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PO Box 1212 Tampa, FL 33601 Pinellas Updated March 2006
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Rezoning Refused For Condo Proposal
BAYSHORE GARDENS - It seems there won't be a view from The View.
The city council refused to rezone 2 ½ acres at Bay to Bay Boulevard and Ysabella Avenue for the proposed 84-unit, 300-foot condominium tower.
"No matter what you say, it is too high," Councilwoman Mary Alvarez told developer Satish Lathi, of Southeast Capital Partnership. "It is not compatible with the neighborhood."
Lathi said a 115-foot, 100,000-square-foot office building will go up instead. The office plans were approved 20 years ago and updated last year.
Lathi said The View was proposed as an alternative. Its plans included $50,000 in traffic improvements at Bay to Bay and Bayshore boulevards, stops signs and crosswalks at Ysabella and Barcelona Street, and new sidewalks and landscaping.
The office plans include none of those upgrades.
"We were trying to make a deal and do something the neighbors were in favor of," Lathi said.
Vicki Pollyea, president of the Bayshore Gardens neighborhood group, said residents preferred the condo tower over the office building because it would generate less traffic.
"It's a tall building, but it's only 84 units," Pollyea told the council last week. "We have a developer who gave us everything we asked for, except to make the building shorter. That's a pretty good deal."
Other neighbors disagreed, saying any development there would add traffic to streets plagued by cut-through traffic from Bayshore.
Council members suggested limiting the condo tower to 200 feet and fewer units.
Lathi said that isn't possible.
"The property was purchased to develop, not to hold," he said. "Something's going to happen, one way or another."
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