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Friday, June 28, 2024
Another Potential Violation of our Comp Plan - Lourdes Ramirez
Friday, December 15, 2023
Update: Benderson "Trojan Horse" could allow hotel development countywide
Further Update (posted Dec. 20, 2023)
We've just received notice from the Kimley Horn agent working with Benderson Development that cancels the Dec. 21 "neighborhood" workshop. The new date for the workshop is January 8, 6 pm. The workshop is supposed to explain Benderson's effort to change the county Comp Plan in order to allow a large hotel on Siesta Key.
The emailed notice from philip.dimaria@kimley-horn.com shares a personalized link that cannot be shared. We have asked Mr. DiMaria to send a universal link that would allow anyone to use.
Mr. DiMaria offers a Zoom link, but adds: "This link should not be shared with others; it is unique to you."The webinar information for "Siesta Key Village Hotel Neighborhood Workshop" which you previously registered for has been updated by the host.
Please submit any questions to: philip.dimaria@kimley-horn.com
Date Time: Jan 8, 2024 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device:
If you've not received an email with a personalized Zoom link, please contact Mr. DiMaria to ask for a link: philip.dimaria@kimley-horn.com
. . . . .
With startling speed, Benderson Development Inc. has scheduled an online workshop to tell the public why Sarasota County should not only allow it to build an 85-foot-high mega-hotel on Siesta Key, but also why it should change the code to allow such large hotels countywide.
A letter sent to County Planning Director Matt Osterhoudt from Benderson's agent first justifies the change to Siesta Key's Code by pleading that tourism requires more hotels, and asks for speedy processing:
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| Mega-hotel out of scale with modest SK village? |
We respectfully request that you forward this request for an out-of-cycle, privately-initiated UDC text amendment to the Administrator at your earliest possible convenience with your approval and a recommendation that the proposed amendment be processed and proceed immediately.
After describing the amendments it wishes the County to approve on Siesta Key, the letter seeks to expand the specific area it is concerned with to include the entire county:
The Applicant also intends to propose a text amendment to the UDC to provide that Transient Accommodations are considered a non-residential use throughout Sarasota County. . .
"It’s a Trojan Horse amendment!" says Siesta Key resident Neal Schliefer, who objects to Benderson's effort to reclassify transient accommodations. In an email to Citizens for Sarasota County, Schliefer wrote:
“A simpler, more straightforward classification” has no relevance for the definition of transient accommodations, which were defined as a residential use to help control density and intensity of use to protect residents and visitors in environmentally sensitive areas, such as flood zones.
If Benderson's proposed changes to the Comp Plan are adopted, they would basically undo the basis of Lourdes Ramirez's court victory, which found that the County's willingness to allow developers to circumvent density restrictions to build mega-sized hotels on Siesta Key violated the County's own code and rules for barrier island development.
In an emailed response to the new, lightning-fast Benderson proposal to change the rules, Ramirez wrote:
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A Dec. 15th Sarasota News Leader story describes what Benderson is proposing:
. . . a 147-room hotel that would stand up to 85 in height, with six habitable floors over parking levels.
It then adds detail:
The project is to encompass retail space and a restaurant, as well, the box notes. The total square footage, the box shows, would be approximately 136,900 square feet. The box identifies that as “nonresidential,” in keeping with Benderson’s proposal for the Comprehensive Plan amendment to eliminate the counting of hotel and motel rooms for residential density purposes.
Anyone wishing to help with the Siesta Key legal bills can do so here.
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Siesta Key Coalition seeks citizen action vs. Mega Hotels
From the Siesta Key Coalition, regarding the upcoming Planning Commission hearing on the Siesta Promenade at Stickney Point, proposed by Benderson Inc.:
To SK Coalition Community Supporters:
As we promised in our 27 July e-mail, this note is to give you information on how to communicate with the Planning Commission, and how to attend the hearing on the proposed 170-room, 8-story Calle Miramar/Beach hotel, on 19th August 2021.
