Why Marco Island Should Reject the Hilton PUD Rezoning Proposal
Rick Woodworth explains why the proposed Hilton rezoning conflicts with Marco Island’s Comprehensive Plan and should be denied.
Rick Woodworth
9/19/20263 min read
My letter to Marco Island City Council:
Honorable Members of the City Council:
I am writing in opposition to REZN-24-000098, the application by Marco Beach Hotel, Inc. to rezone 560 S. Collier Blvd. from Residential Tourist (RT) to Planned Unit Development (PUD), and to increase the hotel from 310 units (30 du/acre) to 626 units (60 du/acre) at a height of up to 150 feet. I urge the Council to deny the application or, in the alternative, continue it pending a Comprehensive Plan Amendment addressing density on this parcel.
This position is not simply my own reading of the Comprehensive Plan. It is the City’s own staff conclusion. The September 11, 2026, staff report to Council states plainly that the proposed rezoning “does not comply with Goal 1, Objective 1.1, or Policy 1.1.1 of the Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use Element,” and staff recommended denial to the Planning Board. The Planning Board nonetheless voted 3–2 to recommend approval over staff’s objection.
The density figures are not close. Policy 3.1.5 sets a single density ceiling for the Resort/Residential future land use category, the designation that governs this parcel, at 16 dwelling units per acre. On the property’s approximately 10.4 acres, that ceiling permits roughly 166 to 168 units. The applicant proposes 626, nearly four times that limit. Staff’s report confirms the 16 du/acre figure as controlling and states directly that “this application is proposing 60 du/acre.” Staff’s report also identifies a second, independent ceiling: Under Future Land Use Element Policy 4.2.2, a pre-Comprehensive Plan development such as this one, built in 1985 at 310 units, may be redeveloped only up to that existing unit count. The proposed 626 units exceeds even that more generous benchmark by more than double.
It is worth pausing on what 60 du/acre actually represents. That is a density more typical of intensively zoned urban high-rise districts in cities like Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach than of a low-rise barrier island governed by a Comprehensive Plan that caps this parcel at 16 du/acre, less than a third of what is being requested.
The scale of the change is not just a density figure on paper. Going from 310 rooms to 626 rooms roughly doubles the size of this hotel. That means hundreds more cars, plus the additional staff needed to serve nearly twice as many rooms, all funneling onto a stretch of South Collier Boulevard that already carries heavy beach traffic at Winterberry Drive.
The staff report is equally direct on process and purpose. Section 30-381 of the Land Development Code states that a PUD rezoning is meant to encourage “mixed-use planned developments” and “ingenuity, innovation, and imagination” in site design in exchange for the flexibility a PUD grants. Staff found that this application does not meet that standard: It proposes no mix of uses and no distinctive design, only an expansion of the existing hotel at more than double its permitted intensity. Staff also confirmed that the applicant was advised to pursue a Comprehensive Plan Amendment before seeking rezoning and instead proceeded directly to a rezoning hearing without staff’s recommendation.
Staff’s required findings under Section 30-62(3)(b) of the Land Development Code reinforce the same conclusion. Staff found that there are no changed or changing conditions on this site that would make the rezoning appropriate; that traffic through the site is projected to double, with likely adverse effects on neighboring properties and pedestrian safety at Winterberry Drive and South Collier Boulevard; and that, absent a Comprehensive Plan Amendment, approval “would grant a special privilege to an individual real property owner.” Staff further cautioned that permitting fractional density or the absence of a density limit on this site “could encourage similar future proposals” elsewhere on the Island.
Marco Island’s Comprehensive Plan exists precisely to prevent density decisions of this magnitude from being made parcel by parcel, through a rezoning device, without the public review a Plan Amendment requires. Approving this PUD as presented would not simply grant one owner’s request; it would establish that the City’s adopted density limits can be exceeded fourfold through the PUD process alone, without amending the Plan that sets those limits in the first place.
I respectfully ask the Council to follow its own staff’s recommendation and deny REZN-24-000098 as presented, or to continue the matter until the applicant has pursued the Comprehensive Plan Amendment process that staff has already identified as the appropriate path.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Rick Woodworth
Marco Island Resident
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Political advertisement paid for and approved by Rick Woodworth, 2026 candidate for Marco Island City Council