain the 'quaintness' or 'down home' feeling sowal is revered for. Seems like there should be a limit to the number of units that can be crammed in to any sowal property. Is there no limit?

 

[Beach Runner]

In defense of the BCC (supported by recommendations from the Planning Department) they recently voted against a high-density condo development in the midst of our low-density, beachfront neighborhood. One of the many arguments against it was parking -- the developer only allowed two spaces for each huge unit (over 3000 square feet each) and had no room for overflow parking. This just wouldn't work. I know from experience because in our neighborhood, groups frequently rent one beachfront place, everyone else in the group rents a less expensive place away from the beach, and then they all spend the day at the beachfront place, filling our privately owned and maintained road with cars, and that's with each residence having enough parking for at least 5 cars. The BCC understood that there was absolutely no room for overflow parking at the proposed development. That was one of a long list of reasons that the BCC voted against this development.

People come to the beach to go to the beach. They would stay at the proposed hotel because it's a less expensive way to acquire accommodations near the beach. Highway 30-A and the beaches of South Walton just can't support any more large developments -- the infrastructure isn't there, in particular, Highway 30-A can't support the traffic from all of these high-density developments, not to mention there not being enough beach accesses and parking for use by the hoards of people staying at these large developments.

If we want the Thirty-A area to become another Destin, let's sit on our hands and let it happen. If we don't speak out against these high-density developments, it is more likely that the BCC will vote for them. Even if you can't attend the meetings, it's easy enough to fire off an email. Note: everything you send becomes public record, so don't email them with a half-baked idea -- it might hurt your cause more than help it.

Here's the list of whom to contact:

Pat Blackshear, Planning and Development Services Director
Walton County Planning & Development Services
31 Coastal Center Blvd, Ste 130
Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459
Telephone: (850) 267-1955
Fax: (850) 622-9133
blapat@co.walton.fl.us

District 1:
Scott Brannon
19367 U.S. Hwy 331 S
Freeport, FL 32439
Tel: (850) 835-4860
Fax: (850) 835-4836
E-mail: brascott@co.walton.fl.us

District 2:
Kenneth Pridgen
17400 State Highway 83 North
DeFuniak Springs, FL 32433
Phone: (850) 834-6328
Fax: (850) 834-6385
Email: prikenneth@co.walton.fl.us

District 3:
Larry Jones
1483 County Highway 1087
DeFuniak Springs, FL. 32435
Phone: (850) 892-8474
Fax: (850)892-8475
e-mail: jonlarry@co.walton.fl.us

District 4:
Sara Comander
(850) 835-4834.
417 Highway 20 East
Freeport, FL 32439
Email: comsara@co.walton.fl.us

District 5:
Cindy Meadows
90 Spires Lane, Unit 7-A
Santa Rosa Beach, FL. 32459
Phone: (850) 622-3059
Fax: (850) 622-3067
e-mail: meacindy@co.walton.fl.us

 

[Smiling JOe]

Seems like there should be a limit to the number of units that can be crammed in to any sowal property. Is there no limit?

I believe property zoned as VMU (village mixed use) allows for a maximum of 75 hotel rooms per lot. Pastels Conceptual PUD consists of 4 VMU lots of record.