Bradenton Beach residents fight to bring building moratorium to city

BRADENTON BEACH -- They sat at long wooden tables Tuesday evening inside the Annie Silver Community Center, determined to bring change to their beloved city.

Nearly 20 Bradenton Beach residents gathered at a special meeting to call for a six month-building moratorium to halt new building permit applications for the construction of duplex structures and any buildings with more than four bedrooms in two residential districts in the city.

Spearheaded by longtime resident Priscilla Von Ahnen, the citizens initiative is against the proliferation of weekly vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods. The committee hopes to place the moratorium on the ballot this fall.

Plans for a building moratorium in Bradenton Beach were axed in September when officials voted 4-1 to move forward with a quality of life

ordinance to address issues such as noise ordinances, business tax receipts and making sure renters are known and held accountable.

"We're all citizens concerned about the building of these large vacation rentals, aka 'party houses,'" Von Ahnen said, adding she's begun collecting documents necessary to put the moratorium on the ballot. "It looks pretty much like they're (the city commission) not going to move on it. ... We keep badgering and they're still not going to move on it, so we want it to move because we have to get it in by May. I'm putting the deadline at May because then they have 90 days to mess around with it, do nothing with it or vote on it."

Bradenton Beach Commissioner Jan Vosburgh was the dissenting vote last fall at the meeting where officials were to discuss a six-month moratorium on new building permits for structures with four or more bedrooms. The discouraged Vosburgh said then she was "absolutely for" enacting a moratorium, describing it as simply a "timeout" so officials can look at which direction the city's going.

"I was always for the moratorium," Vosburgh told a Herald reporter Tuesday afternoon. "I was always for it, and I'm more for a moratorium now than ever because they put a party house on my street, which is in a residential area, and it's been an absolute nightmare."

Residents also discussed the steps necessary to bring a moratorium before the Bradenton Beach City Commission. Von Ahnen said she plans on presenting the initiative at the 6 p.m. meeting Thursday at Bradenton Beach City Hall, 107 Gulf Dr. N., Bradenton Beach, and will also request a town hall meeting.

Sandor Nagy, 50, was one of many who took part in the discussion.

"I've been away for 12 years and it's just changed so much in the time I was gone," the computer programmer said. "It's no longer the small, friendly little island that I remember."

Full-time resident Carol Harrington said after the meeting that she got a feeling of what residents want.

"It's a free-for-all right now," she said about construction in the city. "Without the guidelines, they can do whatever they want. I don't think there's enough oversight. ... Buildings are going up all over the place."

Amaris Castillo, law enforcement/island reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7051. Follow her on Twitter @AmarisCastillo.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 11:52 PM with the headline "Bradenton Beach residents fight to bring building moratorium to city ."