Mirror Lake Historic District….NOT SO FAST

The Mirror Lake Historic District? Not So Fast.
You might have read the recent headlines proclaiming the recent vote by City of St. Petersburg City Council to designate downtown’s Mirror Lake as a historic district. And if you read some of the cheerleading around this action, you might think the historic designation was a good thing….but in fact the move to impose this historic district on such a vast amount of land in our city’s commercial core is one of the worst examples of local governance in our city’s history.
The designation is the subject of three separate lawsuits that I’ve filed against our city already and in the unlikely event that a court upholds the designation, this will only trigger additional lawsuits when affected property owners realize the economic harm this act of local government taking has caused.
While characterized as “historic preservation”, this effort is nothing more than one group of neighbors and a powerful special interest group leaning on city council members to take away the vested rights of their neighbors. Prior to this vote, every parcel within the district had vested property rights that are clearly specified in the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning regulations. But as neighbors saw other property owners exercising their vested property rights, they worked behind the scenes with the city’s historic preservation staff to take away those rights.
No one should stand and cheer when their neighbor’s property rights are violated and the whole of this community must understand the full truth and the economic consequences of historic preservation.
Rules for Thee….But Not For Me!
One thing that city council members were probably not aware of when they voted was that the largest voting block had already worked behind the scenes with the city’s historic preservation staff to sell their own development rights through a process called Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs). Having sold away their own development rights, the Mirror Lake Condominium residents immediately turned on their neighbors and used the third-party designation process to snuff out the vested rights of their neighbors.
But wait…it gets worse. Not only did city council vote to snuff out the property rights of more than 148 different parcels, before they voted an amendment was approved to lessen the burden of historic preservation on a city owned property, the Sunshine Center. The vast majority of the deliberation during the singular city council meeting focused not on the impact of taking the property rights from private citizens, but instead on making a specific exemption for a city property….a blunt admission that council understood the undue burden historic designation places on property. In fact, during these deliberations, one city council member actually uttered that telling, direct phrase, “Rules for Thee. Indeed.
Pulling A Fast One on The Governor
The last time the city attempted to designate Mirror Lake as a historic district was at the very time Governor Desantis was deciding whether to fund the new Bernie McCabe Second District Court of Appeals Courthouse, located squarely within Mirror Lake. The governor delivered a direct message that this $50-million-dollar economic development project would not be funded as long as the threat of historic designation was looming. It was specifically articulated that the new courthouse project was intended to generate spin off projects and growth and historic designation would be impaired by historic designation. Upon receipt of this very direct message, that prior designation effort was withdrawn and the courthouse was funded. To start this designation effort again just as the courthouse nears completion has the very real feel of bad faith and is certainly very bad politics.
The City’s Historic Preservation Staff Cannot Be Trusted
The last time the historic designation referendum process went to a vote was 2021 in the Driftwood Historic Designation case. The vote tally came up 4 votes short and that should have been the end of the matter. But the city’s historic preservation staff, not content to accept the free and fair will of the voters, instead engaged in an effort to solicit additional votes. Their vote harvesting efforts resulted in obtaining just the amount of votes they needed and the referendum passed. All of these facts were litigated before city council and this “successful” referendum was subsequently reversed by the appellate court based on ballot irregularities.
In this Mirror Lake Historic Designation effort, the city’s historic preservation staff has once again engaged in efforts to improperly influence the outcome of the process. The original Mirror Lake application was deficient on its face and that should have ended the effort. But just like in the Driftwood case, the city’s historic preservation staff changed the outcome when they allowed the deficient application to be corrected….but then failed to alert city council or any stakeholders that the application being voted upon was allowed to be altered. The date on the application did not change. The signatures on the application did not change. The staff report was issued before the amended application was accepted, but none of this was properly divulged to city council. In fact, no version of any application was part of the agenda item as voted on by city council.
These examples show that you cannot place a city department that has a vested stake in the outcome of a referendum process in charge of the entire process with no supervision or oversight. Private citizens that oppose these historic preservation efforts face a true David v. Goliath battle, with the unlimited resources of government and well-funded special interest groups on one side and those that dare to oppose these efforts on the other.
The Four Branches of Government
Any sixth grader will tell you that in the United States of America, we are governed by three branches: the executive, the legislative and the judicial branch. But the city’s historic preservation staff deployed a fourth branch, the quasi-judicial branch, in order to pass the Mirror Lake Historic District ordinance. The Kafkaesque procedures imposed upon city council ensured that little fact-finding would occur. Instead, in only one brief meeting, using procedures that stifled any real opposition, city council voted to impose the single largest land use change in our city’s core that has occurred since the comprehensive plan was adopted. City council is a legislative body and the Mirror Lake Historic Ordinance is undeniably legislation. There can be no such thing as judicial-ish for the legislative branch and this ordinance passed under the cloak of judicial-ish procedures must be rendered void.
Historic Preservation Locks in Blight And Economic Decline
Numerous efforts to bring real economic development to Mirror Lake have been stifled and opposed based upon the very real and regressive efforts of historic preservation. The undue burdens that are imposed on properties that have the scarlet letter of historic designation ignores economic reality and the challenging insurance environment that we all increasingly contend with. Historic preservation fanatics ignore these realities because they are not forced to directly bear these burdens, but the whole of the community suffers when the jobs and tax revenue new projects bring are chased away.
The Legislature And Courts Must Protect Citizens From Overreach
In 2023, the Florida Legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that prohibits land use changes through the referendum process just like the one deployed here. Ignoring this law represents a serious violation of the Constitutional rights of all citizens that cannot be taken lightly. There were very real reasons why state lawmakers took the significant step to pass such a law, and this example is the case study in why such action was necessary.
The citizens of this entire community must have faith that courts will step in, enforce the protections provided by state law and reverse the outrageous overreach that is represented by the pending Mirror Lake Historic designation.
Matt Weidner is a decades-long resident of St. Petersburg. He is an attorney and is a fierce opponent of historic preservation and the overreach of government.