SEBASTIAN — After being booed and insulted by the audience and denied a special use permit recommendation by the board at last November’s Planning and Zoning meeting, backers of a proposed luxury RV resort at Chesser’s Gap found support from City staff and City Council Wednesday.
The still-contentious topic took up about half of the 4-hour City Council meeting, before the 4-1 vote to grant the permit kept the project alive and put Plan B – affordable housing – back on the shelf.
On behalf of the project promoters – property owner and Miami real estate CEO Tarek Kirschen, local developer Dr. Henry Fischer, and local broker John King – project agent Todd Howder, and Sebastian attorney Warren Dill made the same presentation to the Council they had previously, and unsuccessfully made to the P&Z, with a few updates based on concerns voiced at that time.
These included property values, safety, traffic issues, the behavior of “transients,” owners renting to others, noise and general quality of life.
Howder also presented a traffic study conducted by the Institute of Traffic Engineers (used by cities and counties nationwide), which showed that daily trips with the RV park use (296), was 59 percent lower than it would be if affordable-housing townhomes were constructed instead; and a full 90 percent reduction from per-day trips if the multi-family and commercial mixed use already zoned for, were to go in.
Councilman Bob McPartlan had requested Sebastian Police Chief Michele Morris to provide data, covering a 3-year period – 2012, 2013 and 2014 – on calls to police from residents of RV parks compared to calls from a low-incoming housing community.
The report showed far fewer over-all calls from the RV parks (an RV Park in Sebastian and the Class A RV Resort in Port St. Lucie) and in a Sebastian low-income housing community.
The RV parks ranged from 51 to 314 calls, mostly medical or traffic issues and no major crimes; while the Sebastian low-income housing community logged 1,527 calls, including 94 for crimes.
To discuss the possible negative impact on property values, the project developer had enlisted the services of an “expert witness,” Peter Armfield, a professional real estate appraiser with 35 years’ experience in Vero Beach, Sebastian and Indian River County.
Armfield conducted an extensive study, and gave several local examples in which residents of upscale communities lived in proximity to less expensive neighborhoods without experiencing a negative impact on their property’s market value. He described the Luxury RV Resort plan as “well-designed and well buffered,” and stated his professional opinion that the RV Resort “will not result in a detrimental influence on property values.”
Project opponents, who made up most of the large audience, again spoke of their concerns, this time tightly controlled by Mayor Richard Gillmor, who put a stop to applause after the initial outburst. Gillmor also insisted individuals stick to specific reasons for their opposition and not repeat points already made.
The audience was assured time again that virtually all of their concerns would be addressed when the site plan comes before Council for approval, at which time the Council could place any number of conditions on it.
Councilman Jim Hill moved to approve with conditions, and reiterated “I think (any remaining) concerns will be dealt with in the site plan review.”
The vote was 4-1, with Vice-Mayor Jerome Adams voting no, based on his concerns over damage to roads by the RVs, safety and noise pollution issues.
Councilwoman Andrea Coy, holding up a snapshot of her own RV, expressed dismay and disappointment that some opponents of the project have characterized RVers as “different than you. But you are the same. There are thousands of them. They pay their bills. To characterize them as less is an affront to me. Another issue is your lack of trust that we will hold them (the park developers) accountable. I’ll stay on them and be up their butt. With the special use permit we have the latitude. If Lowe’s came in there (and they were looking at it seriously) we couldn’t do a gosh darn thing.”
Those on both sides of the issue took their leave at 10 p.m. After handshakes all round, the developers drove off to work on the site plan. When finalized, it will come back before the Council for further scrutiny.