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Panama City tables Gateway Overlay amendment after months-long debate, directs staff to refine rules by district
Summary
The City Commission voted 4–1 to table ordinance 32-94, which would add several conditional uses to the Gateway Overlay, and instructed staff to return in 60 days with district-specific standards; commissioners debated spacing rules, potential impacts on investment and an option to limit the ordinance only to bail bonds.
The Panama City Commission on Jan. 13 voted 4–1 to table an ordinance that would expand conditional uses in the Gateway Overlay, sending staff back to draw more precise, district-level rules.
The measure — ordinance 32-94 — would amend sections of the Unified Land Development Code to allow uses such as bail-bond offices, pawn shops, check-cashing stores and other formula businesses in the Gateway Overlay as conditional uses, subject to objective criteria. Development staff and the city attorney warned commissioners that, as written, meeting those objective criteria (for example spacing requirements) could create a legal entitlement that would make it difficult for the commission to deny an application.
"If they meet the conditional use, you will not be able…
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