Unprepared: We need a change of administrative culture in Sarasota

Sarasota County officials downplayed flood risk. Tropical Storm Debby exposed their failures Florida Trident

Laurel Meadows after Debbie 2024

Blame game begins after feds deny Sarasota County emergency dredging of Phillippi Creek Herald Tribune

Homeowner in Laurel Meadows 

Confusion arises after Phillippi Creek residents learn county administrator said Army Corps of Engineers denied emergency permit for dredging Sarasota News Leader

PHILLIPPI Creek

No emergency permit: Dredging of Phillippi Creek to wait another hurricane season  Florida Trident

Berm at Cow Pen Slough

Al Maio and Mike Moran are unhappy that their own Board failed to observe the County Charter

A very interesting exchange in a story from the Sarasota News Leader titled: Delay in consultant’s completion of analysis of areas specified for future county residential development could stall processing of other Comprehensive Plan amendments, County Commission learns

The News Leader story could prove very important. It describes how Sarasota's elected officials have been approving new developments without first guaranteeing their fiscal neutrality. 

"Fiscal neutrality" is a goal stated in the Comprehensive Plan that new development shall and must pay for itself, not be paid for on the backs of county taxpayers.

It seems the Board has gone ahead and approved developments in a special area called the Future Urban Area outside of the existing Urban Service Area. However, it did not do the due diligence of a process mandated by the county Charter that requires new development to be fiscally neutral. 

At the meeting covered by the SNL, the discussion turned to the "future urban area" near Venice shown in this image courtesy of the SNL:

An aerial map shows the location of the Grand Palm Neal Communities development in Venice, which is part of the Future Urban Area. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Commissioners Maio and Moran seemed panic-stricken by what they were told by staff:

Does the consultant have to analyze all the other portions of the county in yellow, Maio asked again, including the “15, 16, 17 square miles that’s already annexed into the City of North Port and/or already under development, and/or inside a Critical Area Plan that’s been filed?”

The analysis would include all of the lands “that are under the Future Urban Area designation,” [County Planner Elma] Felix responded.

“That may be what the rulebook says,” Maio told her, “but to my dumb self … that’s preposterous, since it’s already under development …”

Then Maio asked how staff could streamline the process.

“Quite frankly, commissioner, I don’t know that there’s anything to be done to expedite the process much further than we’ve already identified,” Felix replied.

Bill Zoller, an architect who worked on county land use elements that eventually made it into both the Charter and the Comp plan, offered this comment:

This is a real scandal. The BCC has kicked this can down the road all this time…yet they remain on the hook to comply with the Citizens for Sensible Growth Charter Amendment (2.2A) that requires the Fiscal Neutrality analysis.  They have attempted to avoid it, and not to comply, because it will impose very difficult growth/infrastructure requirements on developers, so as not to burden unduly and unfairly Sarasota taxpayers.  Meanwhile, they seem to have pretended, more or less, that this requirement would somehow go away.  Unfortunately for the BCC, the only way this Charter Amendment can “go away” is through another charter amendment…which would require a citizen referendum.

Zoller was part of a working citizens group that sought to anticipate the worst case scenarios for bad growth, and to build in constraints to protect the land, the taxpayers, and the environment from the abuses of overdevelopment. He goes on to say:

Note Maio’s language here: "Maio then referred to the county Charter language about fiscal neutrality as “that poison pill,” adding, “And now we’re paying the price, again and again and again, unless somebody wants to correct me publicly … I’m just flabbergasted.”

They have always been aware of this requirement, yet they have blithely proceeded as though it did not exist.  This requirement was never intended as a “poison pill”…it was intended to make sure that developments, with the great burdens they might otherwise place on taxpayers with their infrastructure requirements, would pay for those burdens.  They must be fiscally neutral.

Note that the "Future Urban Area" includes large sectors of the county where developers have initiated expensive plans for giant developments - as visible in this image from the SNL:

Zoller added:

The commissioners have put themselves into a severe bind; it is now incumbent on them to put on hold all approvals that require the Fiscal Neutrality Analysis until such time as those analyses have been properly performed and commitments for the infrastructure to secure that neutrality have been made by the developers of any such developments.

This is a huge issue that needed to have been addressed years ago; wishful thinking did not and will not get it done.

Though still developing, this important story puts in focus the conflict between a sober planning process that requires care and thoughtful provision for costs and impacts on the one hand, and a concierge-style Board that does all within its power to duck, shirk, and otherwise ignore the rules in order to let developers save time and money at the public expense. Stay tuned.

"Refreshingly Simple" Growth in Sarasota and Manatee Counties

Lakewood Ranch is big developer territory, and SRQ Magazine was on the spot when Sarasota County Administrator Jonathan Lewis came to update business folk there the other day.

And if SRQ Magazine is to be believed, growth here is all -- or mostly -- wonderful. SRQ's Olivia Liang put it this way:

This sold-out event demonstrated the unified efforts of the SRQ region and revolved around a refreshingly simple concept: growth.  

The Nine Muses: Mantegna

Doubtless inspired by the Muses of Insatiable Development, SRQ's Ms. Liang then launched into an operatic Paeon to growth:

Tourism continues to grow, with Nathan Benderson Park bringing in a net $47 million for sports tourism in the past year. And between the rebranding of the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in downtown Bradenton to the institution of roundabouts to regulate the flow of school traffic on Honore, the expansion of the Legacy Trail for resident-use and the construction of the new Atlanta Braves Spring Training Stadium that was widely funded by the private sector and will be owned by Sarasota County, the region shows no signs of slowing. 

