Bay Park under threat of commercialization, and a Control Growth Now Picnic

Development interests have their eyes on our parks. 

Both Warm Mineral Springs in North Port and The Bay Park in Sarasota are at risk.  Unfortunately, some in both City governments are supportive of plans to convert public lands to private gain.

Most immediately, on Monday March 20, the Sarasota City Commission will consider measures to facilitate opening up the 53 acres of City-owned bayfront known as The Bay to extensive private development.

The City Planning Commission voted 4 to 1 to recommend denial.  The City Commission should do the same.

Phase 1 of The Bay project has been wonderful, with environmental and civic improvements consistent with the present limits on development.

However, the private interests behind the Bay Park Conservancy, represented by Bill Merrill and Phil DiMaria, an attorney and planner respectively for developers including Benderson, are seeking changes that would open the door to extensive commercial and other private development in The Bay Park moving forward.

At present, most of The Bay Park is limited under the City’s Comprehensive Plan to “Recreation, Entertainment, Museum, and Cultural Facilities - (Civic Center Complex).”  That is exactly what is planned there now, in the City’s Master Plan for The Bay Park.

The north end, now called Centennial Park, is instead designated “Open Space-Recreation-Conservation.” Only “minimal” development for “food, beverage, and entertainment uses” is allowed, but “the type and scale of activities which have been associated with the ‘Marina Jack’ facility” are prohibited.  Again, this is consistent with the present Bay Park Master Plan, which includes only one modest “food and beverage” building in that area.

All of this would be replaced by the Comprehensive Plan amendments up for public hearing and approval Monday morning.

The new wording provides broadly for a “flexible mixed-used district” for all 53 acres.  Without any limits, the following would be allowed (emphasis added):  “uses including but not limited to parks and open space, government uses, restaurants, performing arts centers, museums and cultural facilities, galleries, retail, and mixed-use development with a maximum residential allowance for 10 live/work units within (The Bay Park).”

At present, the City Charter requires a supermajority vote of the City Commission (at least 4 to 1) to loosen the present restrictions on development in The Bay Park, as a Comprehensive Plan amendment.  If the amendments up on Monday are approved (by that supermajority vote) then any limits will only require a regular 3 to 2 vote, in the Zoning Code.

This is the same move in which development interests and their supporters in City government failed (by one vote short of a Commission supermajority) to move limits on downtown building heights from the Comp Plan to the Zoning Code.  It is the same as what they tried and succeeded (4 to 1) for density increases in much of the City.

Already, the Bay Park Conservancy has proposed massive restaurant development on the north end of The Bay Park, far more than in presently allowed by the Comprehensive Plan. In a Powerpoint to the City Commission, they presented plans for three-level restaurant buildings on all three sides of the boat basin, totaling 26,000 square feet of rooftop dining and 14,750 square feet of indoor dining, for a total of 40,750 square feet. Compare for example, the large Selva Grill restaurant in the UTC Town Center, at 5,000 square feet.   

Who knows what other commercial development they have planned in our public park?

The amendments would also eliminate public hearings and votes of the Planning Board and City Commission for Bay Park site plans and replace them with backroom administrative approval by supportive City staff.   

Although those site plans would have to be consistent with a one-page graphic which is the “Master Plan” adopted by the City Commission, already the Bay Park Conservancy shows how they can depart from that if they get administrative approval.  Amazingly, they contend that their extensive restaurant plan is consistent with the Master Plan when clearly it is not.

BPC leaders have also said that the Master Plan is “outdated” and should be changed in ways they do not disclose.

A requirement for a “public community workshop” prior to administrative approval “for structures of less than 10,000 square feet” was added.   That’s an obvious typo in that “less” should be “more.” Not only is that meaningless due to that size (none of the BPC’s restaurant buildings are over 10,000 square feet) but a workshop is no substitute for public hearings and Commission votes.

City Commissioners should vote NO on Monday.

