Lee County wrote its own zoning waiver for Community Center parking parking
Movie theater comparison used in explanation
Editor’s note: In the process of reviewing documents ahead of the season, and changed parking rules, the Beacon discovered some differences in procedure for the Boca Grande Health Clinic and Community Center construction projects. The following is a brief explanation.
This spring saw the possibility of drastic parking changes in Boca Grande, including instituting paid hourly parking limits, and cutting off public beach access parking entirely to non-residents. This comes at a time when both the Boca Grande Health Clinic and the Community Center are in the midst of major building expansions.
Currently the Boca Grande Health Clinic is going through a two-year process for a variance from the Lee County Land Development Code to allow for a reduction in parking, which currently requires 60 spaces.
The Clinic applied for a variance on Jan. 31, 2023, and is still in discussions.
In the midst of this process, Lee County Parks & Recreation wrote itself a waiver, so it did not have to apply for a variance for the expansion of the center, which includes a new, 240-seat theater.
The ability to write a waiver eliminated any variance process. The county applied for the waiver May 16, 2024, and won an exception by July 12, 2024. The county held a public meeting on May 20, 2024.
The full Board of County Commissioners approved the Community Center project on June 18. During commissioner approval, Facilities & Construction Management had reported that they reviewed the proposal and issued an approval to proceed, and the County Attorney’s Office had also reviewed the Development Agreement for legal sufficiency.
The regulations of Lee County require an extensive bit of legwork for a variance, including notification of nearby property owners, disclosures of interest, affidavits, water and sewer surveys, reasons for variance, variance criteria, site plan and other matters.
The waiver document appears in the online case documentation for the project.
The explanation, submitted by Mack Young, the director of Lee Parks & Recreation, discussed the details of the Community Center redevelopment. It read, “The applicant is proposing the redevelopment of a 3.91-acre parcel in Lee County that will consist of demolishing an existing 200-seat auditorium building, constructions of a new 242-seat auditorium building, building additions throughout the site, new decking and associated stormwater and utility infrastructure.” It goes on to say that the design, “Does not propose to modify any of the existing access points to the property. The project does propose a compacted shell driveway on Park Avenue to an onsite golf cart parking lot.”
It includes information from a trip generation planner’s reference to make the case for the waiver, using statistics regarding a movie theater. The document read, “Since there are no land use codes in the “ITE Trip Generation” manual that match the description of an auditorium, LUC445 was selected since it most closely resembles the proposed use.”
The comparison estimates 74 weekday trips, 12 Friday trips and 13 Saturday trips to the location.
The exception reads:
“The net new trip generation realized by the new auditorium building on the surrounding roadway network is negligible and will not pose any adverse impacts to the existing flow of traffic. Therefore, we believe that the request for a waiver to submit a formal Traffic Impact Statement be approved.”
There is a missing element, and incorrect element in the waiver document. In fact, the current 200-seat building will not be “demolished.” Instead, it will be renovated into a multi-purpose space, and will be used for all manner of events, including black box theater.
The document is at Bocabeacon.com/parking.
