Industrial corridor threatens Polo Club and Waterside tranquility

Lorraine Rd in Waterside

]From The Observer:

Polo Club and Waterside at Lakewood Ranch residents are worried the makeup of their peaceful, rural area is about to be challenged as the county explores a zoning change for the Lorraine Road corridor.

In an Aug. 30 meeting, Sarasota County commissioners will decide whether to send a county-initiated amendment to designate Lorraine Road from University Parkway to Fruitville Road and Lorraine Road from Clark Road to State Road 681 as a Business Corridor overlay. Such an amendment would allow office space, light industrial and some business and service uses along Lorraine Road.

On April 26, the Sarasota County Commission adopted a new Business Park zoning district. The intention was to provide economic development and employment opportunities by allowing light industrial, office space and limited business and service uses in areas not previously zoned for such uses. Four original corridors — Fruitville Road east of Interstate 75, Bee Ridge Road east of I-75, the S.R. 681 and I-75 interchange and South River Road — were created.

Property owners with a minimum of 10 acres and access from an adjacent arterial roadway could request a zoning change that would allow them to host the above uses.  

On May 24, the two Lorraine Road corridors were added as potential Business Park Corridors.

Although virtual public workshops have been held, those living along Lorraine Road have received no written notice of the amendments.

"It's almost like Sarasota County is trying to do this in secret," said Polo Club resident Tim Hornung, who has been trying to notify all his neighbors about the significance of the Aug. 30 meeting.  More here

Click on Agenda item #85 for the relevant August 30 planning documents

Watch the August 17 Neighborhood Workshop:

 

A gaping barn door: The collapse of Sarasota's public planning

8.16.22

To the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners:

amaio@scgov.net, mmoran@scgov.net, rcutsinger@scgov.net, cziegler@scgov.net, ncdetert@scgov.net

RE: CPA 2022 B and CPA 2022-F - Failure to see the Big Picture

It's been a while since Sarasota could legitimately claim to be one of Florida's outstanding counties with regard to thoughtful planning. At one time, it was known for taste, moderate growth, and modest plans. Today it's in a dead heat with Broward County for Growth Gone Wild.

"Wild" not only because of the excessive overreach of developments such as Skye Ranch, Hi Hat, Wellen Park and Waterside, but also because you -- the County -- utterly failed to consider future needs, and to prudently provide for them before approving these and other large housing projects.

One specific proof of this is coming this Wednesday, when a half-baked plan to allocate lands on Lorraine Road for industrial and business uses comes up for a 6 p.m. neighborhood workshop. [Video of this workshop is now posted below.]

As you know, Lorraine will be an important North-South artery. When complete, it will extend south from Manatee County, running alongside key parts of Waterside, and Hi Hat down past Artistry to Skye Ranch before terminating where 681 connects with I-75:

When the proposal to set aside spaces for industry on Lorraine (CPA 2022-F) recently came up at the Planning Commission, it was voted down. The Commission didn't cite potential impacts to homeowners as its reason. Rather, the major sticking point was that Rex Jensen, Pat Neal, and the other developers involved with Waterside and Skye Ranch would not wish -- or allow -- such uses on their land.

Waterside, Hi Hat,
Skye Ranch

But there's a prior issue. You believe you are obligated to find land to meet the needs of future economic development, but have you done the analysis to demonstrate that this need exists? 

I ask because it has come to you only now, after Waterside is built out (and wishes to double its size), Hi Hat is approved, and Skye Ranch is well underway.

According to members of the Planning Commission, the developers whose wishes you approved are advising you in no uncertain terms that they will refuse industrial and business uses near their large, pricey developments.

And there's the rub: You knew the scope of Waterside, how it extended from University Parkway to Fruitville Road, and from I-75 to Lorraine. You knew the proposed scope of Hi Hat and that of Skye Ranch. You knew all this before these mega-housing projects were approved. Wouldn't that have been the moment to say:

Wait a second, Messers Jensen, Turner, Neal, et al, we will have a need for economic development east of I-75. We will need you to work with our planners to allocate space for future businesses before we can consider approving your plan.

Not only did you not apply forethought and public sense when you had bargaining power, but in fact you were giddy with delight in giving Rex and Pat the power to re-write Sarasota County's 2050 Plan-- the plan that is supposed to represent the collective vision of residents, builders, and the County. Rex and Pat took full advantage to write a chapter that allows them to increase density, to skip a host of planning steps, and to get underway while the market is hot.

Throughout this process, no one seems to have considered the big picture -- balancing the whole set of needs that come with shaping a well organized, very attractive county. You handed over the controls built into our Comp Plan to Rex and Pat, who have rewritten it to satisfy their highly profitable business plans.

