Council transmits text amendment to allow density increases in coastal high-hazard areas; Westminster redevelopment to return for adoption

Bradenton City Council voted 5–0 on first reading to transmit to state review a comprehensive-plan text amendment that would permit, under narrow circumstances, increases in residential density inside the city's Coastal High Hazard Area (CHHA). The ordinance (4035) was filed by Westminster Communities as the first step in a three-part request that also includes a future land-use map amendment (ordinance 4036) and a rezoning to T5 Urban Center (ordinance 4037).

The proposed text change would align city policy with Florida statutes that allow CHHA density increases if a development shows specific mitigation measures — chiefly a binding development agreement, a conceptual plan, and an evacuation protocol that preserves an “out-of-county” evacuation time for the site’s most vulnerable residents. Westminster officials and their legal counsel said the amendment is needed to allow redevelopment of the 15.8-acre Point Pleasant campus at densities that preserve the community’s historically built population while replacing aging…