Seminole Heights: Cappy's, Parking and the City

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Cappy's, Parking and the City

Just incase you missed it.
http://centraltampa.tbo.com/centraltampa/MGBEI5JZSTE.html

19 comments:

Anonymous said...: If this was a business who changed the use of a property to a carlot & did a construction project without pulling building permits would the neighborhood & OSHNA pres fight for it? I wonder what SSH neighbor complained about the parking intruding into thier neighborhood.

This business opened illegaly without proper zoning & it should be closed until it gets the right zoning.; 10/30/2006 7:41 AM
IFly said...: To answer your first question, while, I can't speak for others, I would imagine it would be NO. We have plenty of car lots and more is not desired by the majority of residents. Restaurants are something that is lacking within our neighborhood and by all appearances wanted by the neighborhood residents. If you had read the article perhaps you might have caught the following:
"Residents have complained for years about the lack of restaurants and shops, and Cappy's seemed to many to be the best thing to come along since Starbucks."
Your question is one just intended to stir controversy and doesn't seem to be part of a real discussion so please keep your trolling somewhere else.
As far as closing them down immediately, as many have stated in the code violation discussions, we have something called due process that precludes such drastic measures so long as there are no hazards to safety and health.
If, as Randy has suggested, we pack City Hall, I think it would be quite apparent what the community wants, Zoning laws are just a subset of the community standards and should be flexible when the majority believes it should be.
The complaint could have come from anyone, not necessarily a resident. When I have been there, I haven't seen parking extending into the neighborhood, so it must not happen all the time.; 10/30/2006 8:28 AM
Anonymous said...: The property is properly zoned for a resturant - the problem - as with 99.999888% of the commercial properties along the Fla/Neb length is the lack of parking when any construction is done.

While this has been commonly know it may take this Cappy's situation for the residents to get off their collective butts and push to make a difference in the way zoning is applied to urban parcels in our neighborhood.

There would have been a resurgence of neighborhood oriented businesses long ago if the city had been recepitive to zoning changes in the hood or if a concerted effort for change had taken place.

I don't diagree that Cappy's is a good thing for the area neighborhoods - I've been several times and love it - but I have to agree with the first post - we can't just pick and choose which illegal businesses that we stand up and fight for - it is all the worse because I understand that the owners girlfriend/wife works for a builder in Hyde Park and had a ready source for answers for commercial construction/zoning issues and choose not to avail herself of the guidance or chose to ignore the opportunity.

This is a case of code working - and now everyone will bitch because they like the offender - we can't have it both ways folks!!!

I think we should be able to go to the new owners of the SHIP property across Fla and have a pretty good argument for allowing their empty parcel to be used for community parking with no libality to them.; 10/30/2006 8:43 AM
Anonymous said...: How many people that live in the neighborhood walk to Cappy's? I know many people who live in the neighborhood also drive to Starbucks. We are going to have a hard time making the case for reduced parking requirements for a sit down restaurant without some rationale that its okay because fewer calls will need to park there or as some have suggested that there is some public parking opportunities outside the residential areas.; 10/30/2006 8:57 AM
IFly said...: Actually we can and should have it both ways, the whole reason we have a Code is to apply a community standard. Writing down ordinances is the most expeditious way to illustrate what that standard is, because we can't poll the community on each and every issue. It's also why we have the option to petition our representatives(Council) to vary those rules on a case by case basis for the greater good.
We live in this community so why can't we as a community pick and choose what businesses we have here. We're not talking about race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, we are talking about businesses that provide services to the neighborhood, and those that just happen to be in the neighborhood.; 10/30/2006 9:00 AM
Anonymous said...: It seems like there is plenty of available parking space if Cappy's could strike a deal with the building across Florida as well as the owner of the vacant lot to the north and Van Gogh's signs.

Nobody ever parks across the street. There are at least 10-12 parking spaces in a row.

There is a solution to this problem if people put their heads together and don't have a reactionary freak out.; 10/30/2006 9:23 AM
Chair said...: Anon 9:23 - Nobody parks across the street from Cappy's because until about 7pm trying to cross Florida Ave on foot is like playing Russian Roulette. No crosswalk, no traffic light, impatient drivers trying to get home add up to a pedestrian fatality just *waiting* to happen. A quickie solution might be to put a protected crosswalk with a traffic light near the point where Florida splits in two, but just wait until someone hits that light at 5:30 in the afternoon. Think you've seen people run yellow lights before? Not like you'll see it then.

As Anon 8:57 pointed out, we have lots of people in the neighborhood who drive to Starbuck's. Part of the reason for that is the stupid and impatient driving that people show around Central & Florida, packing the intersection, clogging up the Central Ave entrance and gridlocking with people coming around the drive-through, and generally making it hazardous to go there.