In short, Commissioners Maio, Moran, Cutsinger, Ziegler and Detert, the barn door is wide open, the horses are long gone. You're wondering how to meet the growing needs of Sarasota's business and industrial sectors, but where is the analysis that proves this need exists?

One  recent industrial "need" you tried to meet was Jim Gabbert's. You nearly approved putting a dump next to the Celery Fields, with no analysis of need.

At that time, our residents suggested looking at other areas where such uses could more sensibly be organized. 

Now, having now carpeted most of Northeast Sarasota with plans for yet more gated communities, you are facing two challenges: (1) Where to find space for putative industrial uses, and (2) How to justify erasing 89% of Old Miakka - our last unique rural community - in order that Pat Neal and Rex Jensen can pave it with yet more boring human warehousing, without their having proved any demonstrated need. 

Appeasement of private interests rarely meets the comprehensive demands of well-thought-out public planning.

                                                                                             Respectfully,

                                                                        Tom Matrullo

Business Parks on Lorraine: Neighborhood Workshop 

Growth feeds Growth

 After the housing developers come the commercial developers: 

Commercial developers are looking at lands along Clark Road east of I-75 for commercial strip malls - gas stations, convenience stores, etc.

As part of their preparation, they are tracking planned housing - already approved - in the area. 

Near the intersection of Proctor (Trillium) and Clark (Skye Ranch, Hi Hat) they are excited to find the approved, planned build-out of some 25,000 homes:

Here's a closer view of the estimated new housing from Turner Family's Hi Hat and Skye Ranch, as well as Pat Neal's properties south of Clark:

Townhomes under construction at Skye Ranch

Adding up the total housing units in the area, the commercial developer provides a set of projected totals for housing:

One site targeted for a WaWa or other gas station and stores is at the Northeast corner of Proctor and Clark:

The strip mall proposal at Proctor/Clark appears to be part of preliminary commercial plans. They must be submitted to the County, then be presented to nearby neighborhoods before proceeding to the Planning Commission before being approved by the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners.

Lobeck: Road Plan opens way to more urban sprawl

After the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners approved a new plan for Lorraine Road on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, attorney Dan Lobeck sent this follow-up to his earlier analysis, which found the plan lacking required elements and details which are required by the Comprehensive Plan. Below is the complete follow-up email. The earlier analysis is here.

County Commissioners today followed through on their evident commitment to political kingpin Pat Neal and other development interests by approving a Plan amendment intended (as County staff stated) “to open up new areas for development”, for even more urban sprawl east of I-75 and south of Clark Road.

(A full explanation of the now-approved Plan and its problems is in my email below)

No one addressed my point that this will be hugely expensive and that the agenda records omit any calculation of that cost or who will pay for it, in violation of the requirement that the road network be “financially feasible.”

That is, other than Pat Neal, in his comments urging a “Yes” vote. He stated that he and the other four large landowners who will benefit from this road scheme “have a pretty good idea of what this is going to cost” and that they are prepared to contribute perhaps $20 million towards that expense.  (Typically, they would get that back in impact fee credits, in a “Developer Agreement”).  However, he did not state what portion of the total cost that will be and, again, no numbers are included in the County records for the meeting and none were discussed at the meeting other than that statement by Neal.

Most shockingly, in defending the Plan amendment, Commissioners made demonstrably false statements.

Commissioner Hines stated, “We’re minimizing environmental impacts.” The exact opposite is true, as they are re-routing Lorraine Road directly through an environmentally sensitive Greenway and a County preserve instead of having it hug the Interstate as it does in its current route.

And several Commissioners falsely claimed that the amendment creates a new, much needed north-south arterial east of I-75 as an alternative to that highway.  In fact, however, that arterial is already in the adopted planned road network – Lorraine Road hugging I-75 and connecting to Ibis Street (recently added) to the north and Rustic Road to the south, which then proceeds into east Venice.

 What the Plan amendment does is push Lorraine Road to the east, in order to open up more land to urban sprawl development, runs it entirely through the Greenway and connects to a new extension of Knight’s Trail deep into the County’s wildlife-rich Pinelands Reserve.

Indeed, the new route for this four-lane Lorraine Road is much less direct than the one in the existing Plan, pushed out east as the amendment does to facilitate new sprawl development.

Then there’s Christian Ziegler’s comment, after voting for the amendment.  This sort of “proactive planning” will actually “alleviate traffic later on,”  he claimed.  As if rerouting and adding roads to open up new areas for urban sprawl will not create more traffic, much of which will find its way into existing urban areas.

