Too Many Unanswered Questions and Too Much Uncertainty
On April 30, St. Petersburg hosted a public meeting on the future of the Historic Gas Plant site. It was billed as an opportunity for the public to understand the four proposals the mayor has shortlisted for the site.
Two of the proposals are to buy and develop the full 86 acres—one from Ellison-Ark-Hourus (Ellison), and one from the Burg Bid (Burg). Another proposal, from the Pinellas County Housing Authority, is asking for an option to buy 0.6 acres—less than 1% of the site—at no cost, to build one affordable housing building. The fourth proposal, Foundation Vision Partners (Vision), recommends that the city develop the infrastructure itself and then sell the land parcel by parcel.
Public Input
Residents were given the opportunity to submit questions for the Q&A portion of the meeting.
But while the meeting was supposed to help the public better understand the proposals, many key questions either were not answered—or were answered without meaningful follow-up or clarification…