St. Pete Beach leaders to consider 12-month development moratorium

ST PETE BEACH, Fla. — After another shift among elected officials in St. Pete Beach, the city is poised to discuss putting a 12-month moratorium on development during a scheduled meeting Monday night.

During a city commission meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 27, the board voted to fire the city attorney and agreed to hear from both land use attorneys and city staff about what a building moratorium would entail.

According to Mayor Aidan Petrila, the moratorium would be so the city could make changes to its comprehensive plan. Petrila says he wants to hold town hall meetings, workshops, and survey the city’s roughly 9,000 residents on their thoughts regarding what height and density requirements should be for future development.

“One of the things that they wanted was for us to reopen the comprehensive plan,” he explained. “They wanted to have community involvement, they want to have a say in what the future of our town looks like for the next 10, 20, 50 years from now so we can determine what is right for the residents in this town and the people who live here.”

Petrila first proposed a building moratorium when he was sworn in as mayor in early 2023, but the effort failed to get any traction among fellow commissioners.

Since then, four commissioners stepped down due to changes in the state’s financial disclosure requirements. The group was replaced with four new commissioners, two of which only held the spot for eight months. 

District 1 Commissioner Karen Marriott voiced in the late August meeting that she was skeptical of a possible development moratorium, with the city already facing a number of lawsuits.

“From a legal aspect is it defensible to essentially say, ‘We don’t want the hotels to do anything but anybody else can?’” she said, “Because I think that’s what we’re getting at.”

While the city will hear reports on the repercussions of a potential development moratorium during Monday’s meeting, Petrila says the whole process could take place 60-90 days to reach a final vote.