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Historic battle of Driftwood not over yet

 
City staff is seeking a rehearing  after the City Council voted to designated Driftwood a historic neighborhood.  [SCOTT KEELER   |   Times]
City staff is seeking a rehearing after the City Council voted to designated Driftwood a historic neighborhood. [SCOTT KEELER | Times]
Published March 26, 2019

ST. PETERSBURG — Driftwood's recent designation as a local historic district could be in jeopardy.

A week after City Council members voted 6-2 to approve the neighborhood's request, managing assistant city attorney Michael Dema informed supporters and opponents that staff was seeking a rehearing.

The council will vote April 4 on whether to allow the new hearing. If approved, the rehearing could be set for May 16.

In submitting the request, Elizabeth Abernethy, director of planning and development services, said it was prompted by new evidence presented by opponents during the March 7 council meeting and "a potentially substantial change of circumstances."

Prior to the rehearing request, Tyler Hayden, the lawyer for those fighting the designation, sent a letter to Mayor Rick Kriseman laying out a case against the council's decision. An overarching issue was the way residents' ballots concerning the proposed district had been handled. Hayden cited the city code, which requires that ballots must be postmarked or date-stamped.

Residents' votes are a crucial step in the historical designation process. The city requires approval by 50 percent plus one of a neighborhood's tax parcels before an application can proceed.

"Hopefully, city staff will finally own up to the ordinance violations that occurred with the Driftwood vote," Hayden said. "It's not clear yet that they are willing to do so, which is disappointing."

Whether the Driftwood ballots were postmarked or date-stamped became a major discussion during the March 7 designation hearing. Council members Brandi Gabbard and Ed Montanari voted against the designation.

Montanari later told the Tampa Bay Times that he viewed the ordinance-required, postmarked or date-stamped ballots as a "sort of a black and white issue."

Peter Belmont, a retired lawyer and vice president of Preserve the 'Burg, which fights to save historic properties, said he doesn't think the request for a rehearing changes anything.

"Regarding the issue of the ballots, I think the city made the correct determination about balloting,'' he said. "I agree that the balloting that has taken place is adequate to meet the requirements under the ordinance."

The ordinance "doesn't go into detail about how the date stamp is to be done and the computer date records are the equivalent of a date stamp. The intent was to make sure that the ballots were received within the ballot window and the city has ample examples to show that was the case."

Longtime resident Laurie Macdonald lives in one of the Driftwood homes designed during the 1930s by local artist Mark Dixon Dodd and Archie Parish, a local architect.

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"I'm curious about why the city is asking the council for the rehearing,''Macdonald said. "I hope that what they are doing is to present even more evidence that there is dated material to show ballots were in on time and bolster and strenghten the City Council's decision to make this a historic district.

"It seems nonsensical to me for the opponents and their attorney to believe that those ballots didn't come in on time and that the computer data and emails don't prove that the ballots were on time to meet the threshold."

Driftwood's quest for designation has encountered several obstacles. In November, as the council prepared to vote on the designation request, Dema broke the news that opponents had filed a last minute suit. It alleged that the process had been rife with "mishandling, misinformation and deceit" and made claims of "balloting impropriety and ordinance violations."

The suit was filed against the city, Preserve the 'Burg, the organization's president, Emily Elwyn, Howard Ferebee Hansen, who helped to prepare Driftwood's application, Belmont and Macdonald.

Historic designation opponents Daniel Schuh, Peter and Yvonne Pav, Michelle Harris, Eduardo Zavala, 2600 Driftwood Road, LLC, Christopher Keller, Dennis Mancusi, and Mark Brumby filed the suit. One of the allegations was that boundaries had been redrawn to exclude and silence opposition from the proposed district's biggest critics, Timothy and Janna Ranney.

The Ranneys bought the historic Gandy House — also known as the Mullet Farm and built in 1910 by the son of the co-founder of St. Petersburg, John Constantine Williams — and demolished it. They said it could not be saved.

Contact Waveney Ann Moore at wmoore@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2283. Follow @wmooretimes.