Dan Lobeck, Esq.

Law Offices of Lobeck & Hanson, P.A.
2033 Main Street, Suite 403
Sarasota, FL  34237
(941) 955-5622

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Control Growth Now Annual Potluck Picnic

Saturday, March 25

11:30 am – 2 pm

Colonial Oaks Park, 5300 Colonial Oaks Blvd, Sarasota, FL

 

Please register today:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/571055280717

 

Free and Open to the Public!  Come to Control Growth Now's Annual Meeting and Potluck Picnic at beautiful Colonial Oaks Park Saturday, March 25 from 11:30 am to 2 pm.  

Please register for yourself and anyone you are bringing with you. Enjoy our grilled burgers, hotdogs, veggie burgers and drinks -- bring a side dish or dessert to share if you like -- in the good company of people who care about the future of our community.  

At a short meeting in the clubhouse we will honor Valerie Buchand as our Citizen of the Year for her good work in bettering the quality of life in the Newtown Community and throughout Sarasota. Join Control Growth Now if you like, or renew your membership for 2023-24 (annual dues $20 – an option on the Eventbrite registration) or just be our very welcome guest!

                                                                                        -- Dan Lobeck    

Lobeck: Don't repeal affordable housing requirement for developers

Commissioners,

As in my July 23 email to the Planning Commission (which I copied to you), this is to urge that at your meeting Tuesday [September 22] you vote against transmitting to the state a Comprehensive Plan amendment to delete the requirement of affordable housing as a trade-off for the incentives of the Sarasota 2050 Plan.

The claim that this is required by state law is flatly false.  The law allows a requirement for affordable housing in exchange for voluntary incentives which fully compensate the developer for the lost profit.  It is beyond question that the Sarasota 2050 Plan does that.

The amendments would repeal the current requirement that in order to receive the incentive under the Sarasota 2050 Plan to build at urban densities and commercial uses rather than rural densities, not less than 15% of the units must be affordable housing, that is sold to families at under 100% of Area Median Income (with 2/3 of those homes at 80% AMI).

Instead, a developer would be allowed to build at up to 5 dwelling units per acre in the developed area with no affordable housing.  All that would be left is the current “incentive” that a developer could go up to 6 dwelling units per developed area acre if the extra units are affordable housing.

Given the densities that developers have been building in Sarasota 2050 developments, the 5 units per acre will not be exceeded and developers will have no desire to get the 6th by affordable housing.  So, goodbye affordable housing in Sarasota 2050 developments if this is adopted.

The affordable housing standard would be further weakened in the UDC because this amendment provides that while 2/3 of the homes must be for families with 80% of AMI, half of the remainder would be for 100% AMI and half of the remainder would be for 120% AMI.  This would unlawfully conflict with VOS Policy 1.4 in the Comprehensive Plan, which provides a goal that at least 15% of the housing will be available “for families with incomes below the median family income for Sarasota County.”

These changes are based on a complete misunderstanding or mischaracterization of new state legislation as applied to the current affordable housing requirements of the Sarasota 2050 Plan.

Section 125.0155, Florida Statutes now bans a requirement for affordable housing, sometimes known as “inclusionary zoning.” Instead, it allows a local government to seek affordable housing by “incentives.”  Paragraph (2)(a) of the statute provides that the incentive may be “allowing the developer density or intensity bonus incentives or more floor space than allowed under the current or proposed future land use designations.”  [Paragraph (2)(c) broadly includes “granting other incentives.”]

Sarasota County is already complying with this requirement today.  The entire Sarasota 2050 Plan is a voluntary incentive which grants developers increased urban densities and commercial (“more floor space”) uses on land which is otherwise limited to rural densities, if the developer complies with various requirements in return.  One of those requirements is that 15% of the housing be for persons below the Area Median Income.  The incentive has been enhanced since adoption by exempting affordable housing from Greenway density transfer requirements and any fiscal neutrality requirements (although those measures have not been enforced and are proposed to be weakened as well, such as by including the 120% AMI standard).

