Area of East Sarasota where citizen amendment would reduce density
Rural heritage advocate Becky Ayech has launched a citizen's Comp Plan Amendment - the first such amendment to our basic planning policy to be advanced by citizens. Developers often seek amendments to increase density. This plan is unusual in that it aims to reduce density for an area in East County. The website is SarasotaCountry.net.
Here's an update from Ayech about the important public workshop coming on Jan. 27:
Becky Ayech
Many of you received the postcard Notice from Sarasota County for the meeting about CPA2019-C. This was the Amendment filed by the Miakka Community Club to have the 6,000 acres north of Fruitville Road and west of Verna Road to be changed to Rural Heritage/Estate allowing a maximum of 1 home per 5 acres instead of the Village/Open Space designation which would allow hamlets with 1 house per 1 acre.
This meeting is a public workshop being held to discuss the proposed Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Staff is presenting the content of the proposed amendment and to seek comments and suggestions regarding the amendment.
Signs, postcards to the Board of County Commissioners, petitions for the Planning Commission and the info "baby" postcards are available.
This is the first of a series of meetings. Next is the Planning Commission, the the board of County Commissioners. After they ADOPT the proposed amendment it will then be transmitted to Tallahassee for review and then come back for two additional Board of County Commission meetings.
We won't have the Staff's review until about two weeks before it goes to the Planning Commission. Date yet to be determined.
Citizens' Proposal to Cut Density of Northern Hamlet in Half
Wednesday, September 11, 1:30 pm
Sarasota County Commission, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota
Developers' Proposal to Double Density of All Three Hamlets
Thursday, September 19, 5:00 pm
Sarasota County Planning Commission, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota
Rural Heritage
The fate of 15,000 acres in far east Sarasota County is on the line this month, as County officials weigh competing proposals from citizens and developers.
On September 11, the County Commission will first consider whether to authorize processing of a citizen petition to amend the Comprehensive Plan, as allowed by the County Code.
The petition -- the first ever brought by citizens, not developers -- would reduce the density of 6,000 acres at the northeast corner of Fruitville Road and Verna Road from Hamlet development (.4 units per acre - clustered to one unit per acre) to Rural Heritage Estate (at one unit per five acres), consistent with surrounding homes in that area. The change is promoted by the Miakkka Community Club, representing homeowners nearby, and supported by Control Growth Now. The petition -- indeed the very idea of a citizen petition -- was opposed by the Board-appointed Planning Commission.
Next, on September 19, the Planning Commission will consider a proposal by the developer of that north Hamlet to double its clustered density to two units per acre, as well as for the two other Hamlets to the south, provided that the developer agrees to hook up the County's already overstressed water and sewer utilities. That change -- which would impact 15,000 acres in toto -- is opposed by the County's Development Review Committee, which concluded that it "does not appear to be warranted," as well as by County planning staff and Control Growth Now. (More here.)
Both one unit-per-acre and two units-per-acre are urban densities under the Comprehensive Plan. Control Growth Now has long advocated that such urban sprawl does not belong in the eastern rural lands.
Rural Heritage:Miakka Schoolhouse
On September 11, 2019, you can help a rural heritage community hold the line on broken county promises and thwart another construction invasion.
At 1:30 pm, the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners will decide either to
protect our rural heritage
or
promote urban sprawl.
Sprawl east of I-75
The Miakka Community near Verna Road and Fruitville Road represents one of the oldest neighborhoods in our county. It's a strong voice. Even if you don't live in East County, this is your concern – what's happening there is a harbinger of what’s coming.
When density in your neighborhood jumps before you turn around, you’ve been had – by developers who changed the rules through sleight of hand. Before you can say "traffic jam," your peaceful neighborhood is a memory.
Out east, residents are fighting back against developers who want to more than triple the density of landas currently zoned. This is leapfrog development!
With the theme of Sarasota Country, this active community adopted the slogan:
"Keep the Country...Country
Rural Heritage - Not Urban Sprawl."
The Miakka Community aims to protect rural heritage land from egregious development and density. This is a fair fight against the unfair developers-take-all boondoggle.
We can all support this community at the commission meeting on September 11, 2019, at 1660 Ringling Blvd. (support agenda item CPA 2019-C to protect Rural Heritage)
Let's be witness to this opportunity for our commissioners to clearly demonstrate that they do NOT support URBAN SPRAWL
The following article can be found at SarasotaNewsLeader.com Citing concerns about changing development policies for eastern Sarasota County, Planning Commission recommends County Commission stop initiative to reduce density near Fruitville/Verna roads intersection
Old Miakka residents propose changes to Sarasota 2050 Future Land Use Maps
In 2006, residents of the Old Miakka community in the eastern part of Sarasota County completed a two-year process of engagement with Sarasota County staff to craft a document called the Old Miakka Neighborhood Plan.
