Big Meeting May 4 for Long Bar Pointe: 1:30 PM

13-story high rises here?

Long Bar Pointe

By a vote of 3-2 the Manatee County Planning Commission barely recommended approval for Aqua by the Bay on Thursday, but commissioners had many doubts.
The best thing you can do now is write a letter to the editor. The Bradenton Herald and Sarasota Herald-Tribune reach thousands of people in Manatee County.
The easiest way is to go to their websites.
Bradenton Herald: Go to Full Menu/Opinion/Submit a Letter. Herald-Tribune: Go to the bottom of the Home page and click Letter to the Editor under Submissions.
Almost 200 people have emailed commissioners objecting to the project.

If you haven't written yet, you have until May 4, when the County Commission meets.  Please write to Commission Chair Betsy Benac at betsy.benac@mymanatee.org

Our petition has more than 1,200 signatures.  Thanks to all who signed.  You can add your name at: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Save-Longbar-Pointe-on-Sarasota-Bay.

Here is a summary of the issues involved.

The big meeting is May 4 at the County Commission, which will have final say.  If you can attend the meeting, please do. A big turnout matters, especially if you speak.

Carlos Beruff

If you want to speak, sign up for a speaker card outside the commission chambers.  If you speak as an individual, you get three minutes.

If you speak for an organization with five or more members, you get 10 minutes.  You need to bring a letter signed by an officer of the organization.

The meeting will be held at 1:30 pm in the County Commission building, 1112 Manatee Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205.

Thank you for helping save Manatee County's last great place.

Stuart Smith - for Manatee/Sarasota Sierra Club & Suncoast Waterkeeper 

PS - If you are an officer in a conservation or civic organization, please pass this email along to your membership.

The Herald-Tribune weighs in on Long Bar Pointe.

Long Bar Pointe: Destroy the wonder

The last natural shoreline on Sarasota Bay is under threat from development again.

Long Bar Pointe is home to the bay’s best mangrove and seagrass ecosystem, its finest fishing grounds and its largest bird sanctuary.  The latest project from developer Carlos Beruff puts them all at risk.

Three years ago, Mr. Beruff tried to build a marina and dredge a boat channel through the mangroves at Long Bar Pointe, but ran afoul of the Manatee County Comprehensive Plan.  He tried to amend the plan to let him have his way, but the county turned him down.   After suing in vain for three years, he’s back.

Now, at a development called Aqua by the Bay, Mr. Beruff wants to:

• Dredge a lagoon 2½ miles long, up to 150’ wide and 8’ deep right behind the mangrove fringe.
• Build a seawall right behind the lagoon and nearly 3,000 homes above the seawall.
• Construct at least one building 75’ tall and one 145’ tall – four times the legal limit.

He’d also like to install dozens of docks along the shore and, under a unique mitigation bank from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, trim more than a linear mile of the mangrove coast.

The lagoon, the seawall, the mangrove trimming, the mitigation bank, the docks and the density would:

• Conflict with a more than a dozen local dredging and wetland protection laws.
• Severely impact the mangroves and their ecological function.
• Endanger the healthiest seagrass beds on Sarasota Bay.
• Destroy the character of this peaceful coastline.

Beruff

Responsible agencies stopped allowing lagoons and seawalls behind mangrove shorelines 40 years ago because scientists found they depleted ecological function and condemned mangroves to relentless decline.

13-story high rises on this coast would destroy its Old Florida feel, and replace a natural wonder found nowhere else with an artificial world you could find anywhere else.

Everything about this project would degrade this complex and fragile ecosystem.  There is no doubt Long Bar Pointe will be developed one day, but it should be done with the respect and care it deserves.

Sometimes, the People Win -but maybe not - UPDATE

Bradenton Times follow-up to eariier story (below):

Beruff Seeks ACOE Approval for Long Bar Mitigation Bank Amidst Claims of Undue Influence by Former DEP Employees

Dennis Maley• Tuesday, Mar 07, 2017

BRADENTON — Following DEP's recent green light, Medallion Homes CEO and Long Bar Pointe Developer Carlos Beruff has applied to the Army Corps of Engineers for a mitigation bank permit that would vastly alter the allowable development at his controversial waterfront project on Sarasota Bay. Meanwhile, a DEP employee who was suspended after failing to recommend approval for a similar bank, has finally spoken out about the developer’s influence with the agency.

Manatee County may have won an important victory against the politically-connected developer when an appeals court judge recently upheld a decision that ruled against Beruff's challenge to the constitutionality of elements of the county's comp plan that were used to deny him the ability to build a hotel and marina, while dredging critical waters in Sarasota Bay. However, Beruff is continuing the pursuit of what may amount to an end around on some of those rules through the use of a mitigation bank that would provide him with credits that could be used to facilitate the dredging.