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

Muntz, Kochman honored for civic advocacy

Control Growth Now is very pleased to honor  activists Kindra Muntz and Sura Kochman as our Citizens of the Year for 2019.  They will be recognized at our March 23 annual meeting and will share remarks with us at that time.

Kindra Muntz

Kindra Muntz is president of the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, a nonpartisan grassroots organization that promotes verifiable elections, campaign finance reform, media reform and redistricting.  In 2018 SAFE sponsored the Single Member Districts  initiative to change Sarasota County Commission elections from at-large to single member  districts.

A graduate of Harvard University, Kindra worked in management for 18 years at the Aircraft  Engine Division of General Electric Company, and five years as a retail broker at Merrill Lynch, before retiring to Florida in 1998.

In 2006, she formed the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections that led a petition drive for paper ballots and spot-check audits of voting machine counts to ensure accurate elections. The  referendum passed in 2006, led to statewide    legislation in 2007, and  after being overturned by the Florida Secretary of State, was validated by the Florida Supreme Court in 2010.  Kindra and three other co-founders of the Florida Voters Coalition won the 2008 Nelson Poynter Civil    Liberties Award of the ACLU for their work for voters’ rights.

Kindra is President of Unitarian Universalist Justice Florida, a statewide faith-based organization that works with interfaith and secular partners for justice, equity and compassion in public policy. Their core issues in 2018 are Environmental Justice, Democracy in Action, and Public Health and Safety.

Sura Kochman

For the past four years, Sura Kochman has strived to ensure that the Benderson development known as Siesta Promenade, located at the Stickney Point/US 41 intersection, is done in a compatible manner with the surrounding residential neighborhoods and retail establishments. She has led hundreds in the effort to keep the development from being detrimental to the quality of life, health, safety and welfare, and not cause undue hardship for anyone wishing to  access  Siesta Key.  Although  special favors for the development were approved by the County Commission over strong objections, Sura is leading a legal challenge in court.

Sura was born and raised in Sarasota and graduated from Riverview High School.  She graduated cum laude from Florida State University with a B.S. degree in Risk Management and worked for Crum and Forster as  large lines commercial     underwriter, which eventually brought her to New Jersey, where she  subsequently met her husband Harry and had two sons.

Sura was on the board of directors of the YMHA in Wayne, NJ for 13 years, Cubscouts Cubmaster and President of the YMHA for three years.   She also was on the executive board of Shomrei     Torah synagogue. Sura was appointed to the Wayne, NJ Planning Board and was on the Board for 10 years, and chairman for nine of those years.

Sura and her husband and live full time in her childhood home in the Pine Shores neighborhood.

You Are Cordially Invited to Attend

Control Growth Now's 

30th Anniversary

Potluck Picnic and Annual Meeting

Open to the Public -- No Charge

Saturday, March 23
11:30-2
Colonial Oaks Park
5300 Colonial Oaks Blvd, Sarasota

Honoring Citizens of the Year
Kindra Muntz and Sura Kochman
Women of Action 

Register here today

Are developers holding back on big plans until growth-friendly candidates get voted in?

Dan Lobeck of Control Growth Now at Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations (CONA) in Sarasota on March 12, 2018, speaking about Smart Growth, the upcoming elections, and Single District Voting.

