The city of Venice took another important step forward this week in assuming dock permitting authority from Sarasota County when the Venice Planning Commission adopted an updated draft ordinance on Tuesday.

The ordinance, allowing the city to regulate structures over water, is modeled after Sarasota County’s. City council directed staff to develop the ordinance, in part to break a stalemate over the Marker IV docks, even going so far as to threaten to job out drafting the ordinance if staff didn’t make it a high priority.