Palmetto's automotive moratorium to be decided April 25

PALMETTO -- Amidst strong opposition to Palmetto's proposal to enact an emergency moratorium to block any new automotive repair businesses within the downtown core, Palmetto officials scheduled a special meeting on April 25 to make a final decision.

About 30 automotive business owners, employees and supporters gathered to protest the city's intentions, but city officials say it's just a misunderstanding.

"There's a misperception that this will somehow infringe on existing businesses and that is not it," said Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant. "The core does need to be looked at. Through surveys the city did, the community also agrees that there should be service stations, which is exactly why we are doing this process. We want to open it up and look at it, not try to hurt any existing businesses, but to help the community and define that corridor."

The moratorium, if enacted, would be in affect until April 2017 and restrict any new automotive business that does repair work or stores vehicles. It would also restrict existing businesses from expanding. The borders being suggested for the moratorium are east to the CSX Railroad tracks, south to the Manatee River, west to 11th Avenue West and north to 10th Street West.

The city wants time to protect the downtown core until the commission has more opportunity to make it more pedestrian-friendly. City attorney Mark Barnebey said the moratorium would actually protect existing businesses from being in violation of the current codes.

Public Works Director Allen Tusing agrees, noting, "Currently, if we wanted to do some code enforcement action, those businesses would probably be visited a lot. But we don't want to do that. We are just saying, let's not compound the problem with more businesses until we can get it all worked out.

I think they would like it better than code enforcement knocking on the door. We think there are issues with the ordinances and the target area will probably end up being a lot smaller than what's being proposed, but the ordinances cover the entire area."

Barnebey said, "We do have some potential code enforcement issues that if we don't look at it, could become code enforcement issues," for current businesses.

City Planner Debra Woithe discovered the problem while reviewing the city ordinances pertaining to open storage, which "under your current code is not allowed anywhere in the city, even in heavy industrial without a conditional use permit. We need to find a better way to regulate how much open storage and how it is managed." Woithe said there are some clear conflicts in the city's code that need to be resolved, but that the city is doing everything to protect existing businesses by pursuing a moratorium.

"I want to stress that we are not trying to put anyone out of business," she said. "I've been here a year and it took a couple of months to see we had some issues to deal with and we need to review those conflicts and be sure everything is in line with the comprehensive plan and downtown design."

Barnebey said the reality is that there are more automotive repair businesses looking at downtown. The moratorium is an attempt to stop that from happening until the city can clean up its codes and define open storage in a consistent manner. Not all of the citizens were convinced. Many felt the moratorium is unnecessary while others said the borders didn't make sense. And some were just mad that government was sticking its nose into private business.

"All these people are good people," said Lucy White. "The city has no right to tell us what do with our businesses. You need to listen to the people instead of doing whatever the hell you want. It's pretty sneaky and you all should be ashamed of yourselves."

The vote to move the public hearing to April 25, passed 3-1 with Ward 2 Commissioner Tambra Varnadore absent with excuse. Ward 3 Commissioner Brian Williams said he is leaning toward opposing the moratorium and voted against it. Bryant said she will likely recommend that an ad hoc committee representing the existing automotive businesses be formed to work with staff to expedite the moratorium's closure, if enacted April 25.

Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter @urbanmark2014.

This story was originally published April 18, 2016 at 11:21 PM with the headline "Palmetto's automotive moratorium to be decided April 25 ."