The Boca Grande Community Planning Panel may soon be asking Gilchrist Avenue residents to contribute to the parking and landscaping project on their medial, and the possibility of increasing the bridge toll to provide additional money for proposed downtown projects was also discussed.
One of the proposals brought up by the Boca Grande Community Planning Panel at their meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 19 was to establish a “Friends of Gilchrist” foundation, which will procure funds that the panel hopes the county might match. The panel also discussed the possibility of increasing tolls to include an impact fee that could help pay for downtown parking and improvements.
At a recent meeting between panel chairman Lynne Seibert, panel consultant Tom Smith, traffic consultant Ted Treesch and Lee County officials, it was discovered that the county is not willing to fund projects such as the Gilchrist Avenue medial landscaping and parking, parking improvements in the village and a monument sign that would indicate to visitors where beaches and shopping areas are.
In reference to the Gilchrist Avenue situation, panel consultant Tom Smith said, “If the community comes out and says we really want to support some sort of landscaping on Gilchrist, maybe matching funds would be the way to proceed.”
Seibert said the first move by the panel should be to find out how much the proposed Gilchrist changes would cost. She suggested the panel take Rick Lamb’s landscape plan to local landscapers and get a rough estimate on how much it might cost, then ask Lee County for matching funds.
“I think the panel has brought this about as far as it can go,” said Bayne Stevenson, the former panel chairman who attended the meeting. “I think recent discussions with the county make it very clear that the direction to go is the matching fund route. It may even still be a bit optimistic that they will contribute at all to the project.”
Stevenson said the panel should think about raising funds privately, go to the county with an estimate and ask what they will give.
“I think people are willing to do that (donate money),” he said. “Unfortunately we’ve been a donor community for so long it’s difficult to get money out of Lee County.”
Seibert spoke with panel member Jim Cooper, who is also the executive director of the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority, about the possibility of taking a small portion of the tolls and use them for improvements in the downtown area.
Smith said that the option had also been discussed with Lee County at the meeting.
“If we could take a percentage out of the bridge fee and build up a kitty to use later on, we could buy downtown parking if we had to,” Smith said. “We even talked about businesses that can’t provide parking to pay into the same kitty. Those were some of the possibilities we were talking about, but we didn’t get much further than that.”
Cooper said that wouldn’t be possible, as GIBA is a private entity and all money collected is to go to the bridge and the causeway.
Seibert then suggested a traffic impact charge on top of the regular toll, one she said would be “quite small.”
I think it would be very problematic to work that out,” Cooper said, using the example of Sanibel Island’s $6 toll. “My biggest concern is the enforceability of it, and to make sure there isn’t any more consternation with people going through the toll booth.”
