News from Silver Sands Beach and Racquet Club
(See end of article for the Response to the Silver Sands Report)
A walled and security-gated complex of 300 units in three Gulf front buildings, “Silver Sands” is one of the nicest condominium communities in St. Pete Beach. It was built on a site that used to house the “Aquatarium”, an attraction and rehabilitation center similar to the one in Clearwater recently made famous by a tailless dolphin.
Silver Sands has become infamous to many residents of St. Pete Beach lately, due to a double penthouse resident in the middle building, Bill Pyle, leader of a band of litigious individuals who have wasted almost a million dollars of St. Pete Beach’s money on frivolous law suits about the city’s comprehensive plan.. Bill Pyle has managed to keep himself in power as head of his building’s Board of Directors, but a recent meeting of he and his neighbors indicates the balance of power is shifting like the sands at Upham Beach. A report of that meeting can be found under its name “The Duel at Silver Sands”.
Also attached are copies of emails and letters from various public leaders about the meeting and issues discussed at the meeting, as well as a letter from attorneys for owners of the Hotel (PCI) next door to Silver Sands which was read aloud by Mayor Steve McFarlin to the entire city commission and television viewing audience months ago.
DUEL AT THE SILVER SANDS
By Michael Lehman
Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations. George Crabbe, Poet
It was a rainy day on the beach.
Under dark skies, more than 60 Silver Sands Beach and Racquet Club residents dodged raindrops to gather in the Clubhouse for a good old-fashioned community meeting. Resident Paul Cuticchia organized the meeting and paid for the room for one simple reason, to determine the truth about the state of the city and its intentions for their little corner of Paradise.
Like other cities throughout Florida, St. Pete Beach has a Comprehensive Plan. The plan contains the policies, goals and objectives that, taken together, guide development within the city. It describes what the city aspires to be. It is a weighty tome, nearly 200 pages, and not what most readers would consider a page-turner. Perhaps due to the plan’s ability to induce sleep for even the most advanced insomniacs, many people rely on the reporting, opinions and conclusions of others. There-in resides the rub and the ruse.
What is and what is not true? What does the plan allow and where does it allow it?
Mr. Cuticchia wanted the answers straight from the people who know. He introduced his featured guests, George Kinney, the city’s Community Development Director, and District 2 Commissioner Jim Parent, who represents the Silver Sands’ residents on the City Commission. Later in the program, Mayor Steve McFarlin would trade places with Commissioner Parent, an arrangement designed to keep them separate lest they be accused of violating Florida Sunshine Laws.
Which directs our attention to one reason, perhaps the reason, residents bristled with an annoyed urgency to find answers upon which they could rely. His name is Bill Pyle, but he likes to be called “Dr. Pyle.” He is a resident of Silver Sands, a next door neighbor to Paul Cuticchia, but he lives in the rarified world of a masked crusader bent on uncovering the evil deeds of city government and deep-pocketed developers. He is a suspicious man, who, as Mayor McFarlin suggested, “has a fragile grasp of the facts.”
Dr. Pyle appears to believe his suspicions are true long after they have been discredited, and suspicion, it seems, is an open door for deception. So, he persists in marching out the same tired accusations to anyone who will listen. No one was listening to Dr. Pyle in the Club House at the Silver Sands. On several occasions he was interrupted and in so many words told to sit down and shut up, once to a round of applause. Residents wanted to hear what the city had to say.
Dr. Pyle claims the city has plans to build a boardwalk behind the Silver Sands and other beach properties. A resident who is opposed to the idea asked if it were true. Commissioner Parent says no, there are no plans to build a boardwalk. He described a similar concept called a cord walk that was suggested in the city’s Master Plan for the Resorts/Commercial Districts that was published in 2003. It was conceived as part of a north to south dune restoration project, but is an idea that never gained traction.
Then there is the issue of the Post Card Inn, located directly to the south of Silver Sands, now owned by a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group Global LLC called St. Pete Partners LLC. In one of Dr. Pyle’s most dramatic repeat performances, he claims the owners have long conspired with local officials to develop the parcel to the likeness of a dog-eared artist’s rendering he waves above his head like a pistol angry at the sky, only it’s loaded with blanks. Commissioner Parent, who as a retired engineer has a fondness for accuracy in fact and detail, responds that the rendering is “naïve, out of scale, and impossible to build as drawn.” Later, Mayor McFarlin describes a letter to Dr. Pyle from an attorney for St. Pete Partners’ that he read at the February 8, 2011 city commission meeting (can be viewed at www.stpetebeach.org). The letter denies any truth to Pyle’s fantasy regarding the company’s development plans and directs him to cease from further tomfoolery. Yet, Pyle persists, and residents wince as we have this unfortunate performance imposed upon us twice again in the next 40 minutes.