The introduction to that plan explained, “Old Miakka is not only an area of rich history but one of rural character and integrity. Of all things material, great and small, the residents’ love of the land and pastoral admiration is what they hold closest to their hearts.”
Becky Ayech - a longtime advocate for water and sensible land use planning in East Sarasota - is leading a community effort to change the County's 2050 Comprehensive Plan. Their comp plan amendment (CPA) would restrict the "hamlet" format in portions of East County.
Her main concern is a plan proposed to intensify a 6,000-acre area at Fruitville Road and Verna Road. The plan was presented at a neighborhood workshop by Rod Krebs and Don Neu this past January. It proposed to double the density of a hamlet project and to run sewer utilities out from the Bee Ridge Wastewater Treatment Plant to the development to enable the higher density.
Ayesh has formed a coalition to change the Comp Plan to disallow this intensification. Her group has scheduled a hearing for May 13 in Old Miakka and invites all who have concerns to either attend or to write to the County.
It was standing room only at Yeshua's Love Biblical Fellowship in East Sarasota Thursday evening as residents came to listen and to speak back to planning and land use engineer Donald A. Neu.
Neu pointing to area of planned
Super Hamlet at Fruitville/Verna
At the Jan. 24, 2019 neighborhood workshop, Neu presented a plan for a master water and sewer utility and housing development at Fruitville and Verna roads. The plan would double the density allowed for a hamlet by the County's Comprehensive Plan. The concept, still in the early planning stage, calls for 3,200 homes on 1,600 acres, and proposes using transferred development rights generated by the land within the same property. Some commercial development might eventually be added, Neu said during his brief presentation.
The response from the community lasted 45 minutes, with virtually every speaker raising concerns about density, traffic, and potential impacts on their rural way of life.
"2050 [the county's comprehensive plan] was built for a reason," said one man, adding it was designed to draw lines between areas of higher and lower density that aren't supposed to be crossed. "With this," he added, "2050 is out the door."
Another person said the 2050 plan's intent was to "protect the rural character" and "respect diversity."
"You're creating sprawl at the very eastern end of the county," a woman added.
After 35 minutes of discussion, Rod Krebs, one of several landowners who agreed to explore this development plan, addressed the room. He said he appreciated the courtesy of those who came out, drawing applause when he added, "I may not go forward - I just have to evaluate this."
A Jan. 24 neighborhood workshop will propose yet another intensifying amendment to the 2050 Comp Plan. Developers Don Neu and Rod Krebs want to create a new master utility in East Sarasota County at North Fruitville and Verna roads. They will seek to amend the Comprehensive Plan to allow sufficient density to enable the sewer system to be economically viable.
Area of Northeast Sarasota County where intensified
hamlets served by a new master utility are envisioned
Neu and Krebs will ask the county to bless an expanded notion of the hamlet form (more density) and use transfers of development rights in an unprecedented way to increase hamlet density. The novel idea would use TDRs generated by the site on the same site.
In the Comprehensive Plan, hamlets are conceived as low density, consisting of perhaps 1 or 2 units per acre, with a maximum of 400 units. This plan would seek permission for a higher density on more than 2,000 acres north of Fruitville Road at Verna Road.
As one planner notes in the video, the Comp Plan envisioned larger Villages closer to the highway, and smaller, rural hamlets out farther east.
This proposal is designed to stimulate development farther East where Fruitville Road ends, and will require an amendment basically to reverse what the 2050 plan envisioned.
Video of the discussion at the Development Review Committee in December:
The neighborhood workshop:
Thursday Jan. 24
8893 Fruitville Rd. (Yeshua's Love Biblical Fellowship)
Citing concerns about changing development policies for eastern Sarasota County, Planning Commission recommends County Commission stop initiative to reduce density near Fruitville/Verna roads intersection
Old Miakka residents propose changes to Sarasota 2050 Future Land Use Maps
A graphic shows the Old Miakka Planning Area, outlined in blue. Image courtesy Sarasota County
In 2006, residents of the Old Miakka community in the eastern part of Sarasota County completed a two-year process of engagement with Sarasota County staff to craft a document called the Old Miakka Neighborhood Plan.
