After hearing from 52 members of the public opposing the South Seas rezoning application, the rebuttal case presented by South Seas and the County only served to highlight the ill-advised nature of the South Seas overdevelopment application.
Their final proposal has buildings more than 20 feet taller than existing structures on South Seas or Captiva, new condominiums at the north end of the resort where two areas of open space presently exist, a Disney World-type waterpark immediately adjacent to existing condos owned by others, a 175-room hotel along Captiva Drive at the south end where no hotel ever existed, another 260-room hotel at the north end where only a 107-room hotel existed before, a restaurant with outdoor seating within earshot of someone’s home, and possibly 76 to 150 new boat slips by the T-Dock along the channel to Redfish Pass.
The applicant purchased its 120 acres of the resort with 107 hotel units, 140 employee housing units, and the right to build another 25 units. It is replacing its allowable 272 units with 628 units (193 condos and 435 hotel units) – and County staff is going along with it even though our constrained evacuation roadway cannot handle the development, there is insufficient parking for the project or its employees, the sewer treatment plant does not have sufficient capacity for this growth in development, and the Lee Plan requires the County to enforce, maintain and continue the historic development pattern on South Seas.
We have also learned that the resort, its restaurants, its marinas and boat slips, and all of its amenities will never be open or available to the public. The new owners of the resort describe their future clientele as individuals coming to their third or fourth home, and who would never wish to leave the resort to visit anything on Captiva or Sanibel once they arrive. Their vision of the resort – where their golf carts automatically shut down if their guests attempt to leave the resort – explains why the owners of the resort never reached out to the community after their purchase in 2021. The new owners of South Seas never intended the resort or their guests to be part of the Captiva or Sanibel communities.
The Hearing Examiner listened carefully – and will take two months to issue her recommendation. Judging from their demeanor at the hearings, the applicant and the County seem confident that the Hearing Examiner will recommend approval of the application. We sincerely hope that the Hearing Examiner maintains her reputation for independence notwithstanding the political pressure from the County. As much as the Hearing Examiner may wish to avoid the displeasure of the County and South Seas by crafting some conditions that would allow for this overdevelopment, it is just not possible.
The Lee Plan requires her to “maintain” and “enforce” development regulations that “continue” the well-defined “historic development pattern” on Captiva, including the historic development pattern on South Seas. Integral to that historic development pattern, South Seas was limited to three units per acre for both hotel and residential dwelling units, with building heights no greater than 45 feet above grade.
The application seeks a 230 percent increase in density on the applicant’s 120-acre property, a 140 percent increase in density on the 304-acre resort as a whole, and a 150 percent increase in building heights on a barrier island resort that has suffered major damage from three hurricanes in two years, and has only one constrained evacuation route off the island. The Captiva Fire Department does not even have the ground ladders, fire flows or a ladder truck able to reach the upper floors of the proposed taller buildings on the resort. Recommending approval would not only violate the Plan, it would be irresponsible.