It is disappointing enough that we have a system in which big developers, led by Neal, invest tens of thousands in their hand-picked candidates and then reap millions from favors like this in return, at the expense of the taxpayers, the environment, traffic mobility and neighborhoods.

That is made even worse, however, when our elected representatives not only betray our interests but then refuse to be transparent and honest about the motivations and effects of their actions.

Fortunately, we have choices in Commission elections, and the benefit now of single member districts.  We all need to be working hard for our chosen candidates, now.

The future of our community is at stake, and its integrity.
  

Dan Lobeck, Esq.

Florida Bar Board Certified in
Condominium and Planned Development Law
Law Offices of Lobeck & Hanson, P.A.
2033 Main Street, Suite 403
Sarasota, FL  34237

Telephone:  (941) 955-5622
Facsimile:   (941) 951-1469

New Lorraine Rd. extension violates Sarasota's Comp Plan

Analysis of Future Thoroughfare Plan for Pubic Hearing of 5.20.20
Agenda Item #30

From Dan Lobeck to the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners

(Emphasis has been added in a few places below - otherwise this is the complete email without changes or omissions).

==

I have now fully reviewed this Comprehensive Plan amendment and all agenda materials, for the County Commission's public hearing on Wednesday.

I see that it is an amendment to the Future Thoroughfare Plan and related maps and not yet (as I had initially thought) an amendment to the Capital Improvement Element (which would be the next step, after this amendment).

The issue of funding remains critical.

With capital facility revenues now plummeting and remaining uncertain for the future, and huge unfunded needs for transportation improvements to serve the people here today, how can County Commissioners justify adding massive new road construction to its plans east of the Interstate and on and south of Clark Road, admittedly (as the staff report states) "to open up new areas for development" and to "serve future developments"?

Objective 1.1 of the Transportation Chapter of the County's Comprehensive Plan requires that the road system in the County's Thoroughfare Plan be "financially feasible."  Yet the County has done absolutely no review at all of the potential cost of these very expensive new road improvements or where the County may get the funds to pay for them.  That clearly violates the requirement of financial feasibility.

And already the County Commission has granted approvals of Sarasota 2050 developments in the area of these new roads without requiring the developers to pay for them, in violation of the "fiscal neutrality" requirements of the Comprehensive Plan for Sarasota 2050 developments.  Contrary to the Comprehensive Plan, the Commission's approved "methodology" for fiscal neutrality makes it optional whether the County requires a developer to pay for new or expanded roads to serve that development, beyond normal impact fees, and that has not been done as new Sarasota 2050 developments in this area south of Clark Road have been approved.

The County's requirements for a Comprehensive Plan amendment explicitly require "a narrative describing the justification for" the amendment, "including how the Goals, Objectives, and Policies of the" County's Comprehensive Plan "are met or furthered."  The County purports to comply with this requirement merely by listing applicable Comprehensive Plan Goals, Objectives and Policies, but omitting any narrative or other commentary, and no justification of how they are met or furthered.

Because they are not.

In addition to the violation of the financial feasibility requirement of the Comprehensive Plan, this amendment violates Policy 1.1.4 of the Transportation Chapter, which requires that transportation planning consider the impacts on land use planning and "Land use strategies and development patterns that reduce vehicle miles traveled will be encouraged."  This creation of miles of new and expanded roadway "to open up new areas" for urban sprawl east of the Interstate is the exact opposite of that Comprehensive Plan requirement.

Another Comprehensive Plan requirement that the County identifies as applicable to this amendment but for which it provides no conclusion of compliance, is Goal 1 of the Transportation Chapter.  It not only requires a transportation system that "recognizes present demands" (not developer desires) but also that the system "respects the integrity of environmentally sensitive areas and wildlife habitat."

Again, this amendment would grossly violate that requirement by rerouting Lorraine Road away from hugging the east side of the Interstate as it travels south toward Venice, to instead create a new, wide crossing of protected Greenway on its way to opening up new areas for urban sprawl, and then piercing miles into preservation lands to join up with a new extension of Knight's Trail in that preserve, then on south to Venice, all east of the Interstate.

Amazingly, the staff report concludes, without any stated evidence, that this Greenway crossing "largely avoids or minimizes impacts to protected native habitats" despite the fact that the crossing is entirely absent in the present Plan and that the Greenway by definition consists of environmentally sensitive lands which should be protected from disturbance by a new four-lane arterial road.  Adding insult to injury, the staff report dismisses that intrusion by observing that this major new road "generally follows existing historical trails," as if such trails are in any way equivalent to the impacts of a four-lane arterial road serving new developments made possible by that road.

