If you missed it, last week Council approved the mayor’s choice to be Administrator of Development & Economic Development 5-2 with Carlson and Hurtak voting no. I considered a longer post on the topic, which I may still write, but I have a few questions that need answers. One thing I will point out is that the Chief of Staff acknowledged the City did not interview any other candidates for the position. Not internally or from the short list provided by the recruiting firm hired by the city.

Looking forward to this week, Council sits as the CRA Board with a fairly light agenda. The top item looks to be approving $3 million dollars from the West Tampa CRA to buy 1.1 acres on Cypress between Howard and Armenia. The CAC approved the purchase.

For the evening land use meeting, there is at least one high profile item that was continued from 11-14-24 and that’s for the property at the southeast corner of Florida Ave and Columbus Blvd. The developer had successfully applied for an increase in density for the property previously, however the neighborhood has concerns about the size and massing of the proposed project in the historic district. Beyond that debate, one thing that should be mentioned is that Council broke their own rules in allowing this to be continued. Once a developer starts their presentation for the application, there isn’t supposed to be an opportunity to waste Council’s time by getting more than half way through the process, seeing they might not have the votes, and then bailing with a continuance. Council allowed it anyway. It will be worth watching to see how they “pick back up” and still give everyone an opportunity to speak. Again.

A tool I’ve been working on is now live on the latest agenda page. I tested it out a couple of weeks ago and have made a few tweaks but there is now an interactive map included that shows all of the properties on the evening’s agenda. Clicking a property gives a pop-up with details including a link to the Accela files for that application.

Speaking of land use and code, the city is moving forward with the code updates. There’s a meeting of the Code Update Advisory Team this Friday morning. A public meeting is scheduled for February 4, 2025. As I get details, I’ll make sure to share them.

Council has one more week of meetings and then will be off for the holidays until January 9th.