If you sent me an email yesterday (Tuesday January 8th) and I did not respond to you, please resend your email. I noticed some strange things going on yesterday with my email server and still don’t know the full extent of the issue, but everything seems to be working good now.
Please, if you sent me an email yesterday and I did not respond, please resend.
Thanks.
BrokerAgentNews.com released a good article about the top ten reasons to buy real estate now. The author references specifically Maricopa County a couple of times, but the reasons are still applicable everywhere.
The article talks about how there is plenty of inventory providing a great selection to buyers. A couple of years ago, buyers often had to wait in lines, lists and “play games” just to be considered as a possible buyer. Now, if you can dream it, you can probably find it, and at an affordable price.
I remember in the frenzy the bidding wars that were everywhere. I remember I had this one set of adjoining lots that the buyers and sellers went back and forth on for weeks until the final sold price was 10% above the listing price. Often if you wanted your contract to be considered, you had to give up your right for inspection/due diligence period and offer cash with no other contingencies. Today, buyers are often afforded the time they need to make a good decision and given many opportunities to be sure the home will be right for them.
Now is a great time to buy, pricing is getting affordable, financing is becoming more realistic (not so many misleading adjustable products available) and there is a great selection that allows you to find what is right for you.
I’ve been watching the condo market pretty closely for the last couple of weeks and have noticed that several have gone under contract and many have sold. I don’t know that prices are really coming down too much more and if you have the money and staying power, you should be buying right now.
Click here for the full article.
The main argument in the Panama City Bay County Airport relocation is the possibility of causing irreparable damage to sensitive environmental areas. Currently construction is being held up by a law suit against the FAA regarding their Record of Decision approving the construction of the new airport that was issued in September 2006.
Quote from the Record of Decision:
“In conducting its funding analysis, FAA determined that both physical and environmental restrictions at the existing site make it impractical and extremely costly to update to meet FAA standards.
The existing primary air carrier runway is 6,304 feet long with nonstandard safety areas. Even if FAA were to upgrade the existing site, it would not result in an airfield that fully complied with FAA standards.”
In a press release on November 14th, 2006, Melanie Shepherdson, attorney at the NRDC, is quoted, “The FAA’s decision to build this ‘airport to nowhere’ is illegal. . . The law is clear: The agency has to pick the alternative that is least damaging to the environment. And it failed to do that.”
What alternative is least damaging? Modifying the current site to bring it into compliance with current FAA safety regulations? The environmentalist groups protested that option years ago; this is one of the main reasons the Airport Authority began looking for a new site in the first place. It was determined early on that the damage extending the current runway would cause was far too great to risk.
Another argument the opposition loves is that the airport will spur growth and development in the West Bay area (duh, and that’s a bad thing?), but that it will destroy the natural home for various wildlife, including Florida Black Bears, sea turtles, dolphins, and more. BUT, they fail to acknowledge that most of the shoreline in West Bay will be conservation as part of a 9,000 acre donation dedicated for conservation/mitigation, AND they fail to acknowledge participation of Audubon of Florida, The Florida Wildlife Federation, 1000 Friends of Florida and The Nature Conservancy in the organization of the West Bay Sector Plan. These are all environmentalist groups concerned about the environmental well being of the West Bay Area.
For more arguments and explanations, visit Dr. Ed Wright’s WestBayFlorida Blog. If you scroll down and look for the “Labels”. He has enough information on the relocation to keep you busy reading for weeks.
Thanks, Ed, for all your hard work.
The Indian Summer Festival Committee met on January 3rd, 2008 to discuss the CVB’s options for the 2008 festival. The festival is quite different from other special events receiving CVB financial support in that it is actually owned by the TDC/CVB. The committee is a subcommittee made up of 4 members of the CVB’s Marketing Committee (Kirk Lancaster-chairman, Jack Bishop, Ann Henry, and Joe Kennedy) all of whom were present. The subcommittee will make their recommendation to the Marketing Committee, which will then make their recommendation to the CVB Board.
The meeting was chaired by Lancaster in an open workshop fashion with extensive input from the audience. The audience included CVB Board Members Andy Phillips and Buddy Wilkes. The discussion included:
Although no formal vote was taken, the consensus of the subcommittee was to turn the matter over to President Rowe to prepare a RFP for distribution to potential festival operators. Rowe plans to distribute a survey to local businesses, to speak with other CVBs, and to review prior RFPs to provide additional assistance. The sub-committee will consider Rowe’s draft RFP at their next meeting that has not yet been scheduled.
Again Northwest Florida has been recongnized in a national publication. Ocean Home Magazine featured our area in their Winter 2007/2008 issue in the article titled StoryBook Settings. The article speaks into the area’s “picturesque developments [adhereing] to the principles of New Urbanism”.
