Planning board recommends approval for 946 Main Street tavern and parking lot with conditions

The Safety Harbor Planning and Zoning Board on Jan. 14 recommended that the City Commission approve a site plan for a proposed tavern and parking lot at 946 Main Street, subject to added conditions addressing access and technical review requirements.

Senior planner Cecilia Action presented the application (case 2025‑40SD), saying the project comprises a roughly 0.36‑acre parcel and an adjacent Delaware Street parcel and would place a 1,058‑square‑foot tavern with outdoor "dog dining" and associated parking on the site. Cecilia said the applicant, identified in the record as Eli Peng of Bayside Engineering LLC, proposes 10 parking spaces total — three on-street spaces along Main Street plus seven on the Delaware parcel — which staff calculated to meet the code requirement for taverns (one space per four seats). Cecilia also noted a requested waiver to reduce a 24‑foot driveway aisle to 22 feet to preserve a 5‑foot landscape buffer.

Neighbors urged the board to weigh real-world impacts. Owen Winder, a long‑time property owner near the site, urged stronger stormwater measures, saying, "This plan ... does not give a plan for handling stormwater. That's terrible. It's asking for a disaster." Several residents raised concerns about flooding in the alley and on Delaware Street, the safety of fire‑truck access on the narrow street, and whether three on‑street spaces would realistically be available to new customers given existing downtown demand.

Staff and the applicant responded that the proposal was designed to meet state and local drainage requirements and the land‑development code. Cecilia explained the code allows marked on‑street spaces in the Community Redevelopment District to count toward required parking. Applicant engineer Eli Peng said the project underwent a Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) resumption review and that, "We are adding a total of 7,500 around there impervious to the site ... but we are, minus 5,000 square feet of impervious for when that building was there 3 years ago," representing the project's net impervious‑area calculation as presented to staff.

Board members discussed ingress and egress and possible adjustments to the aisle width. The applicant indicated a willingness to revise the aisle to address concerns; the engineer said it would be feasible to return the drive aisle to about 23–24 feet by small buffer adjustments.

An unidentified board member moved to recommend approval of case 2025‑40SD while directing staff and the applicant to revisit ingress/egress to avoid reliance on the alley and to include concurrency management and the technical review committee's stated conditions. The motion, as amended, was seconded and passed unanimously. The board's recommendation is advisory; the City Commission will make the final decision at its Feb. 2 meeting at 7 p.m.

The record for the application notes tree removals (two laurel oaks and two palm trees) and that mitigation will be required (the applicant proposed planting to replace removed trees or paying into the tree mitigation fund). Utilities, Cecilia said, are available at the Main Street frontage. The board instructed staff to work with the applicant and public works on access and drainage options ahead of the City Commission hearing.