616 Eaton Street house project moves ahead

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

The long-running saga of the proposed renovation of the historic house at 616 Eaton St. took one step forward and a half-step back recently.

A circuit court judge ruled in favor of the owners recently, overruling two previous challenges from several neighbors of the Eaton Street property. Judge Timothy Koenig ruled that the original decision by the Key West Historical Architectural Review Commission (HARC) approving the project and a subsequent decision by Special Magistrate Donald Yates affirming the HARC decision could stand. Koenig overruled appeals from the neighbors that HARC and Yates did not follow due process.

“The case boils down to a battle of opinions about how HARC’s guidelines should be applied and whose substantial evidence is stronger and more persuasive,” Koenig wrote in his opinion. “The battle has already been fought and decided by the quasi-judicial process established by the Key West City Commission.”

The half step back occurred at a HARC meeting that took place the day after Koenig’s decision. The owners, Mark and Kristina Serbinski, had asked HARC to approve the demolition of a small shed attached to the original historic house. While the house qualifies as historic, the shed was built sometime after 1972, which removes it from historic regulations consideration.

Despite that fact, HARC members voted 4-0 to postpone a decision on the demolition after a move to approve failed to find a second. There was no discussion about the postponement, however HARC member Lori Thompson made it clear how she would have voted, saying she had watched the house slowly deteriorate over the past five years since it was abandoned.

“To finally see it coming back to life, I think it’s fabulous. I want to give the owners credit for taking that on,” she said about the proposed project.

The Serbinskis purchased the property, which includes a particularly large 19,000 square foot lot, in 2014 for $1.8 million. In addition to two houses, their proposed family compound includes second floor balconies and a rooftop garden in the 11,464 square foot project.

The size of the proposed project has dismayed some neighbors, who complain that the large compound is not in keeping with the historic nature of other buildings in the area. Neighbor Dana Day, who attended the HARC meeting to urge that the demolition not be approved, built a model to show what she said was “the enormity of the scar in the historic district.”

“If you approve this demolition, you’re laying the groundwork for the applicant to build this in its entirety. It’s not one little demolition. It’s merely a step in a much bigger process that should… be considered as a whole and not piecemeal,” she told HARC members.

The last legal challenge the neighbors could make would be to appeal Koenig’s decision to the 3rd District Court of Appeals.

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