Emailing County Leadership, Timing and Content
We are asking every one of our supporters to send an email to the Planning Commission, prior to the upcoming hearing. We are all unified in our opposition to high-density hotels, even though some of our supporters have more concerns about one or more of the four proposed hotel locations. However, we need everyone to address the first hearing for the proposed Calle Miramar/Beach hotel on 19 August. The decisions made there will set precedents for future hearings for all four of the proposed hotels.
To ensure your comments are publicly recorded by Planning Staff in their reporting package to the Planning Commissioners, you should send your e-mail to the Planning Commissioners and Planning Staff no earlier than Fri August 6th and no later than Tues Aug 10th, as it pertains to the proposed Calle Miramar/Beach hotel. The e-mail addresses are here.
As to content, we want you to review the list of Coalition Issue Statements, and to select one or two items that particularly resonate with you. We recommend that you use your own words, but you can cut and paste from the list, if you prefer.
Participation in the Planning Commission Hearing
We encourage everyone to attend the hearing which will be held in the County Administration Building at 1660 Ringling Boulevard, at 5:00 pm on Thursday 19th August 2021.
The Coalition will have only a limited time to present to the commissions, and we plan to have our Coalition leadership, and our lawyers and consultants kick off at the beginning of the presentations. We will welcome those who would also like to speak at the meeting, but we ask that you confer with a Coalition representative at the Speaker Card Desk, 30 minutes before the meeting starts.
Thank you for engaging in the process with us...encourage all your neighbors to do so as well. Please bcc (blind copy us at skcoalition@gmail.com) so we can follow the responses.
Mark T. Spiegel
President
Email List of County Commissioners, Planning Commissioners, and Planners
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Recording of 2nd Kompothecras Workshop
Citizens for Sarasota put in a public records request to Sarasota County, seeking the Zoom file for the second neighborhood workshop about the hotel proposed at Stickney Point road on Siesta Key, held on Dec. 15, 2020. The first workshop was held Dec. 2, but had to be repeated because the developer failed to properly follow notification rules.
The project proposed by Gary Kompothecras is one of three new hotels proposed for Siesta Key, all seeking to change density and height limitations.
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| Graphics supplied by Lourdes Ramirez |
The recording is an audio file. The permanent link to the audio is here - the link in the county response below will expire shortly.
Representing the developer were attorney Charles Bailey III and consultant Robert Medred. The workshop consisted largely of residents of Siesta Key asking specific, pertinent questions about features of the Kompothecras proposal.
As the note below indicates, the County is not routinely posting these recordings to its own site. This file had to be obtained by a records request.
Siesta Key hotel application submitted by Kompothecras to the County.
Below is the email from a County public records person:
Thank you for your interest in public records of Sarasota County Government. Your request for “audio of the December 15th Siesta Key Hotel on Old Stickney Point neighborhood workshop” has been received and has been processed in accordance with Chapter 119 of the Florida State Statutes. Sarasota County has found records responsive to your request.
Due to the size of the file, a link has been created that will provide access to the audio file. This link is temporary and will be active for 7 calendar days, and afterwards, the file will no longer be accessible to you or us on the server. You are encouraged to download and save the file to your computer to ensure future access. Anyone with the link can download the audio file within the seven (7) days.
https://secure.scgov.net/?
ShareToken= 8FFC52CF0D7C01F5BB60498DD6100D 0A7044C2C2
[Editor's NOTE: Click here for the permanent link to the workshop's audio file. ]
Please note that when opening the mp4 file with an audio application, the sound doesn’t start until about 45-46 seconds into the recording.
We are working with staff and IT to see if we can post these recordings as they become available, to our County website, but at the moment, this is not available.
In the future, to better facilitate Public Records Requests that involve a large file size such as audio files, please submit your request to publicrecords@scgov.net or by using our GovQA portal at CLICK THIS LINK so that we can effectively facilitate your request with the department.
PLEASE NOTE: Florida Public Record’s Law does not require a governmental body to create new information or documents, to do legal research, or to answer questions.
Thank you.
