Save our rural heritage and canopy oak trees!

A developer is petitioning to rezone 49 acres of land on Boleyn Road, a dead-end, non-arterial road to a cluster home development of 70 homes.

This property floods - badly!! Why would anyone want to build on this land? 

• Surrounding this property is the Palmer Farms subdivision, a well-established neighborhood consisting of homes on 5 acres. The proposed dense cluster-home development is not compatible with the existing land use pattern of one house per 5 acres and is definitely not a reasonable transition.

• The Comprehensive Plan supports preserving the rural lifestyle in the Rural Heritage area; however, that does not stop developers from trying to chip away and away at our community to erase the unique character of our neighborhood and Sarasota! It’s these special enclaves that set Sarasota above the rest. 

• This subject parcel already has a recorded, perpetual conservation easement and a binding site plan of 25 homes, but they want almost 3 times more! Do the words “perpetual” and “binding” have any meaning at all? Much of the new development contemplated out east of I-75 include conservation easements/or restrictions. 

• If those conservation protections can be extinguished with the stroke of a pen, where does that leave the public trust?

• Boleyn Road is a designated Canopy Road. If you ever travel Debrecen Road off Palmer, you can’t miss the beauty of these stunning oak trees. In order to build 70 homes, our canopy road will have to be brought up to county standard-- putting beautiful ancient oaks at risk due to road widening and damage to their roots.

Boleyn Road

Please come support us Oct. 24, 9 am, at the Sarasota County Commission meeting at 1660 Ringling Blvd. Please wear green. 

Please email our Sarasota County Commissioners asking them to DENY RZ 18-09. Thank you! 

Visit palmereastgroup.org for more info

Sarasota News Leader: Benderson breaks contract (again) Also: Englewood real estate fiasco

Two remarkable stories from the April 20 Sarasota News Leader (SNL):

Benderson Development, which acquired 42 acres in 2015 at the Fruitville / I-75 exchange at a paltry price, has just received not only another year's extension on a contract going back to 2015 (it now needs do nothing until 2019), but it also seems to have gotten a FREE PASS to degrade the market it was supposed to attract. According to the SNL:

The latest amendment also deletes language in the original contract that said, “Benderson shall use its best commercially reasonable efforts to market and lease the Property to Class A Building tenants.” 

The original commitment, renewed with both previous extensions, was described in 2015 by the Observer:

The prolific developer aims to build a multibuilding light industrial Class A campus totaling between 400,000 and 500,000 square feet of industrial, manufacturing and office space.

Now apparently that's no longer part of the plan.

Is Benderson going to come back after three contractual delays to disclose what it has planned for the Fruitville Initiative is warehouses and a truck depot?

Benderson Development affiliate granted another delay

Benderson Frutiville initiative

According to the Building Owners and Managers Association International, Class A space refers to the “[m]ost prestigious buildings competing for premier office space users with rents above average for the area. Buildings have high quality standard finishes, state of the art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence.”

Class B structures: “Buildings competing for a wide range of users with rents in the average range for the area. … Building finishes are fair to good for the area and systems are adequate, but the building does not compete with Class A at the same price.”

Class C buildings: Compete for tenants that require “functional space at rents below the average for the area.”

Englewood property purchased for a park sold at $1.5 million loss

A second SNL story finds that the County purchased land in Englewood, and is now selling it for $1.5 million less than it paid in 2007:

“When it comes to the management of our county properties … the way it’s been done in the past is at least not acceptable to this commissioner."

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Amendment to reduce open space: June 26, 5:30 pm

An amendment to the 2050 Comprehensive Plan is being considered. It would ease the process (and the expense) for a developer to

 A) reduce the open space required for a Village Plan from 50 percent to 33 percent, and
 B) reduce the required buffer from 500 feet to 250 feet.

 At the advertised June 26th public meeting (not a hearing), the proposal will be presented and the public may comment. If you wish to ensure that your comments become part of the permanent record, submit them in writing to the planner at the meeting, or send them to vroe@scgov.net.

Also, while the notice says that this amendment was "publicly initiated," the "public" in this case was a developer. Given that the regulations are created precisely to mediate between the public and the development industry, we would "amend" the notice to clarify whose interests are actually being represented in this amendment.