First a full confession. I am not a real estate expert. I know precious very little about the finer points of development. But I do recall that old Florida axiom about selling swampland to unsuspecting folks eager to own a piece of the Sunshine State - even if it was 10 feet underwater.
Days ago the Tampa City Council, which occasionally commits good government, blocked a plan by a New York-based developer to dredge and fill in a three-acre portion of upper Tampa Bay in order to build some 16 townhouses in the Rocky Point neighborhood.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE Tampa City Council kills plan to fill open waters in Tampa Bay
Residents of Rocky Point were vociferous in their opposition to the planned development, which they argued would disrupt the area's designation as a manatee protection zone.
What developer David Dickey learned, probably much to his chagrin, is that Tampa has a long tradition of very active, very vocal, very organized neighborhood associations that can mobilize very quickly to literally protect their turf.
Dickey and his New York partners bought the submerged land about 10 years ago. They argued dredging and filling the property to make way for the townhouses would improve water quality in the lagoon. The Rocky Point Neighborhood Association was not amused.
And neither was City Council. Dredging and filling, especially along Tampa Bay, has been out of vogue since the 1970s, or roughly about the time Foghat's Fool For the City album hit the charts.
After the unanimous council nay vote, member Charlie Miranda made a motion to ask the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission to draft an amendment explicitly banning dredge and fill development projects. And that should probably doom any further efforts to expand the Rocky Point site.
To be sure, for Dickey and his partners this is a frustrating setback to their plans. But it is also an unfortunate result of their own making.
Really now, given what we already know about climate change and increasing evidence of sea level rise, why would anyone in their right mind: A) want to dredge and fill a portion of Tampa Bay to simply build townhouses and/or B) be gullible enough to spend a sizeable chunk of change knowing it is altogether possible should a hurricane ever deliver a direct (or even a not so direct) blow to Tampa Bay their fancy-schmancy homes would be underwater?
And as the residents of Rocky Point know all too well, while this is indeed a lovely neighborhood, it is also susceptible to flooding after heavy rains.
Given that the New York investors had the financial wherewithal to buy the Rocky Point property, bear the costs of dredging the three-acre footprint and finance the construction of 16 townhouses, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they certainly had deep enough pockets to secure a tract of land in more spacious corners of Hillsborough County, perhaps in the Ruskin area or Keystone, and develop away to their heart's content - all with barely a peep of protest.
Instead, they hitched their wagon to the dubious prospect of buying submerged land in the hope they could get approvals from a myriad of state and local agencies to proceed with the project.
One of the appeals of living along Tampa Bay is enjoying the nature of the place - the manatees, the dolphins, the bird life. They are worth something, worth protecting from yet another townhouse.
They are also a part of a shrinking Florida, as more and more of what makes us us disappears, ripped up by bulldozers to make way for another glitzy subdivision.
The late author John D. McDonald warned and railed against overdevelopment of the state. And a few days ago, the environment won a rare victory.
Perhaps now Dickey and his New York investors can turn their attentions to other projects. There's a rumor going around the Brooklyn Bridge might be for sale.