Okaloosa County BOCC — August 5, 2014 — Bruner Letter Island Putt-Putt — reading text

BRUNER LAW FIRM 110 Eglin Parkway, S.E. 3201 W. Highway 98 Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32548 Panama City, FL 32404 5 : (850) 769.9292 ane, Fort Walton Beach Fax (850) 664-0951 Fax (850) 664-0951 June 25, 2014 Okaloosa County Growth Management Attn: Elliott Kampert 1804 Lewis Turner Blvd. Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547 RE: Request for zoning waiver Dear Mr. Kampert: As the perspective purchaser of Lot 17, 18 and 19, Block 2, Santa Rosa Island, (Okaloosa Island), the Beachmark Inn Inc., would request a zoning waiver for the properties in question. The waiver would be requested to operate a mini golf business on these three lots. The current zoning classification is B2. B2 zoning would allow for many ordinary commercial uses as long as such uses were tied to an apartment or motel/hotel operation. We do not intend to try and operate an apartment, hotel or motel on this site, but would request the “waiver” to operate a mini golf course. We propose to call this mini golf course “Okaloosa National” similar to the famous Augusta National Course where the Masters is played. We have attached a detailed drawing of a 36 hole course with parking in the rear (north) and 36 holes laid out along the front (south) of the property. It would have one building, which would be the clubhouse to check out the golf balls and putters and a men and women’s bathroom all under a 20 foot by 30 foot building. We have enclosed a number of pictures for the type of holes and the type of construction we would propose. This course would be primarily modeled after the county owned course on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. (see photo #1) The course is relatively flat, has lots of cabbage palms and crepe myrtles, with pine straw and monkey grass. We would include very small water hazard and sand traps within the green carpeted “fairways” on many of the holes to make it a little more challenging, or at least interesting, than the county course in St. Simon’s Island. The St. Simon’s Island course is a good example for another reason. T hey recognize that there wasn’t enough to do for the people who stayed on St. Simon’s Island. So the county actually spent the money and put in this course in order to make St. Simon’s Island more “fun”. That is kinda similar to Santa Rosa Boulevard, where there is not much for all of the people we have in the area to do. We believe that a tremendous number of people would walk to this facility. This is because Okaloosa Island is the most pedestrian friendly area in and along Santa Rosa Boulevard in the entire panhandle. Every day people can be seen walking, jogging and riding bicycles up and down Santa Rosa Boulevard. There are a number of hotels and condominiums that are easily within walking distance of this facility. We would also propose to follow the latest lighting measures using LED lights to save energy and using the “dark sky” movement and “good neighbor” movement lights into place for this mini golf course. The golf course’s time of operation would be from approximately 10 in the morning until 10 at night. We even have a fee schedule proposed. We would start out by using the same fee schedule they use at St. Simon’s Island. They charge $7.00 per person, with discounts for large groups and, 10 round passes for $50.00 and $5.00 per person for a group of 20. Our plan is to make this affordable and fun. We do not plan to make this a distasteful putt putt like many of the “windmill and animal figure” courses that are out there. We want to make it somewhat challenging for young and old alike. We have enclosed several pictures of the small water hazards and small sand traps that we would plan to incorporate. We think that the holes should be relatively easy, but still have some challenge and that this will make people enjoy it more and want to come back. Our site plan shows you that we have devoted half the property to parking and come up with 23 comfortable parking spaces. With the pedestrian traffic, we believe that this will be enough parking places to serve our 36 holes. In some of the photos we have enclosed, there are large areas of water off to the sides of the fairways. We do not want to have these large areas of water, That is why we like the course pictured in photo #1, at St. Simon’s Island. We do not believe that the large areas of water are necessary. We think they will be expensive to build and maintain. They also propose a potential hazard or liability risk that we want to avoid. However, we do like the small water hazards 2-3 feet in diameter that are found in some of these holes. We respectfully request that you consider our waiver. Sincerely, -—> rd fq § Af AAG (lee i ts) A L” Vince Brufér President of Beachmark Inn, Inc.