Bradenton City Council approves first step to move Glazier Gates Park for housing development

BRADENTON -- The Bradenton City Council on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to moving Glazier Gates Park to make way for a housing development, setting up final approval of the ordinance on Sept. 23.

The ordinance would change the land-use map for the park from recreation open space to urban village. That would allow the developer who owns the land to submit a site plan for the proposed 531-unit Villages at Riverwalk rental development. Many nearby residents have criticized the plan and the developer, Atlanta-based Hatfield Development Group.

Jackie Atwood is one of a few residents who still live on the land where the city has proposed to shift the park, and said the developer has told the city that they have made buyout offers. No such offer was made to her or other residents.

"Our property has never been up for sale, but my husband told them, 'Bring us an offer and we'll talk,'" Atwood said. "They never brought an offer."

If the ordinance goes through, it would mean residents such as Atwood would be living in a park. While Atwood said she loved parks as much as the

next person, she did not want to live in one.

"Would you want to wake up, look out your bedroom window and there are random children playing, or people having a picnic right by your front door?" she asked.

Mary Beth Koser, a resident of RiverSong Apartments, told the council that they should take a look at her apartment complex before granting another development to Hatfield Development Group and NDC Construction. The two companies also built RiverSong together, and she said the building has had dozens of issues since it opened in January. Hatfield sold it to a New York company for $31.5 million in July.

"There have been flooded units, even unoccupied ones due to burst pipes, fire alarms have been going off repeatedly and people have been stuck in the elevators," Koser said. She added that her dryer vent had stucco over it, which was a fire hazard, and that she had heard several other residents had the same issue.

RiverSong has had two violation complaints made in 2015, one over improper signage. The second made to the city about "dangerous trees," was the apartment complex trying to get rid of an obstruction to its river view, a code enforcement officer concluded.

A Change.org petition against the Villages at Riverwalk project has gotten 277 signatures and is asking for 500. The petition said selling the land would mean trees more than 200 years old would be bulldozed, the destruction of an ecosystem that houses eagles, osprey, and other endangered birds and wildlife, and the construction over history, as it was the first free black settlement in Florida and the first pioneer settlement south of Tampa.

Kate Irby, Herald online/political reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7055. You can follow her on Twitter @KateIrby

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bradenton City Council approves first step to move Glazier Gates Park for housing development."