Bethany Higgins
Public Records Specialist
Sarasota County Communications
1660 Ringling Blvd, Sarasota, FL 34236
Office: 941-861-5329
Cell: 727-266-0243
Email: publicrecords@scgov.net
Web: www.scgov.net
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
East vs West: Who shapes Sarasota's future?
At 1:30 p.m. on September 23 -- today -- at the County Commission, a community will attempt to preserve its 170-year-old rural way of life, to "Keep the Country Country,"as Becky Ayech likes to say,
When the community of Old Miakka recently came before the Planning Commission, they were criticized, questioned, and essentially judged as doing something that, the planning board members said, threatened to unleash "chaos" if allowed to go forward.
They were merely echoing the words of the attorney for the development industry, William Merrill III, who had no client there to represent. His scare tactic snowballed through the meeting, and went even further. The Planning Commission board -- a group of appointees whose day jobs fall largely within the employment confines of the development industry -- unanimously voted against recommending Old Miakka's proposed Comp Plan Amendment, then took the further step (under vice chair Colin Pember's* goading) of sending a letter to the County Commission, requesting research on how other counties deal with citizen Comp Plan amendments. Normally developers bring such amendments - as we'll see in a moment.
Essentially the Planning Commission was ventriloquizing Merrill III - questioning the very right of a community to ward off undesired development that would irrevocably change the character of its life.
*Pember is land acquisitions mgr. for Pulte Homes of Atlanta
While this effort plays out in the farthest northeast corner of the county, a very different tale is just getting underway at the county's western edge. Three Siesta Key hotel developers - Gary Kompothecras, Mike Holderness and SKH 1 LLC - say their urge to build eight-story mega-hotels requires the county to increase density and height allowances. These changes are not just for their three new projects on Siesta, either. If approved as formulated, they would apply to the entirety of Sarasota County.
The dichotomy is clear: To the East, a community older than the county itself wishes to slow "progress" in order to preserve culture and history that otherwise will be lost. To the West, mega-hotel builders demand that the county open the gates to more intense development, more density, greater heights.
While the people of Old Miakka see rapid growth as loss, the hotel impresarios see no reason not to alter the character of Siesta Key forever. Three new high-rise hotels will bring the traffic, change the skyline and rush the Key into a future of intense development unlike it's ever seen.
Who shapes the future? After the Old Miakka hearing, we'll have a clue.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Mega-Hotel developers on Siesta Key seek to lift density requirements for all Sarasota County
Three developers planning Mega-Hotels on Siesta Key have recently filed pre-applications with Sarasota County.
All three are asking the County to pass an Amendment to the UDC (Unified Development Code) FL Land Use Policy 2.9.1 that will remove density requirements for Transient Accommodations. Current zoning permits 13 units per acre for multifamily use, and double the density for hotels. The proposals would increase density from from 26 units per acre to 170 units per acre -- that's four to seven times what's currently allowed.
****NOTE: This change in density will affect ALL of Sarasota County.****
All three developers -- Gary Kompothecras, Mike Holderness and SKH 1 LLC. -- request Special Exceptions to raise the permitted 35-foot height to eight stories: 83-85 feet.
The Comprehensive Plan requires that new development not increase density on Barrier Islands. The developers propose two changes to density:
- One would exempt hotels on Siesta Key from the maximum density limits.
- The other would exempt hotels in the entire Sarasota County from maximum density limits.
These exemptions, if approved, would both be permanent.
These are radical proposals that will increase density and affect traffic, safety, and the environment. They will change the nature of Siesta Key and the entire County.
Please sign the Petition against Hotel changes
Please be prepared to attend future Planning and County Commission meetings and to express your opinions.
See the pre-applications to Planning here
This?
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| Siesta Beach |
Or This?
More on the hotels and opposition:
Siesta Key Coalition Zoom Meeting about hotels
Sarasota News Leader 10.1.20: Redevelopment of Siesta Key Beach Resort Hotel and Suites would increase rooms from 55 to 170, preliminary application says