Rose Marina: The Questions Council Chose to Ignore
On September 10, Marco Island City Council moved the Rose Marina development forward despite numerous unaddressed questions and concerns. Here is what happened and why I believe this issue deserves more attention.
MARCO NEWS
On September 10, Council did not directly vote on whether cruise ships should be permitted at Rose Marina. Council focused on dumpsters, landscaping, and dock configurations while avoiding discussion of the Site Development Plan (SDP) approval entirely.
Staff and the City Attorney contend that Council had no requirement to vote on the SDP, only the three variances on the agenda. However, these were interconnected elements of a development plan with embedded approval of up to four ships over 100 feet at one time. By approving the pieces necessary for that plan to proceed, Council has de facto enabled the cruise ship docking without ever directly discussing whether that is an allowable use at the marina.
Residents who urged Council to vote NO were not really concerned about a dumpster or landscaping. They wanted to know how big the ships might be, their passenger capacity, their frequency at the marina, and the cumulative effects on traffic, nearby homes, sewage and water usage, air quality, and the environment of Factory Bay. By refusing to consider the development as a whole, Council avoided those questions while still enabling the plan to move forward.
Given the off-site parking component, the Planning Board’s approval of the site development plan (SDP) was expressly conditioned upon Council approving the entire SDP. Instead, off-site parking was folded into a boat storage conditional-use item, and the Council was thus given a resolution that did not match the language approved by the Planning Board.
Prior to the meeting, Planning Board Chair Jason Bailey raised these concerns with City staff and City Council. His concerns were apparently dismissed. At the beginning of the September 10 Council meeting, Council Member Stephen Gray asked about the need to add the off-site parking component as a separate agenda item, as proposed by the Planning Board Chair. His request was dismissed.
Following the meeting, both the chair and vice chair of the Planning Board publicly stated that Council did not follow the expected process, which meant that Council failed to approve the off-site parking component of the SDP, and therefore skipped over one of the Planning Board’s conditions for approval.
Throughout the meeting, residents and even an attorney representing MICA urged Council to slow the process and resolve the many concerns surrounding these plans. Those requests were dismissed.
The approved SDP allows up to four vessels like cruise ships over 100 feet in and near Rose Marina at any one time. In response to concerns that Rose Marina never sought or received permission to dock cruise ships, Resolution 03-13 was cited as evidence that Rose had no need to do so. That resolution limits the number of large commercial vessels in Factory Bay to two at one time, but it makes zero mention of cruise ships.
When it was adopted in 2003, Rose Marina was serving smaller vessels like the Island Princess and the Key West Express. Its creators likely never considered that cruise ships would one day enter this area, because that resolution establishes no maximum vessel size, passenger capacity, or frequency of visits.
A decades-old resolution written before cruise ships began docking at Rose Marina that makes zero mention of cruise ships cannot substitute for a deliberate public discussion. Resolution 03-13 should be revised or a new resolution developed after environmental, traffic, safety, parking, bussing, and neighborhood concerns have been fully evaluated.
Council did not vote to approve cruise ships, yet it approved all the components of a plan designed to accommodate them without addressing their long-term implications. Now cruise ship operations are moving forward while the community’s most consequential questions remain unanswered.
This process did not provide the careful, transparent governance Marco Island residents deserve. We must do better. Before approving developments that could permanently alter Marco, Council MUST answer the major questions, address residents’ concerns, and carefully consider the long-term consequences with an aim toward protecting this island paradise we are blessed to call home.
Thank you for caring for Marco,
- Teri Sommerfeld
Candidate for Marco Island City Council
Learn more about Teri, her background, and her vision for a brighter future for all who call Marco Island home.
(C) 2026 Teri Sommerfeld
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