Telling fantastical stories is one thing, filing lawsuits is quite another. Lawsuits have cost St. Pete Beach precious funds that could have been used to benefit the city rather than drain its resources, a whopping $1,361,209.00 as of mid-April and the meter is running. Dr. Pyle is a principal member of the gang of three that plays this reckless and self-indulgent game. Ken Weiss and James Anderson are his litigious co-conspirators. After years of redirecting city funds to legal defense, it remains that no one can explain what they wish to achieve. Mr. Cuticchia called the recent property tax increase the Pyle Tax. Pyle protested weakly then defaulted to waving, once again, the debunked rendering for the property next door.
If St. Pete Partners LLC does come forward with a development plan, what is the process for review? Community Development Director, George Kinney, described the process the city follows to review and approve or deny development orders. First, the developer would have to meet with the public to discuss plans, then, with the benefit of resident input, would submit plans for review to the city. Typically, plans are distributed to public works, community development, and the fire marshal for review and comments. The Community Development Director has authority in the code to request, and in some cases require, adjustments to design to make it more favorable to the community. There are public notice requirements for plans review and for any Board of Adjustment requests, so residents have an opportunity for further input. After all issues are resolved, and all fees are paid, including infrastructure concurrency, a development order is issued.
Mr. Cuticchia asked St. Pete Partners LLC to attend the meeting, and though they were unable to make it, their response was encouraging. In a follow-up letter to residents after the meeting, Mr. Cuticchia said, “they expressed their desire to address all our concerns including density, building heights and locations, shadow factoring and noise abatement. The foundation has now been set for Silver Sands owners to be part of the development process.”
Each city official urged residents to take advantage of city resources on the city’s website, www.stpetebeach.org, to become better informed. In this meeting, the city’s Comprehensive Plan remained a topic for future conversations. Plans of this nature are always an ongoing conversation, but for them to make sense, it is best to concentrate on what is real and not what is imagined. Evidence-based, factual information is the best antidote to deception.
Mr. Cuticchia then raised another Pyle fabrication conjured to stir fear into the hearts of residents; Casinos. That’s right, ya got trouble, with a capital C and that rhymes with P, but we’re not talking about pool, casinos are the reason we are building the new Bayway Bridge. Its purpose? To deliver hollow-eyed gamblers deep into the heart of paradise. Commissioner Parent said plans for the bridge had been on the shelf for years waiting for funds to become available and gambling was never part of the conversation. Pyle attempts to legitimize his contention that gambling is behind the bridge by a circuitous rambling of C-grade fiction. Mr. Cuticchia says Pyle “likes to ramble and send us down rabbit holes that don’t exist.”
And on it goes, Dr. Pyle swimming in a delusional sea of red herring as city officials netted them, gutted them and wrapped them neatly in the pages of old news. Mr. Cuticchia facilitated the discussion while up to his chin in red herring debris. He’d had enough and so, it seems, had a lot of other people.
Response from Jim Parent
I was asked to comment on a set of questions (with preamble) that was supposedly collecting information about our City’s Comprehensive Plan and its effects on the value of your homes.
It will be quite some time, especially in this economy, before our City’s Comp Plan begins to bear fruit, so to speak, and provides a boost in our property values but also improves our quality of life. Nevertheless, I applaud your efforts to seek out facts and to “closely monitor development at our City as the Commission is not standing still”. Very true, we (the commission) are attempting to provide revitalization to our Community and active participation by all our residents is a great thing.
The Court has upheld the comprehensive plan in three cases.
The court did, in two cases, find that the ballot language did not conform to state law because it was misleading. Bad ballot.
100 pages of amendments in a 200 page document distilled and condensed into a 75 word ballot summary.
No one has been able to demonstrate a 75 word ballot that summarizes the entire amendment; not our City, not the Judge, not those suing our City. Something will always be left out and those that choose to cripple our City will always be able to point to that item left out and call foul.
