Planning Commission moves allowance of miniature golf forward to City Council
The Sanibel Planning Commission gave a nod of approval to move the allowance of miniature golf as a conditional use in the General Commercial zoning district forward to the City Council during its meeting last week.
Planning Director Paula McMichael said the consideration of a resolution to adopt an ordinance amending the Code of Ordinances to allow miniature golf as a conditional use in the General Commercial District zoning district began with a request from City Council to direct the Planning Commission to add miniature golf for allowable land use for the development code.
“The request was made on behalf of the owners of Island Cow who are interested in developing a miniature golf course on their property at Periwinkle Way,” she said.
McMichael said there are 69 properties zoned General Commercial District, and 63 contain less than 2.5 acres.
The city worked with the applicant representatives to determine the definition of the use and minimum standards to apply for the use.
“It is a general code amendment, so it would apply to all 63 of those properties in the General Commercial District,” she said. “The planning commission would have the opportunity, once the permit has been submitted for a particular site, to add conditions to that particular site.”
Among the proposed code amendments include limiting the conditional use to the General Commercial District; allowing only as an accessory use; limiting the size of the parcel to a maximum of 2.5 acres; creating a location standard of not closer than 3.5 miles between courses; regulating vegetation buffers; lighting, noise, and signage per code; requiring an environmental assessment report as part of a request to reduce setbacks to an open body of water, prohibiting themed elements; establishing criteria to analyze traffic generation and parking demand; and treatment of human-made bodies of water.
There were two areas of disagreement, McMichael said, which included the setback for the open body of water and the second, calculation of commercial floor area.
Dana Dettmar, environmental biologist for Natural Resources, said there were two areas they did not agree with on the open body of water setback.
“A few years ago we did develop standards to allow an administrative waiver to an open body of water setback,” she said. “Without having to go to the Planning Commission, a development could encroach a body of water setback so long as they did some environmental enhancements to offset the impact for the encroachment.”
She said Island Cow provided renderings that showed development would occur around the entire open body of water.
“We felt that we needed to have some language specific to miniature golf courses. There is a potential that development could fully surround an open body of water and the minimum set back should be 10 feet for that to allow the expansion and contraction of the open body of water with the water table and rain fall events,” Dettmar said. “It would also allow the space for the shorelines to remain natural and have that area that transitions to an open body of water to where the developed area would be.”
The other point that was not agreed upon was the use of a physical barrier or retaining wall around the open body of water.
“With this it would allow a retaining wall to be placed around the entirety of the open body of water as an option of dealing with the setback encroachment,” she said. “You would only have the opportunity to plant on the landward side of the retaining water.”
The retaining wall could also become an entrapment issue for smaller animals.
“Staff’s recommendation is to remove the option for the physical barrier in the encroachment area, or come up with language to not fully encompass the open body of water,” Dettmar said. “Ideally, I think when you are going to have this great of an impact around the open body of water, we should be looking at a more natural option for the setback than a retaining wall. It should be limited to a portion of the shoreline and not around the entirety of the shoreline.”
The commission took a consensus to have a minimum setback of 10 feet to open water to allow the natural expansion and contraction of water levels. However, the planning commission may approve a lesser standard as part of the conditional use permit if justified by the environmental assessment report and site specific limitations.
McMichael said the second issue was calculating the commercial floor area, as it was a premature request asking for a specific site plan that is not under review right now.
“Their language was too specific and was not the appropriate time,” she said. “What they proposed is impossible to evaluate without a site plan. They made a justification for it. It’s not where we are in the process right now. As staff, I can’t support a standard that cant be interpreted without a site plan.”
For the floor area ratio, the commissioners chose Island Cow’s proposal, option two, which had such language as it “shall be determined based on a commercial floor area calculation using 50% of the Putting Greens area and expressly excluding the circulation areas between putting greens, as defined below.”
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