The introduction to that plan explained, “Old Miakka is not only an area of rich history but one of rural character and integrity. Of all things material, great and small, the residents’ love of the land and pastoral admiration is what they hold closest to their hearts.”
The introduction added, “As development continues to grow east of Sarasota County’s Urban Service Boundary, the neighborhood has begun to feel growing pains, generating significant concern about the community’s future.”
(The Urban Service Boundary, county planning staff has explained, generally is the line of demarcation for development, with the areas west of the line having become urban and the land east of it considered to be rural.)
“This plan,” the introduction continued, “lays out a methodology that seeks to preserve the rural character the community holds so dear.”
The County Commission voted to accept the Old Miakka plan in 2006, four years after the original version of the county’s 2050 Plan was approved. The 2050 regulations specify how growth should occur east of the Urban Service Boundary.
Sarasota 2050 has three primary tenets, the county’s planning staff points out: open space, to create a balance between the community and the environment; New Urbanism, which focuses on the construction of neighborhoods with commercial centers to serve residents’ daily needs, thereby reducing the need for vehicle use; and fiscal neutrality, meaning new developments pay for themselves.
A county staff graphic points out concerns about the amendment’s impacts on the Sarasota County 2050 Plan. Image courtesy Sarasota County
The approximately 6,000 acres in the northwest corner of Fruitville Road and Verna Road — an area close to Old Miakka — primarily was designated Village/Open Space under the 2050 Plan, with the option for those lands to be developed as Hamlets, as designated on the Future Land Use Map Series that accompanied the 2050 Plan regulations.
On June 20, a leader of a group called the Miakka Community Club told the Sarasota County Planning Commission that, after the 2006 County Commission vote on the Old Miakka Neighborhood Plan, “We went home thinking we had superseded [the Sarasota 2050 plan Future Land Use Map designations]” at the eastern end of Fruitville Road.
“We did not know that [the Old Miakka Plan] had to be adopted [for that to happen],” Becky Ayech testified.
Then, she continued, in 2015, construction began on the first Hamlet on Fruitville Road. “It wasn’t the 50 to 150 homes surrounded by agriculture,” as the Old Miakka Plan had envisioned, Ayech pointed out. Instead, it was 400 homes on about 400 acres, “and 600 acres of stormwater mosquito-breeding land that went with [the development].”
County planning staff since has referred to Hamlets as “urban sprawl,” Ayech told the Planning Commission.
With the growth taking place out east — and more development coming — Ayech and many of her neighbors in Old Miakka decided in March to submit to the county Planning and Development Services Department staff an application for the processing of a publicly initiated Comprehensive Plan amendment. Their goal is to accomplish what their 2006 neighborhood plan failed to do. The application seeks changes in the designation of the 6,000 acres near Old Miakka to Rural Heritage/Estates, which would have a much lower housing density. The amendment affects Maps 8-1 and 8-3 in the 2050 Plan chapter of the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
The application says the new designation would not cover Lake Park Estates and SMR Properties.
A county graphic shows the area — circled in purple — that would be designated Rural Heritage/Estates. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Yet, as one of the opponents of the proposal made clear to the Planning Commission on June 20, such changes in the 2050 Plan’s Future Land Use Maps at this point would threaten projects that have been years in the making.
More importantly, attorney Matt Brockway of Icard Merrill in Sarasota told the planning commissioners, the change likely would lead to lawsuits citing the state’s Bert Harris Act and other areas of Florida law related to the government’s “taking” of private property.
Speaking for four client companies that together own approximately 2,267 acres designated Village/Open Space and Hamlet under the aegis of the 2050 Plan, Brockway said, “We are vehemently opposed to the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendment, 2019-C.”
Matt Brockway. Photo from the Icard Merrill website
His clients, Brockway said, are Indian Creek Development LLC, BDR Investments LLC, John Cannon Homes Eastmoor LLC and Myakka Ranch Holdings LLC.
After a public hearing that lasted close to two hours, the Planning Commission members voted unanimously to recommend that the County Commission deny the request of the applicants for the processing of the proposed amendment.
“This application is really nothing more than an attempt to go backwards under 2050, which the county spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on, doing studies, paying consultants,” Planning Commissioner Colin Pember pointed out.
“2050 is not perfect,” Pember added, “[but] it’s more acceptable than this proposal …”
It will be up to the County Commission to decide whether to direct staff to proceed with processing the proposed Old Miakka amendment. County Planner Bill Spaeth said he estimated that the work would take up to 100 hours of staff time.
