A little-used Brevard County density policy for the South Beaches area has shut the oven door on a Melbourne couple’s controversial plan to build a home with a walk-up bakery.
“We won!” Melbourne Shores resident Theresa Hennessey announced last month in an email to the Melbourne Beachsider.
“We are getting more info from (county planners) about how this happened.”
Hennessey was among a handful of prospective neighbors who objected to a plan by Tony Andrade and Nestle “Lian” Larracas to build a two-story home, with a first-floor bakery, on a 0.18-acre lot covered with tangled trees and vines on the west side of State Road A1A, between Flamingo and Cardinal drives.
The couple were scheduled Feb. 7 to seek the County Commission’s approval of a rezoning and a change in the county Comprehensive Plan to allow the mixed uses on their lot.
Hennessey and her neighbors had argued the proposal would have set a precedent that could have encouraged other landowners to seek increased densities, allowing larger businesses and condominiums into their neighborhood of single-family homes.
But commissioners never got to hear the bakery case. Andrade and Larracas withdrew it the day before, after county planners had discovered a Comprehensive Plan policy limiting new land-use density from that part of the South Beaches.
“Brevard County shall not increase residential density designations for properties located on the barrier island between the southern boundary of Melbourne Beach and the Sebastian Inlet,” reads Policy 7.1 on the county’s land-use plan.
County Planning and Development Director Tad Calkins said his staff typically identifies all possible legal obstacles before applicants file formal rezoning applications. But it had been years since planners worked with proposals for the South Beaches.
“Unfortunately, for the applicants, we have not processed an application requesting a density increase (1 unit per acre to 6 units to the acre) in the South Beaches in many years, and we are not perfect, and it was not discovered until the final hour,” he said.
County Planning and Zoning Manager Erin Sterk informed the bakery couple about the discovery in time for them to withdraw their application.
“This is sad news since we have gained much support from small business owners and even locals in the area,” the couple responded in an email.
Andrade and Larracas couldn’t be reached, however, to say what they plan to do next.
Neighbors have said they would welcome a new house, without the bakery, but the couple has told planners they wouldn’t be interested in a home or bakery without the other part. They had hoped to use the bakery for retirement income.