Asked what project he was most proud of, Tom Trask, city attorney for Madeira Beach responded “I was particularly proud of the project where Caddy’s is now. One of my major concerns was protecting Kitty Stuart Park.” 

Trask’s idea of protecting Kitty Stuart Park was to turn it into a parking lot. This is just one example of how Madeira Beach developers in concert with the City’s planning department and lawyers have turned the formerly quaint fishing village into a concrete jungle of overbuilt  condos, hotels and parking lots.  With more to come.

On November 19, 1987, Tom and Kitty Stuart, well known citizens of Madeira Beach, dedicated parkland to the City. Located at 14050 Gulf Blvd, Kitty Stuart Park located on the sandy shores of the Gulf of Mexico had a grand entrance of palm trees that was a pleasant reminder of an earlier era of Madeira Beach. It was inviting, welcoming and offered a peaceful place of locals to enjoy the quiet of the Gulf. For more than 30 years, this pocket park served the community with free parking, a gazebo for shade, protection for the dunes and easy access to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The deed to the City clearly limited it use. “This deed is made and accepted on the condition that the land hereby conveyed be used and maintained solely as the site of a City Park to be named “The Tom and Kitty Stuart Park” and that the grantee its heirs and assigns shall forever use and to maintain in good condition the premises solely for the purposes of a City Park.”

Kitty Stuart Park Before Conversion To Caddy’s Parking Lot

Trask’s vision of protecting the park is at odds with most of the residents who loved the park as it was. How could this have happened to a dedicated park with a clear restrictive covenant requiring use only as a park? With the City’s lawyer at the helm, the planners and city manager not only violated the restrictive covenant but granted the developer a variance to reduce the amount of required parking by a third.

Since 1987, Kitty Stuart Park remained a park, with a few parking spaces, lined by palm trees and a gazebo for beachgoers to sit on and enjoy the beach. It used to be filled with residents who enjoyed the beach access the park provided. Now, however, the palm trees, shrubs and fence have been bulldozed to make way for a Caddy’s parking lot. Actually, it is still a city owned lot, but the city permitted Caddy’s to use the parkland’s parking spaces as part of its required parking.

Kitty Stuart Park Today

The Development Agreement Trask Negotiated

In 2013, Kitty Stuart Park was a fenced in park which happened to be located next to a lot which a developer wanted to convert into a restaurant. There were two separate lots with two entirely different uses. At the time, 2013, the proposed restaurant was called the Gulf Grill which was planned as a high end restaurant by local restauranteur Stephen Westphal. That project was never completed and Caddy’s built its restaurant under that same development agreement. The City ignored the fact that development agreements must be reviewed annually. Apparently, this one slipped through the mile wide gap that the City keeps open for developers.

The problem with the site, however was that Gulf Grill’s lot was too small to accommodate the restaurant and the required 54 parking spaces. And, there wasn’t even enough room for a turn around so that patrons could enter and exit.

Kitty Stuart Park is the parking lot to the right of Caddy’s.
As you can see, there is no park.

In clear violation of the restrictions in the deed, Trask and the city manager and city planner, Linda Portal, concocted a plan to expropriate Kitty Stuart Park into the Gulf Grill lot next door and convert it into a parking lot. They simply ignored the restrictive covenant, and approved a plan which would allow the developer to tear down the fence, palm trees, and gazebo and, eventually made it into Caddy’s parking lot.

Meanwhile, the restaurant lot could only provide 22 spaces, but the City’s code required 54 spaces. Enter Trask’s negotiating “skill”.

When  Trask negotiated the development agreement he bragged in August that he got an additional 5 feet of land for the City from the developer. What he didn’t explain was that the development plan required 54 parking spaces based upon the estimated restaurant usage. 

Plans show that the lot had only has 22 places on its location, leaving 32 more spaces required.  In exchange for the five feet, Trask negotiated an agreement with the owner in which the City granted an illegal variance which reduced the required parking by 15 spaces, leaving an additional 17 required. Three spaces were eliminated by putting in two bike racks, moving the requirement to 14 spaces. The additional 14 spaces required  were the parking spaces in Kitty Stuart park.