 

 Part 2 with Q & A:

 

Smart Growth - now more than ever

Sarasota County Council of  Neighborhood Associations - CONA                - monthly meeting -         Monday   March 12, 2018      at 7 p .m.        smart growth needed more than ever              On Monday, March 12, 2018 please join CONA for a presentation by  the president of Control Growth Now, Dan Lobeck, regarding recent and proposed changes by local government to the vision of our community that had been carefully-crafted for the future by citizens participating in the extensive planning process that resulted in an award-winning comprehensive plan.                                         These changes are compromising the smart growth goals of our vision, including those protecting neighborhood compatibility and the environment, limiting traffic congestion, constraining urban sprawl, and making growth pay its own way rather than being borne by existing taxpayers.             Mr. Lobeck will propose solutions and reforms within our government institutions and political choices that will benefit and represent the interests of neighborhoods, residents, and businesses.              Among the potential solutions that will be discussed, is an initiative toward single-member districts for county commission seats that currently is working toward placing a referendum on the county voting ballot.                                          Q & A will follow. A social precedes the meeting at 6:30.           See www.conasarasota.org/meetings.html for more about CONA.             social 6:30 p.m. -  meeting 7:00 p.m. at the Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts neighbors helping neighborhoods since 1961                        save the date  -  our anniversary party  -  November 5, 2018 CONA meetings are free and open to the public as well as members of the more than seventy associations the organization represents and its individual members. Unless otherwise noted, the meetings are held at the Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts in Sarasota, which is at the intersection of Tamiami Trail, south of the Municipal Auditorium. Parking and the entrance are reached from Van Wezel Way. Socials precede the meetings at 6:30 p.m., the meetings begin at 7:00 p.m.

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On March 10, Control Growth Now holds its annual lunch, this year at Marina Jacks. Those attending will hear from Glenna Blomquist and Tom Matrullo two of many who helped build community opposition to the placement of a waste processing plant at the Celery Fields in 2017. Both are now working on the project known as Fresh Start, seeking sensible, community enhancing planning for the parcels where the developer sought to build an open-air waste processing facility.

Growth again tops Public Concern: Lobeck

Via Dan Lobeck:

County Opinion Survey Shows Growth as Top Public Concern

The Sarasota County 2017 Public Opinion Survey will be released Tuesday.  It shows a public very concerned about growth and traffic congestion and strongly opposed to a tax hike to be considered by the County Commission on September 11.

For the fourth year in a row, residents cited “population growth/new development” as the top issue facing the County, by far.  Taxes came in second, pushing out the 2016 second place issue of “economy/jobs.”

Here’s another finding, in a quote from the Survey’s Executive Summary, on the question of what is the biggest threat to Sarasota County’s economy:

The biggest change from last year’s survey was a sharp increase in mentions of growth-related threats—from 44% to 55%, the biggest increases being traffic congestion (+5%) and environmental deterioration (+4%). The steepest decline was in the percent identifying the lack of industry and jobs as the biggest threat (-4%).

The public’s rating of our “quality of life” declined from 2016, with the percentage saying “excellent” dropping from 59% to 47%, with merely “good” going from 38% to 50%.  The Executive Summary did not reveal the votes for "fair" or "poor", saying they stayed "roughly constant" from 2016.

The percentage of people saying that they trust County officials to do the right thing “almost always” or “most of the time”, while still a majority, dropped from 2016 – a fact not mentioned in the Executive Summary.

The Survey showed that 61% of respondents are opposed to any tax increase by Sarasota County government. This should be a message to County Commissioners as they consider a large new “public service” tax at a public hearing on September 11 at 5:30 pm at the Anderson Center in Venice.  The tax would add an estimated $50 a year on average to water, sewer and electricity bills for every home and business in the unincorporated County, plus more for those who pay for gas, amounting to about $11 million a year.  The County says it needs the money for public facility projects which are underfunded, because impact fees on developers have been too low.  Until all impact fees are raised to the full rate allowed by law (including for transportation, which are only half of the full rate throughout most of the urban area) and the County cuts wasteful spending, the County Commission has no business considering any tax hike, particularly by creating a regressive tax on utilities which will hit the poorest among us the hardest.

And in what the Executive Summary calls the biggest change in public opinion, people rank “development/business” as the subject on which the County spends too much money. 