The technical complexity of the concept of a Comprehensive Plan is, in my opinion, an inherent problem with referendum (a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal) voting on complex technical amendments to Comprehensive Plans. Condensing the issue down into those 75 words is problematic as is the fact that the (in this case) municipality is bound to offer only facts to the electorate while opponents can weave a story of any magnitude, a lack of logic, and scant eye to truth.
The court also found that because the city had modified the plan after voter approval (to meet objections of the state reviewing agency which required changes) the city would have to have a second referendum on the adoption of the plan for it to be in effect. It is still unclear to me what would happen if the electorate voted no on such required changes. I’m not sure what other course we logically should have taken.
The court rejected all other challenges to the comprehensive plan.
Subsequently, the State Legislature changed the Florida State Law (and yes our City did lobby for this change) to make it unlawful for a city to have a referendum requirement for its Comprehensive Plan and/or Amendments to that Plan.
In addition and as part of the revision to the statewide program of growth management the State of Florida also made it unnecessary for a plan being readopted to be submitted to the state for review if the plan had already undergone such review and been upheld (as had St Pete Beach’s).
That state law was not a circumvention but simply made sense. Why should a plan such as St Pete Beach’s which has already undergone state review and been upheld both by the state land planning agency and the courts need to undergo that review once again when it is being readopted simply because its original voter approval has been declared invalid due to an impossible ballot language problem and it has now become unlawful to have such voter approval?
The circuit court ruled that the re-adoption was valid and our Comprehensive Plan, in its most current form, is in place and in use. That ruling is on appeal by a Mr. Jim Anderson.
Since we do not yet have the brief of the party appealing the case, we do not know what that party will allege on appeal, but the constitutionality of the statute authorizing the re-adoption without having an additional state review may be raised as may certain sunshine law issues.
Now to the three survey “questions” you requested that I comment about.
Please note that I will not speculate on future scenarios that may or may not come to pass and that my observations are based on my personal understanding of our Comp Plan and surrounding (State, County, Etc.) provisions.
I also will not respond to leading questions (when did you stop picking your nose?) which presuppose something bad (i.e. that you were picking your nose) and try to present it as fact when it is pure speculative propaganda intended to panic people.
1. The first “question” posed is “What is your opinion of the provision in the City’s Comprehensive Plan calling for building of a Public Boardwalk along the beach west of Silver Sands?
This is an example (poorly done) of a presupposition as propaganda.
There is no call for building a public boardwalk along the beach west of Silver Sands.
Our Comprehensive Plan has policies for three character districts (Large Resort, Boutique Hotel, and Downtown Redevelopment district) that notes that an easement for a boardwalk might be required by property redevelopers. If you are not redeveloping we cannot require an easement from you AND that policy only applies to the districts noted; Silver Sands is not in any of them.
2. The second “question” is: What is your opinion of the provision of City’s [sic] Comprehensive Plan allowing building south of silver sands to be build further out on the beach than buildings A, B & C.
Our city did eliminate our Coastal Construction Control line in favor of the State of Florida’s Coastal Construction Control Line Program, which is an essential element of Florida’s coastal management program.
The City could find no record of the scientific basis of our line creation and no plan to maintain it in an ongoing basis.
The CCCL provides protection for Florida’s beaches and dunes while assuring reasonable use of private property. Recognizing the value of the state’s beaches, the Florida legislature initiated the Coastal Construction Control Line Program to protect the coastal system from improperly sited and designed structures which can destabilize or destroy the beach and dune system.
Please note that regardless of the line, prohibitions to construction on sand dunes or on existing beach vegetation remains in place.
In total, about 2.3 total acres throughout our City were gained by properties due to this change. That is a total of about 2 football fields in area along our entire beach.
By far two properties gained the most. The Sirata hotel gained just about 1 of those acres and Silver Sands gained just about .76 acres.
In both cases any construction beyond the current configuration would be subject to environmental restrictions about building on sand or beach vegetation.
Note that Silver Sands pools no longer lie beyond any Coastal Construction Control Lines. They were built west of our City’s Coastal Construction Control Line (now eliminated) and stop just short of the State’s CCCL.
The PCI property gained about .25 acres but appears to already be built out to the sand. You may know more about that than I do. I believe it is unlikely that PCI would be permitted to build further west than their current structures due to encroachment on sand and vegetation.