So the reason there is inadequate parking for Caddy’s is that the City granted an unlawful variance to reduce the required parking for Caddy’s. A variance is a land use method of permitting an owner to utilize his property in a way that is not authorized by the city code and is only permitted if there is a hardship which would prevent a property owner from using his property without being granted a variance.

There was absolutely no basis for granting a variance for parking because the property could have been used for many other purposes. It certainly could have been used for a restaurant if it had been built smaller so that the available parking was compliant with the City code. (The City has consistently failed to follow its code. More on that in an upcoming post.)

In 2013, when the project was approved, Jack Bodziak, the architect of the project, represented to the Commission that a certificate of occupancy could not be issued until all of the parking was provided. It never was. Yet, in 2021, the City issued a certificate of occupancy and Caddy’s opened with only its 22 parking spaces and 14 from Kitty Stuart Park. The City should never have authorized a certificate of occupancy for Caddy’s to open. Yet it did…with great fanfare.

More Illegal Parking Lots

But the City and Caddy’s wasn’t done yet. They have now added two more parking lots of questionable consistency with the City code.

in 2022, Caddy’s submitted plans to build a parking lot on 14101 Gulf Blvd and 14090 Gulf Blvd. across the street from Caddy’s.  Zoning codes prohibit parking lots as a primary use on the designated lots and require any parking to be on a contiguous lot,  requiring the lots to be next to each other.

No problem for the City’s planners. They just authorized Caddy’s build the lots anyway. During Trask’s tenure, the director of community planning proposed amending the zoning code to change the word “contiguous” which formerly meant “abutting” to include lots that were “across the street”. So, City collaborated with Caddy’s to amend its code to allow what would have been illegal parking on two Gulf Blvd. lots.

Not surprisingly, the City’s planners yet again violated the City Code and the development agreement. Under the development agreement, the City code in effect at the time of the development agreement governed development. The ordinance changing the definition of contiguous was adopted in 2022, and should not have been utilized to permit the additional parking lots. 

Of course, the planners failed to tell the Commission why they were changing the code, which is exactly how the City has operated in the past and continues to operate today. So, not only did the City, unlawfully, grant the site a variance, it also allowed Caddy’s to open up without even providing the reduced required parking and then changed the code to suit the developers. (The City also did this on John’s Pass so it could create an activity center as well. See an upcoming post.)

What Can Be Done…How Citizens Can Help

Are the participants’ actions criminal? That’s a good question. After all, they authorized the expropriation of a deed restricted lot to private use. Did they steal anything from the residents? Probably not in any criminal law sense, but certainly in a moral and ethical sense. But then, who brags about destroying a park to build a parking lot?

What can be done? The Commission appears to have allocated some of the spaces for residents only, but is that enough? As part of the “negotiation” the developer was supposed to put in two bathrooms. That promise is still not completed. Caddy’s has installed ‘portable bathrooms’ which apparently do not work consistently and look like someone left a trailer on the lot. 

Since Caddy’s now has parking, perhaps it’s time to require Caddy’s to reconstruct the park. Put back the fence, the palm trees, the shrubbery and the gazebo, just as Tom and Kitty Stuart wanted and just as the deed required. But then, would Trask still be proud of his accomplishment?

Trask and his firm are one of two firms that the Commission is considering to appoint as City Attorney on September 13, 2023. The other firm is Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole and Bierman. (No relation to the site’s author)

If you want to let Commissioners to know your thoughts on Kitty Stuart Park, or anything else in this article, you can contact your Commissioners by clicking this link, Contact, or the Contact box at the top of the page.

For more about how Madeira Beach officials fail to follow the City code, read “Following The Law is Not A Loophole.” 

Here is the video of Trask on August 23, 2023 telling the Commission about his proudest accomplishment, paving paradise and putting up a parking lot on Kitty Stuart Park. The transcript is below the video.