Despite firm opposition from the public and several environmental groups, DEP put out a notice of intent to issue approval for a similar application to their agency in December. An employee who was suspended from DEP in 2012, after recommending against a similar bank in Clay County, told Politico on Thursday that she also authored a memo reviewing Beruff's mitigation bank application, but that it was never put out by her superiors.

"That was the first indication that he (Beruff) was going to control what was done with that project," former DEP environmental administrator Connie Bersok told Politico. "That was the clue. And things sort of went downhill from there."

Continue Reading . . .

. . . from the Bradenton Times:

Hats Off to the County for Victory in Long Bar Pointe Case

Dennis Maley• Sunday, Mar 05, 2017

Too often it seems, a political columnist is forced to dwell on negative outcomes or dubious decisions. Trust me, I'd always prefer to celebrate a happy ending, and this story provides just that.

On February 24, Manatee County prevailed in a lawsuit filed by politically-connected developer Carlos Beruff over the limitations imposed on his controversial Long Bar Pointe project by the county's comprehensive land use plan. The importance of this victory would be hard to overstate.

Carlos Beruff

Long Bar Pointe is a series of housing developments Beruff is building on the last major undeveloped portion of Sarasota Bay in southwest Manatee County. Had Beruff and his partner on the project, Larry Lieberman, gotten their way, protected mangroves would have been replaced by a stone promenade, a marina, a navigational channel, and possibly a hotel, all just south of the historic Cortez fishing village. Among other worrisome concerns, it would have required a major dredging in a very environmentally-sensitive area that is critical to our local fisheries and sea grass formations.

The county approved the project only after the BOCC appeared to have reached a deal of sorts with the developers, who agreed to withdraw the hotel and marina portion of their application during a contentious meeting that drew so many members of the public that it had to be moved to the local convention center. Only once they got the nod on some of what they wanted, Beruff and Lieberman turned around and filed suit in order to get the rest. (emphasis added)

Continue reading . . .

Beruff Saga continues

County Investigates Possible Illegal Land Clearing Near Long Bar Pointe

The Bradenton Times Dennis Maley• Wednesday, Nov 02, 2016

BRADENTON — Suncoast Waterkeeper has filed a complaint with Manatee County, alleging that developers of the controversial Long Bar Point project in southwest Manatee County have illegally cleared land that doesn't belong to them in connection with a forthcoming subdivision.

The complaint alleges that part of a county conservation easement, as well as property belonging to an adjacent development—Legends Bay—were cleared along with Long Bar Pointe property, in violation of county ordinances.

Residents of Legends Bay recently began noticing that some of the most attractive green space property in their development had been cleared—property they had understood would forever be preserved. ...

"You've got this giant Bald Eagle nest that all of a sudden just vanishes," said McClash. "We're talking about branches as big as six feet long, and every one of them is suddenly gone from the tree . . . 

Read more. . . 

Beruff Boat Channel Blocked

Opponents of Carlos Beruff's plan for a boat channel in Sarasota Bay called a Judge's decision "a victory for the community":

Long Bar Pointe Developers Withdraw Mitigation Bank Permit

Dennis Maley• Wednesday, Sep 07, 2016

BRADENTON — The ongoing saga of the Long Bar Pointe development was updated on Tuesday when developers Carlos Beruff and Larry Lieberman withdrew their application to the state for a controversial mitigation bank along the development's Sarasota Bay shoreline.

A wetland mitigation bank is a device that allows developers to use preservation, enhancement, restoration or creation of a wetland, stream, or habitat conservation area to offset or compensate for expected adverse impacts to similar nearby ecosystems.

Beruff and Lieberman had asked the state to designate the majority of their 522-acre property's shoreline as a bank, hence giving them credit to mitigate destroyed wetlands associated with the development.

A suit was brought against the developers and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection by Suncoast Waterkeeper, the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritageand TBT publisher and former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash, seeking to stop the permit. The withdrawal means there will be no administrative hearing on the matter.

 

The withdrawal follows Beruff and Lieberman's failed lawsuit challenging portions of the Manatee County Comp plan and whether parts related to dredging of canals, channels and marina basins and the construction of boat ramps and restrictions to protect our coastal wetlands, shorelines and submerged land were in violation of the Constitution. A judge ruled against the developers in January.

Beruff and Lieberman's federal application for a mitigation bank is still pending, and they could reapply with the state in the future. However, at least for now, the withdrawal looks like a win for the many environmental activists who've opposed the bank along with many other aspects of the controversial development along the last major portion of undeveloped Sarasota Bay coastline in Manatee County.

"The withdrawal of the permit is a victory for our community," said McClash. "We have a strong coalition of citizens and environmental organizations that rise up in unity to protect our environment. We must remain vigilant and fight to save our quality of life so many of us enjoy."