I would be perfectly okay with police cars waiting and watching for those kinds of violations for as long as it takes to retrain drivers, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any for TPD to get a big revenue boost from all the cars they ticket for those moving violations.; 10/30/2006 10:09 AM
Anonymous said...: The concept of "legal" parking spaces has alot to do with the size and layout of parking areas. Is this a question of whether on-street parking in the public ROW should count as parking for the establishment? Is there enough space for street parking? or is this a situation where poeple are just parking whereever the can get their vehicles and the suggestion is that the city should just ignore substandard parking lots in our neighborhood? I would assume its a little of both, but I am curious.; 10/30/2006 12:54 PM
AngelSil said...: This is the perfect opportunity for the city to do something to encourage pedestrian traffic outside Ybor and South Tampa. I certainly hope they take advantage of it. We love Cappy's and fully support it staying open in our neighborhood.; 10/30/2006 1:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Generally, parking is "legal" if you can back out and exit the parking space without encroaching on rights-of-way or traveled roadways. Cappy's on-street parking requires backing out onto South st or Florida Ave. But the spaces themselves are not *in* the roadway.

One MAJOR roadblock in all of this are the other business owners. Let's not let them off the hook by pointing fingers at only the City. The business owners are afraid that any new regulation will affect their zoning or impart other requirements that will cost them money, value, or make their property harder to sell. (which in the end are all the same thing: cash.) They have fought tooth and nail to keep Florida and Nebraska exactly the way it is now. All the efforts OSHNA put into designing a commercial overlay, in partnership with the city, were flushed away by ardent business opposition. The new effort, entirely by the City, is 70% business-directed and over a year later produced little beyond a mission statement.

The carrot hasn't worked. Perhaps if enough residents converged on council chambers a stick might be used.; 10/30/2006 3:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Listen to all of you! Waaaaaaaaaaa, Helen Prigden has more than 5 people living at her churches . . . it's the letter of the law . . . she is violating code. -vs- Waaaaaaaaa, Cappys is so great, who cares if they are not complying with the holy code. We should waive the biblical code for them because they are a very holy business.

I'm sending all of my sex offenders from 1303 and from solid rock to eat at Cappys. This will be adequate punishment for your hyprocracy! Blehk!; 10/30/2006 6:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Jim Norman favors closing Cappy's because it doesn't comply with the spirit of the law (code).

Joe Redner favers keeping Cappy's open, because it is good food and Americans need to walk anyway because they are overweight.

I, Yamel Christina Arronte support letting the sex offenders have group dining at Cappy's. This is the only, non-hipocritical way to waive code requirements for good food, while still being fair to Helen Prigden. IF the offenders get killed when crossing the street, it is their fate and it will be to the benefit of all involved.

My opponents may not be able to agree. But I see beyond their blindness, and I have all of the good answers!

J)Yamel Christina Arronte
www.arronte2006.com; 10/30/2006 6:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Ok, first of all, the Helen Pridgen incident was something that brought down our neighborhood, put our children in danger and was a negative to the area. Cappy's is bettering the neighborhood, is beautiful to look at, raises values, offers a much needed service and has the best damn pizza in town! You can't even compare the two. I don't support the fact that they did not pull permits to construct/open the business, but this goes to show how lazy and blind the city of Tampa really is. First, they had construction going on for months, second, how many times did the newspapers, blog, etc do and article on their new location. How could the city not have seen or heard about them rehabbing the building? For them to come around now is unbelievable.; 10/30/2006 10:46 PM
Anonymous said...: The city did not come around.......Cappys was turned in as an illegal business with insufficient parking.; 10/31/2006 7:08 AM
Anonymous said...: Fuckin A those calzones are awesome. MMM bacon and cheese.; 10/31/2006 8:25 AM
Anonymous said...: Again, like Starbucks, the issue isn't Cappy's per se but the system that exists to make it impossible for restaraunts to open in the area.

People only notice the system is broken when something good like Cappy's is at risk.

At least this time we don't have to deal with the inane anti-corp-coffee idjits.; 10/31/2006 3:30 PM
AngelSil said...: "At least this time we don't have to deal with the inane anti-corp-coffee idjits."

I'm sure somewhere in the neighborhood there's a militant-vegan-extremist determined to bring Cappy's down because they violate the rights of animals.

Or something..

=P; 10/31/2006 4:02 PM
Chair said...: angelsil - It wouldn't surprise me at all.; 11/01/2006 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...: and aren't extremist on every issue the reason we all live here in the 'hood?; 11/02/2006 6:52 AM