Issues That Never Go Away Part II: The Gulf Beach Highway Dollar General Fight

In a horror show you never really, fully dispatch the monster.  They just keep coming back (Like Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series of films, above).  Some issues we deal with (Issues, not people) are eerily reminiscent of this trope...

As discussed in Part I----Some issues with which we must contend are not unlike the horror show (s).  You never really kill the monster, it just keeps coming back.  In the case of Jason Voorhees from the 12-movie franchise Friday the 13th----he dies but always comes back.....sometimes in the same movie, frequently also in a follow-on movie.  You can NEVER really kill the horror show monster, there is always doubt and it can always come back.  This is similar to some ISSUES we face as a county commission.

I'm talking issues, NOT (necessarily) People

Over and over.  The same issues. That never get dispatched.

One issue of extreme consternation and gnashing of teeth that keeps coming back is the proposed "Dollar General" discount store that is/was planned for Gulf Beach highway in District 2.  The developers and staff have gone back and forth, round and round.  Residents don't want it, and the plan was denied.

But then the denial was appealed.  Then it went to court.  Staff and the petitioners have dueling beliefs about whether or not this proposed development conforms with county planning and zoning ordinances....I wonder what the citizen activists lauded in the paper today think about this particular case?  We know how the commissioner from that district feels about this from his public statements on the dais on this issue.  But I wonder who is right here, according to these citizen activist planners that the PNJ think are worthy of a Nobel Prize? Dollar General and the petitioners-- or the County's BOA?

Who cares what they think--it's a rhetorical question.

And it doesn't matter as of Friday and the judge's new order in this case.

Because just this past Friday  the Circuit Court Judge in the case, Judge Jeffrey Burns, issued a scathing order demanding the Board of Adjustment re-hear the case with no new evidence injected.  If not done precisely in this manner, according to the order,  the county could be in direct contempt.  Yikes!  Trouble........

Read the ten page order below, for yourself..

Arm-Wrestling over the Construction of a Dollar General on Gulf Beach Highway

It will be interesting to see which way the circuit court rules on the county's decision about the construction of a Dollar General on Gulf  Beach Hwy....

The group representing potential buyers of a parcel of property on Gulf Beach Highway are not giving up.  They are not giving up on their quest to build a Dollar General store in this part of the county where they felt it was appropriate and permitted under the county's land development code.

The problem for this group of would-be developers is/was that the planning board and county staff recommended that this property not be approved for a Dollar General store, utilizing the "locational criteria" --and the opinion that this development did not meet that criteria-- as their rationale for denying the permit.

So the petitioner next went to the Board of Adjustment (BOA).  The BOA heard additional testimony from county staff and held a hearing--where they ruled in favor of the county to uphold the denial of the permit for the Dollar General at this particular location.

After the BOA decision, the petitioners filed a motion in Circuit Court to compel the BCC to capitulate.  Shortly after the filing--the petitioners "froze" this filing and moved forward with an attempt at an alternative land use dispute process for coming up with a solution.

This did not work.

So the petitioners are now back in Circuit Court after "un-freezing" their filing because this additional state-sanctioned mediation between the parties failed to reach an amicable compromise.

County staff attorney Charlie Peppler wrote the county's response to the court filing by the petitioners.

It is an interesting read.  

I wonder who wins this arm-wrestling match?  Will it end up like Eager Beaver or some of the concrete crushing operations---or---did the county get it right when the permit was denied initially?

We'll see when the Judge rules on this case.