update from today's St. Pete Times on this project:
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Times Staff Writer
The massive hotel and condominium resort a St. Petersburg surgeon wants to build in rural Taylor County suffered a major setback this week, drawing severe criticism from the state's growth planning agency.
The Magnolia Bay Resort has generated controversy because it calls for blasting a 2-mile-long channel through the Big Bend Seagrass Aquatic Preserve, the state's largest aquatic preserve and one of the largest stretches of uninterrupted sea grass in North America.
Now, the state Department of Community Affairs has told Taylor County officials that their land-use agreement with Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt violates the law, shuts out public participation and blocks state oversight.
If the county sticks to its guns, the agency warned it will sue "to prevent the violation or circumvention of state law."
Advocates of strong growth management hailed the three-page warning shot as a signal of how Gov. Charlie Crist's administration plans to deal with environmental and growth issues.
"In the past, the benefit of the doubt would go to the local government," said Charles Pattison of the group 1,000 Friends of Florida, which favors tight regulation of growth. "Now DCA is looking at what's in the public interest, from the standpoint of what the law says."
Tom Pelham, the veteran planner Crist tapped to head up the agency, "is very consistent in trying to enforce the letter of the law," Pattison said. "He has said he's going to be looking at things in particular for their environmental and natural resources impact."
That means a project like Magnolia Bay "is definitely going to get their special scrutiny," Pattison said.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/10/State/State_questions_plans.shtml