Silver Sands could possibly build out to the State CCCL by moving the swimming pools to another location since there does not seem to be any sand or vegetation under the pools.
3. The third “question” is: What is your opinion of the provisions in our City’s Comprehensive Plan allowing 12 Story high rises to be built immediately south of Silver Sands which would block sunshine from reaching Building B and the south pool and also would impair our water view?
This question is another poor attempt to propagandize facts. It clearly assumes that a big building would be built and that the building would block sunshine from a building and a pool and impair views.
Could it? Yes. Will it? Without examination of plans and drawings it is impossible to determine the true impact. Should you want to minimize it? Probably. Is there potential for some unhappy people when a residential developer positions a residential development adjacent to a commercial property? Yes.Buildings as high as 146 feet (the actual restriction in our Comp Plan) may be built in the Large Resort area under certain circumstances. These circumstances are a likely possibility if the Post Card Inn property redevelops to its full potential. There are restrictions in place about setbacks and buffering including a 10 foot beach access which could be on either side of any large scale development. If not developed fully then a 7 foot beach access may be appropriate.It is unclear to me what the exact configuration of any development in the PCI property would entail; height, step-back on rise, fore and aft positioning, side to side positioning, etc.
Without seeing a building proposal I cannot comment with any certainty (and I will not speculate) about any possible shadowing. What I do know is that since I have been on the commission we have been very sensitive to commercial development adjacent to residential areas and always strive to minimize any impact as much as possible.
As an engineer I am a champion of logic and facts as opposed to speculation and guesses. I can get copies of our actual Comprehensive Plan to anyone (you can access a searchable version of it at: http://www.stpetebeach.org/images/stories/community-department/pdfs/compplancorrectedforweb.pdf).
I also continue to offer to come (with appropriate knowledgeable City Staff members) and speak to owners groups or small interested groups or individuals whenever possible to keep people informed of any plans near your homes.
I also encourage everyone to follow our City’s progress in person or electronically and if you would like to subscribe to my roughly weekly Community update newsletter send me an email at j.parent@stpetebeach.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will add you to the distribution list.
As a trustee of the City I think it is my duty to find ways to make our City better for all of us and I firmly believe that all of us together are smarter than any one of us. If you think I’ve made a mistake or have something wrong let me know.
I’d like to close by stating that I am overwhelmed by your confidence in me as I begin my third, unopposed, term. I try to consider all input, I try to get information back out via my website, email newsletter, and face to face discussions and I take my responsibility as a trustee of our community extremely seriously.
As a Mechanical Engineer for critical care medical products for over 30 years along with multi-national business experience I try to apply the principles of logic, analysis, ethical behavior, and focus to all that I do. Please contact me at j.parent@StPeteBeach.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you have questions. Thank you for your time.
OTHER COMMENTS:
Dear Paul,
I wanted to thank you again for inviting me to your Silver Sands meeting. It for reasons unknown to me. For this reason I feel obligated to make myself and the appropriate City staff members available to answer any and all questions and concerns your residents have concerning City business or proposals in the works. I assure you that if any questions are presented that I cannot answer with the utmost confidence, I will put every effort forth in obtaining all the facts involved and respond in a timely manner. It’s time our residents enjoy their lives and not be misguided by unsubstantiated statements put out by an extreme conspiracy theorist searching for some type of empowerment.
So please feel free to contact me at anytime concerning any issues and I would be more than happy to attend any gatherings your residents request.
My contact information is e-mail address MAYOR@stpetebeach.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone is 727-363-9261 ext.500
Please feel free to pass this info onto your fellow residents.
– Sincerely, Steve McFarlin – Mayor of St. Pete Beach
Paul:
As a member of the boards of directors both for the C building and the master board of the Silver Sands complex, I would like to thank you for providing a forum to dispel the many untruths circulating through complex causing dismay with many of the present residents and ultimately devaluing our homestead. Having both our city Commissioner, Zoning administrator, Mayor and our Police representative has answered many of the circulating questions. Again, I and the attendees have learned a great deal about our city and its workings thanks to your initiative.
– Ron Leach
Date: 04/17/13
The above comments do not reflect the views of Paradise News publishing and are strictly the views of the writers.
Response to the Silver Sands Report
