The MSD meeting on Oct. 9 was all set for the board to officially vote on whether they are in favor of Ponte Vedra Cooperation’s PUD application that they have requested as part of their renovation plan of the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and The Lodge properties.
However, the meeting did not go quite to plan, and the end result was an informal vote being taken with 6-1 voting in favor of it, as Kitty Switkes was the lone trustee against it.
The vote was taken at the end of the meeting and Switkes stated that she did not believe a vote was the right thing to do at that time because so many of the residents with questions earlier in the meeting had left after the board stated that they would hold a special meeting with an official vote to be taken and public comment to be heard at a time and location to be determined next week.
However, chairman Al Hollon informed the Ponte Vedra Recorder two days after the meeting that he decided to not issue a notice for a special meeting due to discussion of the PUD application already having been on the agenda four times.
A need for a special meeting was initially prompted because there were several residents on hand that spoke during the public comments portion at the beginning of the meeting stating their displeasure that the topics of the agenda had not been posted to the MSD website until earlier that day.
As a result, they said that many more people would have attended the meeting but were not provided with proper notification.
MSD attorney Wayne Flowers agreed with the points raised and recommended that a special meeting should be considered to give the residents a proper notification period.
Most of the people who raised concerns left the meeting after the news of the special meeting, however, Ellen Avery-Smith, an attorney with Rogers Towers representing the project filled out a comment card and spoke later in the unfinished business portion of the meeting.
She along with John Peyton, owner of the properties being discussed, requested that they would like to see the board hold a vote during the current meeting as it was the fourth time that it had been placed on the agenda for discussion and possible vote.
According to Peyton, the cooperation would love the MSD’s support of the project, but he also wanted to make it clear that they are not asking for a special meeting and did not plan to be back in attendance if they had one.
“This is a business, and it’s not a charity, so trying to find a way to make these buildings viable is the challenge,” Peyton said. “There are examples all over this country of clubs that do not reinvest, and they go downhill, and the properties go with them. We’ve got a great team of professionals that I think have tried their best to be sensitive to the character of the neighborhood but also support the viability of a business.”