In addition to the controversial rerouting of Lorraine Road, the amendment would widen Clark Road from two lanes to six from I-75 east to Ibis Road and then to four lanes east to Lorraine Road and then back to two lanes headed east.  This expensive road widening is added to serve new development but is largely on the backs of the taxpaying public.

The amendment would also add an extension of Dove Avenue from Clark Road to Lorraine Road (initially at two lanes) to open up that area for new development.

It would also, again without any data and analysis or idea where the funding will come from, add a full Interchange at I-75 and Clark Road, to help serve new development to the east.  Although this is characterized as a mere correction of a "scrivener's error" created when that Interchange was deleted in the 2016 update of the Comprehensive Plan, that is false.  That deletion was obvious and known in that update, as I clearly recall, in part to reflect that it would no longer be needed due to the removal of a Sarasota 2050 Town Center east of I-75 at that location, partly due to environmental constraints.  One just does not remove an  Interstate Interchange from maps and plans without realizing that one is doing that.  Because of the requirement for data and analysis in state law, this part of the amendment is legally not ready for adoption.

Megadeveloper Pat Neal

Indeed, due to the lack of any analysis of financial feasibility or any competent considerations of environmental impacts, as well as the very bad policy of facilitating even more urban sprawl than is accommodated today, as well as the bad form of considering and approving a controversial policy change during a pandemic when public gatherings and attention are limited, this Comprehensive Plan amendment should be denied or at least delayed.

If it is instead approved, it will be just another entry into the mounting evidence that Commissioners sit more to advance the fortunes of certain development interests, such as that of Mr. Neal, than to protect the public who Commissioners should - in a better world - be elected to serve.

Dan Lobeck, Esq.
Florida Bar Board Certified in
Condominium and Planned Development Law
Law Offices of Lobeck & Hanson, P.A.
2033 Main Street, Suite 403
Sarasota, FL  34237
Telephone:   (941) 955-5622
Facsimile:    (941) 951-1469
www.lobeckhanson.com

Clark Road widening under consideration

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Widening of Clark Road to six lanes from I-75 to Ibis Street and realignment of Lorraine Road to be focus of proposed county Comprehensive Plan amendment

March 21, 2019 by Rachel Brown Hackney, Editor & Publisher

Goal is to provide better road network connecting new developments east of I-75

This Future Thoroughfare Map in the county Comprehensive Plan shows ‘North South Roadway A.’ Image courtesy Sarasota County

The Sarasota County Commission has authorized county staff to work on a plan to realign Lorraine Road “to provide a connected network of future roadways east of I-75 to support future development.”

If ultimately approved, part of the process would lead to the reclassification of Clark Road as a six-lane major arterial from Interstate 75 to Ibis Street. Additionally, Clark would become a four-lane major arterial from Ibis Street to Lorraine Road.

An Ibis Road extension was added to the Future Thoroughfare Maps in 2018, a March 12 staff memo noted.

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) defines “arterial” as a divided or undivided roadway that provides a continuous route, serving through traffic, high traffic volumes and long average trip lengths.

The status of Ibis Road was a point of contention during public hearings last year as the County Commission addressed petitions for the Grand Lakes development east of Interstate 75, near Clark Road. Because the Ibis Road extension will not be completed until possibly decades from now — as county staff had testified — residents of the Serenoa Lakes and Serenoa communities stressed to the County Commission that Ibis Street is the only immediate access to their homes and the Grand Lakes site. Those residents would be the closest neighbors to Grand Lakes.

A map shows the location of Ibis Street and the planned extension, east of the site where Grand Lakes is planned. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Nonetheless, the commissioners in July 2018 approved the plans for up to 1,097 homes on the Grand Lakes property. The project is a Neal Communities initiative.

On a unanimous vote of approval of its March 12 Consent Agenda, the commission formally gave staff the go-ahead to initiate a Comprehensive Plan amendment to the county’s Future Thoroughfare Maps that would not only realign the routing of Lorraine Road — which runs north-south — but also classify Dove Street as a two-lane minor collector.

In December 2016, the memo explained, the commission adopted an updated version of the county’s Comprehensive Plan. In that document, the Future Thoroughfare Plan Maps included Lorraine Road from Clark Road south, “roughly paralleling I-75 …” Lorraine Road then was planned to proceed east along Rustic Road to an intersection with Knights Trail Road.

Lorraine Road was identified on the map as “North South Roadway A.”