I have to admit, after reading the first part, I wonder if St. Joe played a significant part in influencing this article, but it does speak into other areas such as SanDestin, Seaside and Alys Beach. The article is very flattering and definitely reinforces my pride in our area.
Read the article.
For those of you that are out of towners, the weather over the holidays has been great. Christmas was warm and New Year’s Eve was warm, but it got pretty chilly yesterday and last night. I think it was in low 30’s at my home, the thermometer read 37 when I went to work this morning, burrr.
The cold front that blew through cleared up the sky. Coming from Dallas, TX, the bluest the sky would every get on the clearest of days was a very diluted gray-blue that left much to be desired from a clear day. The blue sky here is awesome to say the least.
The pictures capture the color of the sky perfectly.
I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking what is going on with the airport relocation. Here is what’s going on:
That is all I have for now. Randy, or anyone else on the airport authority board, feel free to email me with more information if you like.
Sometime in the last week they paved the road down the main Boardwalk of Pier Park in Panama City Beach. I was there last Tuesday and was told by a friend that it was paved when he walked it on Christmas. It never ceases to amaze me how quick some things happen.
Quiznos Sub is the first to have their retail sign up. They will open with the rest of The Boardwalk in February. Windows have been going in and will continue to be installed through next week. Enjoy the pictures below. Click on them to make them larger.
Click here for all posts on Pier Park.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and I wish all a Happy New Year next week. I will send out the regular newsletter this evening.
In an article published in Fortune Magazine December 14th, St. Joe was among Fortune’s top stock picks for 2008. At the time the article was written, Joe stock was trading at $28, now it is $34.19. It once traded for more than $80 a share in 2005. With St. Joe owning 710,000 acres, with more than 300,000 acres situated within 10 miles of the coast, analysts speculate that their land holdings average at $3,700 per acre, minimum totaling $2.6 billion.
Read the entire article here.
For St. Joe’s stock activity, click here.
Notes from the December 21, 2007 TDC Turtle Lighting Ordinance Workshop
The December 19th meeting reconvened with 8 board members present. Gary Walsingham was absent.
Board attorney Doug Sale advised the board he felt they had three possible courses of action. The first option was to approve draft ordinance 12.20-1 that is a refined version of his 2.18.2007 draft. 12.20-1 provides for some limited grandfathering of existing light sources for economic reasons regardless of whether they meet the public safety exceptions in the draft. However, Sale advised that U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service communicated to him that the limited grandfathering proposal included in this version is unacceptable. The second option was to approve draft ordinance 12.20-2 which is acceptable to the Service. 12.20-2 removes the limited grandfathering clause and instead provides for a extended compliance period until May 1, 2013. Sale advised that the third option was to do nothing.
Sale also reiterated that not recommending an ordinance acceptable to the Service would likely put further beach renourishment projects (including the scheduled 2008 program) in jeopardy. However, Sale explained that there is some uncertainty about whether the Service has the statutory authority to require a lighting ordinance as a condition of our beach renourishment.
Yanni Patronis expressed concern about whether passing a lighting ordinance for beachfront property would result in further revisions that include non-beachfront property that may be found to have an effect on the turtles. Sale responded that he did not feel this was the case because the Service would not be able to make a connection between non-beachfront lights and renourishment.
Mike Bennett asked why the board was not also considering including nest relocation in the ordinance. Lorna Patrick, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, advised that they no longer considered relocation an acceptable solution for lighting issues. Patronis explained that he felt that PCB was an excellent location for relocations since our tourist season coincides with the nesting season. Patrick stated that relocation would not be needed if ordinance 12.20-2 passed.
Marty McDaniel asked Patrick whether the Service will agree to look at other options(e.g. relocation), rather than non-beachfront lighting, in the event that regulation of beachfront lighting was found to not be enough to protect the turtles. Patrick advised that she could not speak for Service but expressed confidence that no further action would be required if 12.20-2 passed.
Gayle Oberst explained that she was worried about the costs of compliance for all beachfront property owners, not just commercial businesses.
Buddy Wilkes asked whether it was possible to increase the bed tax to help cost-share compliance costs with private property owners. Sale explained that this would be possible. CVB resident Dan Rowe also suggested that the proceeds of the current 3rd beach renourishment cent could also be used.
The floor was then opened up for public comment. Julian Bennett discussed other alternatives that could be explored instead of passing a lighting ordinance.
Julie Hilton expressed her belief that the proposed ordinances would not meet the goal of helping the turtles. She referenced Wednesday’s testimony of the wildlife and lighting experts whose appearance her company facilitated. She reported that the compliance cost of draft 12.20-1 for her four hotels would be $5 million which would be economically disastrous for her company. She did, however, express that she could agree with draft 12.20-2 or her own draft that she then distributed to the board.