However, Liang did need to report a little water issue, seeing as Administrator Lewis inconveniently brought it up:

But one looming presence seemed to unite the two counties more than any other: water quality. With red tide and blue and green algae blooms affecting the “economic lifeblood of the state,” according to Lewis, both counties agree that the improvement of water quality “needs to happen on a statewide basis.” But at the same time, “we can’t wait on everybody else,” added Lewis, referencing the June Sarasota County Water Quality Summit with 700 attendees, demonstrating the active and current conversation surrounding a proposed $150 million wastewater treatment plan that would improve drinking, fishing and swimming water, in combination with a $5 million septic-to-sewer program.

Fish killed by disastrous Red Tide in 2018

Apart from that one teenie-weenie problem, God's in his heaven and all's good in Sarasota and Manatee, according to SRQ:

In its most recent Citizen Survey, Sarasota County reported that 97% of the surveyed described their overall quality of life as excellent (45%) or good (52%), which is up from previous years. 

But how sure are we that our quality-of-life satisfaction will continue? Not very, it seems.

Some area developers

That "Citizen Opinion Survey," presented to the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners some months ago, happened to make it clear that the public is openly dissatisfied with the nature, direction and management of the local economy, in two ways:

First, we 're worried about the utter lack of economic diversity -- our workers do construction -- there's little in the way of manufacturing, or hi-tech businesses. (The Board's notion of a clean upscale business to promote is James Gabbert's Waste Transfer Facility (WTF), now rising to glare at the Celery Fields and the highway).

Absence of diverse economic drivers is a key flaw of Sarasota Manatee area

Second: Over the past 5 years, the single greatest concern expressed by the people contacted by this survey is GROWTH - the very theme that SRQ celebrates as the glory of Sarasota/Manatee:

Growth - major issue for residents of Sarasota County

GROWTH is by far the single greatest threat to our quality of life, according to this survey - at 24% in 2018, it dwarfs CRIME -- the runner up at 10%, TRAFFIC (5%), and JOBS (4%).

Indeed, add together the concern ratios for CRIME, TRAFFIC and JOBS (you get 19%) and it's still less than the portion of residents who've cited GROWTH as the primary issue for the past five years.

So there you have it: The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, along with the Builders and Contractors, the Realtors, the Argus Foundation, SRQ Magazine and our elected officials -- one happy choir singing the praises of Growth -- the area's biggest problem, according to taxpayers, who are perhaps more mindful of trending issues:

From 2010 to 2018, the Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) of the University of Florida says Sarasota County’s population climbed 10%, putting the county in the highest growth category in the state.The  

As of April 1, 2018, BEBR estimated Sarasota County’s population at 417,442. By 2040, BEBR’s projections show, the county could have as many as 600,800 residents. The Sarasota News Leader

Moran

Ziegler

Detert

Maio

Hines

During the past five years while growth has been the biggest worry on residents' minds, our elected officials have:

1. Ignored county data that documented a long-term, significant rise of nitrogen in our bays and waterways:

2. Neglected Sarasota's aging, leaking, spilling wastewater plant and pipes;

3. Fallen far behind funding roadwork to keep pace with new development*;

4. Gone to unprecedented lengths to weaken Comprehensive Plan and other important constraints on developers, and

5. Approved several large-scale developments in east Sarasota County, with more in the planning pipeline.

The Tischler Report, commissioned by Sarasota County in 1999, was supposed to prove that growth paid for itself. Its findings proved the opposite -- we pay for growth. Local leaders quickly buried the report.

Tischler's analysis showed we pay for growth

So this might invite the question: what will Sarasota and Manatee look like two or three decades?

It's refreshingly simple:

*The Sarasota News Leader (subscription required)

Celery Fields at the tipping point

The Sarasota County Commission is holding a "Think Tank" discussion Tuesday Nov. 28th at which it will consider the sale of surplus lands as part of a "budget reduction" process presented by the new interim county administrator, Jonathan Lewis.

These surplus lands include three parcels near the Celery Fields which occasioned two highly controversial public hearings earlier this year (Restaurant Depot and James Gabbert's waste facility).

More than 50 homeowners associations near the Celery Fields area have signed on to an initiative known as Fresh Start. The idea is simple: hold off on the sale of these public lands temporarily; consult the community; go forward with a consensus vision that will serve the economic and environmental interests of all.

Forethought: Sarasota County now has a rare opportunity to shape and nurture a critical area to which many changes are coming. If the County sells to the first comer, it's choosing to act spasmodically and without forethought.

Gift horse: The Celery fields came about as an accidental stroke of great fortune. It’s a fabulous gift -- an amenity that we deeply love for all sorts of reasons. 

The shock people felt when they learned of a plan to put a heavy industrial waste facility there was palpable. The County can choose to take the rare value of this gift of nature and its place in people’s hearts into account when looking at future development here, or it may ignore all that. In the latter case, it abdicates its obligation as steward of public lands to plan rationally, intentionally, and comprehensively.

Pound Foolish: Actual fiscal responsibility goes beyond putting out fires. The County doesn't even have a fire. Some within the administration are considering quick sales of significant public lands to replenish a rainy day fund. Fast sales to industrial developers will doom higher prospects that hold economic promise, such as the planned Fruitville Initiative, soon to break ground:

Tipping Point

The Celery Fields Area is at a tipping point. This complex, changing landscape is rich in commercial, residential, recreational, ecological and -- with the Fruitville Initiative -- potent economic assets. These opportunities will gain in visibility and significance as the I-75 corridor develops. The County would be penny-wise, pound-foolish to do in haste what all will regret in years to come.