HOLMES BEACH – Just like the traffic headed to Anna Maria Island on holidays, an effort by Florida legislators to build a parking garage at Manatee Beach is inching forward.
House Bill 947 was filed on Monday by Rep. Will Robinson Jr., who represents Manatee County, including Anna Maria Island. If the bill passes, it will allow Manatee County commissioners to erect a three-story parking garage at the county-owned beach with no approvals from city leaders needed.
Previous plans mentioned by legislators were for a four-story garage, which would exceed the height restrictions in the city.
Though parking garages were never an allowable land use in Holmes Beach, city commissioners voted in 2022 to formally disallow multi-level parking facilities. At a meeting where that ordinance was discussed, Manatee County Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge warned commissioners against the action, stating that he had planned to present an application to the city to build a parking garage on the property.
Mayor Judy Titsworth said that she’s disappointed by Robinson’s decision to file the bill and feels that it’s a blatant infringement of home rule. She said county leaders never submitted a formal application to the city for consideration of a parking garage and never put anything before city commissioners to consider allowing one through a special exception.
During a Feb. 14 commission meeting, Titsworth said that Robinson was scheduled to come to Holmes Beach later in the week to speak with city staff and tour the available public parking with her. On Monday, she said he decided to move the meeting to the end of the month.
In addition to the parking spaces already available in the city for beachgoers, Titsworth said she’d been speaking with two area churches about using their parking areas for the public outside of church service times. If the parking garage bill goes through at the state level, she said she’s unsure if those organizations will go through with providing extra parking since part of the reason for that potential solution was to avoid having a parking garage built at Manatee Beach.
She encouraged everyone to continue writing letters to state legislators and to write to each of the committees that HB 947 goes to for consideration.
While a parking garage is becoming more of a possibility, a state-funded study to look at the consolidation or elimination of the three Anna Maria Island cities is off the table – for now.
The state legislative delegation recently backed off its January proposal to pursue consolidating the cities at the state level if Island city leaders agreed to work together to consolidate some services at the city level.
Titsworth said she’s begun regular meetings with Bradenton Beach Mayor John Chappie and Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy to begin a discussion on how they can consolidate some services across the three cities.
While she said she’s unsure right now of where they can consolidate, she said she’s hopeful that by working together, the three can find solutions that will take away the threat of consolidation or elimination by state legislators.
She was also quick to reassure city staff that no positions were being eliminated, saying, “No one’s losing a job in the city.”
Titsworth said she’s having a bit of a difficult time trying to decide what could be consolidated.
“This is going to take quite a bit of time between the three cities to determine what can be consolidated,” she said. “We are committed to look and see what could be consolidated, listen to each other and work together.”
The mayoral meetings are a result of a recent meeting between state legislative representatives and the Island mayors concerning the consolidation of all three Island cities into one municipality or into unincorporated Manatee County.
Robinson began the year with a quest to launch a state-funded study to determine if the three cities should be eliminated or consolidated. The study, which was supported by the other members of the Manatee County state legislative delegation, has since been abandoned, at least temporarily, in favor of allowing the three Island governments to work some issues out among themselves.
“I can’t thank the citizens, visitors, residents, everyone enough,” Titsworth said of the outpouring of support from the public to fight against the consolidation study. “I couldn’t be more proud. You did an amazing job.”