Charles Hilton expressed that the 5 year compliance period in draft 12.20-1 could not be met for his properties since the problems were unfixable. He stated that rebuilding was the only option. Hilton also advised against the board passing an ordinance for appearance purposes that they did not expect to be enforced.
Betty Briard, a property owner in Aquavista, suggested that the board either postpone the issue for further study(especially due to the fact that new drafts were just distributed today) or decide to challenge the Service. She also expressed her opinion that the individual owners in Aquavista would likely ignore any ordinance that passed just like they ignore rules passed by their own property owner’s association. Briard also questioned how much the TDC was spending on this process of considering a lighting ordinance.
Doug Gilmore from the Driftwood Lodge and Osprey Motel discussed the nests that were located behind his properties this past season. He explained that he believed that 100% of the hatchlings successfully reached the water.
Diane Brown asked the board to ignore Wednesday’s assertions by Dr. Fletemeyer and lighting designer Robert Laughlin that the Service was relying on untruths. Brown disagreed with any assertion that the public would be disappointed with an ordinance being passed. In support, she referred to the 2002 West End Pilot Turtle Protection Ordinance which she claimed continues to be supported by the community at large. Brown also stated that it was her belief that the costs of compliance being quoted by some property owners were exaggerated. She also suggested that if the Board decides to allow compliance through May 2013 that they require property owners to submit a plan of compliance no later than May 2009. She also suggested that any discussion about the option of nest relocation be discontinued.
Lighting contractor Terry Selders explained that many older buildings on the beach could not possibly be retrofitted to comply with the proposed ordinances.
Robert Winston suggested that the Board not recommend a new lighting ordinance. He expressed concerns about public safety, especially involving our spring break visitors.
After the public comments, Gayle Oberst expressed her support of draft 12.20-1. Oberst made a motion providing that the board agrees to recommend that the Bay County Commission and the Panama City Beach City Council enact ordinances based on draft 12.20-1. The motion was seconded by Mike Nelson and passed by a vote of 5-2. Chairman Phillips departed prior to the vote
and the Patronis and Rick Russell cast the dissenting votes. Neither Patronis, nor Russell, made any comments concerning the motion.
Audience member Diana Brown then asked what the effect would be on the 2002 Pilot Ordinance. Attorney Sale directed the question to Bay County Attorney Terrell Arline who advised that that decision would be up to the County Commission.
Editorial by Bryan J. Durta:
It is my opinion that the Bay County Commission and the Panama City Beach City Council should reject the TDC’s recommendation and instead enact Turtle Protection Lighting Ordinances based on draft 12.20-2. This draft was prepared by TDC’s own attorney after considering both the needs of the community and the desires of the federal government.
Are the Hiltons, Julian Bennett, and their experts correct that the lighting ordinance desired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would result in few additional turtles reaching maturity and that better alternatives exist? Probably, but is it really wise for Bay County to take on the state and federal government which fund the majority of our beach renourishment costs? And what will be the costs of this legal battle? Are the property owners who oppose a complying ordinance going to form a co-op to pay the county’s legal expenses? Will the national press brand us as a environmentally unfriendly community? If so, how will this effect tourism?
Does this community really want to put our beach renourishment project at risk based on financial concerns expressed by just a few property owners? More property owners expressed concern when cutting Spring Break funding was on that table than expressed concern over the lighting ordinance. And are these financial concerns being exaggerated? Phillip Griffits, Jr. of the Sugar Sands Beach Resort explained to the Board that his property spent $30,000 bringing his 70 beachfront rooms and public facilities in complying with the West End Pilot Ordinance. While he acknowledges that he is probably not in 100% compliance due to conflicting public safety laws, he believes that the Service considers him to be a model property that has sufficiently complied.
While every property is unique, I believe that further investigation is needed before accepting the assertion of Paradise Found Resorts that they would need to spend over 14 times more per room to comply than the Sugar Sands did. And what will be the financial loss to the community if the Service does succeed in preventing any future beach renourishment on Panama City Beach? We need to remember that the Service potentially has the ability to prevent any renourishment even if we have the financial means to pay for it ourselves. And are the concerns about public safety valid? Are turtle-friendly communities such as Rosemary Beach and Watercolor having crime and safety issues that are just not being reported in the media? And what about all of the new accommodations on Panama City Beach that have been built over the last 10 years in compliance with the turtle-friendly lighting requirements? Are they having more public safety problems than the older properties?
While I agree that government regulation is getting out of hand, it is just not wise for Bay County to take on the responsibility for fighting the federal government on this issue. It is in our best economic interest to follow the lead of vast majority of Florida’s beachfront counties and enact a turtle lighting ordinance that has the support of the federal government.
PCBDaily 