Several developments that the County Commission already has approved and others that have been planned “are connected to or utilizing the thoroughfare from Clark Road south to the northern limits of the City of Venice,” where it meets Knights Trail Road, the memo continued. Work on the rerouting of Lorraine Road “presents an opportunity,” the memo said, to analyze possible positive benefits. For example, the memo noted, connectivity could be enhanced, more limited environmental impacts might result and overall infrastructure costs could be reduced.

“Conceptually, staff would examine routing Lorraine Road eastward to Knights Trail Road, north of Knights Trail Park, proximate to the [county landfill],” instead of south of Knights Trail Park along Rustic Road, the memo added.

A graphic presented to the County Commission in March 2018 shows planned Sarasota 2050 villages in the vicinity of the Grand Lakes site. Image courtesy Sarasota County

As for Dove Street: The memo explained that a second facet of the proposed amendment would add that street as a two-lane minor collector from Clark Road to Lorraine Road.

FDOT defines “collector” as a divided or undivided roadway that serves as a link between arterials and local roads “or major traffic generators.” FDOT adds, “Collectors may include minor state roads, major county roads, and major urban and suburban streets.”

With the County Commission’s approval last week of the plans for the amendment, the next step will be the scheduling of a neighborhood workshop, so staff can discuss the plans and then listen to public comments about the proposals.

In response to a Sarasota News Leader question, county Media Relations Officer Ashley Lusby wrote in a March 20 email that staff has not yet set a date for that workshop.

The process also will entail public hearings before both the county Planning Commission and the County Commission.

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A Road to Nowhere

The Ibis Street Thoroughfare Comprehensive Plan Amendment No. 2017-F comes before the County on Wednesday, April 25 -- it will be found under item 7 on the Board agenda.

Comment by R.N. Collins:

The Sarasota Board of County Commissioners will take the first step towards building a road to nowhere if it approves the Ibis Street Thoroughfare Comprehensive Plan Amendment during an April 25 public hearing.

The county transportation planning department believes that the traffic congestion south of Twin Lakes Park will be so severe in the year 2040 that we need a new thoroughfare to connect Clark Road to a full interchange at State Road 681 and I-75 via another north–south roadway.

But neither the full interchange nor the north-south roadway exist today, and neither is considered financially feasible by the Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization.

If the interchange is built, FDOT will design and fund it, but FDOT hasn’t even looked into the need for the interchange yet.

And while the north-south roadway is part of a plan to provide an alternate route from Venice to Manatee County, the project is unfunded.  The project recently suffered a setback when the commission rescinded an important funding request for the segment connecting Lorraine Road to Bee Ridge Road Extension.  That segment is a sorely needed connection needed to support development already under construction at the 5000-unit Waterside Village, the 600-unit Artistry community and the 3,500-unit LT Ranch Village.

So it is highly unlikely the proposed thoroughfare will have anything to connect to for many years or decades to come.  Instead of providing connectivity, it will be a road to nowhere.

Actually, that’s not an entirely accurate statement.

The new thoroughfare will go somewhere.  It will dead end at Manatee County-based developer Pat Neal’s 533-acre sod farm where he wants to build 1,100-home subdivision on land zoned for only 258 homes.

Unfortunately for Neal, county regulations prohibit him from building a large development unless the property has direct access to a major road—one that is part of the county thoroughfare plan.

Normally thoroughfare plan additions are considered after the county prepares an in-depth analysis and after the public has multiple opportunities to weigh-in on the proposal.  In fact, the transportation planning department had wanted to consider several changes to our thoroughfare plan during the 2016 comprehensive plan update.  But those changes could not be processed because the county had not held the required public input sessions.

With the county’s holistic thoroughfare evaluation on hold due to a lack of department resources, Neal convinced the county to let him “adopt” Ibis Street and pursue a privately-initiated amendment.

The private process enables Neal to fast track the proposal to designate his access road as a major road.  It bypasses almost all the public engagement that must occur when the county initiates such a change.  And this case, avoiding a lengthy series of feedback sessions and workshops allows the developer to quickly overcome the prohibition on rezoning his property.

I wouldn’t object if putting a line on a map and saying a dead-end country road is a major road was the only effect of Neal’s proposal,

But it does much more.

It allows Neal to divert impact fees away from curing today’s traffic jams and use them instead to improve a dead-end country road that will be used only by his subdivision for years to come.

We believe road improvement priorities should be determined with more, not less, public input.  And we believe impact fees should be spent on real traffic problems we face today, not on ones that are imagined to occur more than 20 years in the future.

Call or email the Sarasota County Commission today and ask them to vote against the Ibis Street Thoroughfare Comprehensive Plan Amendment on April 25.

-- R. N. Collins

Documents relating to the Ibis Street Amendment are here.