PALM HARBOR -- Pinellas County's Board of Adjustment today refused approve a half-built park structure that is nearly 10 feet taller than was originally approved.
The project is expected to cost $461,000 in public funds, and the Board of Adjustment's decision leaves the future of the structure shrouded in uncertainty.
Last month, Pinellas County officials asked Palm Harbor Recreation to halt construction of an open-sided shelter over a roller hockey rink at Sunderman park.
They said the project -- paid for partly with county grants -- is taller than the Board of Adjustment allowed when it approved the project in September. At that hearing, plus an earlier one in June, a contractor for the Palm Harbor Parks and Recreation Department told the board that the roof would be 22 to 25 feet high.
County development review officials first told the Palm Harbor Parks and Recreation Department -- which is overseen by the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency -- that it had three choices: remove the building, lower the roof to 25 feet or seek approval for the building from the Board of Adjustment.
Palm Harbor recreation officials first said they didn't want to do any of the three, but later agreed to another hearing today before the Board of Adjustment in an attempt to get retroactive approval for the project.
Palm Harbor parks and recreation director Rick Burton told board members that officials "feel terrible" about what happened but did not knowingly mislead anyone.
"We apologized for the statement" suggesting that the roof would be no more than 25 feet tall, Burton told board members.
Burton said he would be willing to create a new entrance to the facility to divert traffic away from the neighborhood and to plant taller landscaping, including 11 more 22-foot-tall sabal palm trees. Lowering the roof to 25 feet would mean that the shelter could not be used to play basketball. And lowering the roof would, in effect, double the cost of the project, he said.
But neighbor Martin Del Monte, who lives directly across the street from the half-built shelter, described it as "an industrial structure, and it's in a residential neighborhood."
And North Pinellas resident Steve Tucker urged the board "hold any agency of the county to the same standard that they hold private citizens to."
Board members, who voted 4-1 not to approve the height of the structure now, questioned Burton sharply and were not sympathetic to his plight.
"I've been in business 50 years, and if I make a mistake, I eat it," said Board of Adjustment member Joe Mangus. "So I'm going to vote against it."
In the past, Burton said it would be impractical to either take down the roof completely or try to lower it now.
So what happens to the structure now?
"Don't know," Burton said after the vote. "We have to decide."
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