Quoting from the Summary:

                Closer Look at Where “Over-Spending”: Development/Business Tops List

                Over 70% of the respondents pointing to over-spending cite just four general spending categories: “development and business” (33%), “County officials, pay, benefits” (23%), “parks, art, and beautification” (9%), and “low priorities, waste” (6%). Twenty percent of those upset about too much spending did not identify a specific category. The biggest change over the past four years has been the growing proportion of respondents citing development/business as the spending category on which the County spends too much. From 2016 to 2017 alone, the “development/business” citation rate almost doubled (16% to 33%). During that same period, there was an increase in citations of County personnel costs (+4%), but fewer mentions of “parks, art, and beautification” (-11%) or “low priorities/waste” (-6%) as examples of excessive County spending.

Even more than in prior years, this Survey shows that the developer-controlled Sarasota County Commission is out of step with its constituents.  Instead of treating growth and development as a concern to be controlled, Commissioners are doing almost everything they can to make it easier for developers, gutting regulations which have stood for decades and now considering doing it in others matters such as traffic studies, densities and the environment.

Two County Commissioners will be up for election next year and the others in 2020.

The public will then have an opportunity to put their opinions into action.

  -- Dan Lobeck

www.controlgrowthnow.org

Statement on Waste Facility Application from Control Growth Now

Control Growth Now of Sarasota County has issued this statement with regard to the application to site a waste processing facility near the Park, Preserve and Bird Sanctuary known as The Celery Fields.

Control Growth Now urges the Sarasota County Commission to deny approval of the pending applications for land use changes to property near the Celery Fields, an internationally renowned birding sanctuary as well as an important stormwater management facility, for a construction debris recycling facility.  In addition to the potential for adverse impacts to the environment and experience of the Celery Fields, the land use changes would dramatically increase heavy truck traffic on Palmer Boulevard, which is already experiencing traffic congestion, and would be incompatible with nearby neighborhoods.  As the Sarasota County Planning Commission unanimously determined, the County should reject the petitions, including specifically an amendment to the Critical Area Plan for this property, as specifically allowed by the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan for reasons of the admitted traffic impacts of the proposed change.  Further, the County Commission should withdraw the subject land and two other adjacent parcels for sale as “surplus property” for industrial development and instead incorporate them into the Celery Fields preserve, to better protect the environment, neighborhoods and mobility in the area.
   -- Dan Lobeck, CGN President

The Board of Sarasota County Commissioners will hear the matter on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017.

Wednesday Hearing to address Paving more Wetlands - Manasota 88, Control Growth Now opposing

Update: Benderson loses (Herald Trib)

Paving Paradise – Round Two

Dan Lobeck:

We warned that this would happen.

No preserved and protected wetland in Sarasota County, near any neighborhood or elsewhere, is safe if the County Commission continues to repeal that protection and allow them to be paved over for development.

Wetlands at Honore Avenue and University Parkway in Sarasota County were set aside years ago as preserves in exchange for approval of adjoining developments.   Then in 2016, after developers gained unprecedented control of the Sarasota County Commission, the property owner sought approval from the Commission to pave over the wetlands for parking and buildings, to develop Whole Foods and Wawa stores. 

County environmental staff objected, stating that the wetlands remained functional and valuable and that their destruction for development would violate the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan.  Over the objections of environmentalists and community groups including Control Growth Now, the County Commission approved the rezoning for the wetland destruction on a 4 to 1 vote.  A lawsuit was filed by environmentalists but dropped, apparently due to a lack of legal “standing” to bring suit under a law that requires a showing of damages different from the public at large.

At the time, we warned that if the Whole Foods wetlands destruction could be approved, then other owners of preserved wetlands will come forward to ask that they be paved over for expanded development.

Well, here we go.

On Wednesday, March 22, as the second public hearing after 1:30 pm at the County building at 1660 Ringling Boulevard in Sarasota, Round Two will ring in the saga of Paving Over Paradise.  Concerned citizens have five minutes each to speak.