On Sept. 11, the County Commission tentatively is scheduled to address the issues regarding the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendment, county Media Relations Officer Drew Winchester told The Sarasota News Leader.
An ancillary issue
During the board discussion after the June 20 hearing, Planning Commissioner Laura Benson cited another concern, which arose from the staff presentation that night.
Planner Spaeth had explained that Section 94-87 of the County Code allows the submission to the county of a publicly initiated Comprehensive Plan amendment with a minimum of 20 signatures of registered voters. In fact, Spaeth said, the Old Miakka application had 60 petition signatures, and staff had verified that 47 of the signers are registered voters.
In making the motion to recommend that the County Commission deny the request for the processing of the proposed amendment, Benson stressed of Ayech and the other signers of the petitions, “They are not owners of the property [that would be affected].”
Becky Ayech addresses the Planning Commission on June 20. News Leader photo
She expressed astonishment that as few as 20 people could initiate such an amendment. “This opens up a Pandora’s box of more requests from anybody with 20 friends who want to start a process. I think that’s a very bad precedent to set.”
(See the related story in this issue.)
In her testimony, Ayech pointed out that her group had been willing to pay a $5,000 fee they thought was required under county planning guidelines to submit the application. Then staff apprised her of the process outlined in the County Code, she noted. “We were not trying to take [taxpayers’] money.”
Spaeth also explained that county staff — including department leaders — and the County Commission itself propose Comprehensive Plan amendments that are handled under the guidelines of the publicly initiated process.
However, staff must have formal direction from the County Commission to begin analyzing any proposed amendment, he said.
The process itself
At the outset of the Planning Commission public hearing, Spaeth told the board, “I do want to make it clear what this is about. … This is not about the actual amendment.”
According to the process outlined in the County Code, he continued, the Planning Commission that night was being asked only whether or not to recommend that the County Commission allow staff to process the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendment.
The Rural Heritage/Estate designation the Miakka group is seeking for the property, Spaeth said, supports very low housing density or agricultural or equestrian uses.
(Under the county’s 2050 Plan regulations, maximum density for a Hamlet is one dwelling unit per gross acre. The maximum density for a Village is five dwelling units per acre, though that rises to six if the additional units are to be marketed as affordable housing. For Rural Heritage/Estate, the density can range from one dwelling unit per 5 acres to one unit per 160 acres.)
As Chair Kevin Cooper prepared to call on people who had signed up to address the board, he noted that he had enough cards for close to four hours of testimony. The commissioners could shorten the speaking time from 5 minutes to 3, he said, but “I’m not a fan of that.”
By count of The Sarasota News Leader, 35 people ended up making comments on the record. By the News Leader’s count, again, only four people urged the Planning Commission not to recommend that the proposed amendment go any further in the process that had begun. Among them was Rod Krebs, one of the owners of the property at the heart of the discussion.
Rod Krebs makes his remarks to the Planning Commission. News Leader photo
He is a partner in Indian Creek Development and BDR Investments, Krebs told the commissioners. Together, he continued, those companies have owned 1,938 acres of the 6,000, and the property has been designated for Hamlets since 2004.
“I’ve been a developer/homebuilder in Sarasota County for 48 years,” Krebs said. “The 2050 Plan is on track to utilize all of the designated Village land at less than 1.3 dwelling units per acre,” he stressed.
And thanks to an initiative on which he is working with county staff, Krebs continued, his Hamlet property will be “the last development option in North Sarasota County that will guarantee the elimination of septic tanks and wells.”
If the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendment were to win County Commission approval, Krebs said, it would guarantee “the proliferation of septic tanks and wells” during a time when the county and the state are dedicating “hundreds of millions of dollars to water quality improvement and septic-to-sewer plans.”
Many other speakers urged the commissioners just to allow the proposed amendment to go through the process outlined in the County Code. “Let the public have some input,” Howard Hickok said.
Some talked of their enjoyment of the rural area; others bemoaned the increasing amount of traffic.
Retired Deputy Charlie Rowe, who lives right on Fruitville Road, told the commissioners he had lived in the eastern part of the county for more than 30 years. He spent the morning of June 20 in his carport, he continued, counting cars. “I was amazed,” he said, having recorded 700 vehicles an hour driving by his house. “If we increase [the number of homes] that much more,” he added, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to handle it.”
Referencing remarks by opponents of the amendment, Alan Yaruss, who lives on a 5-acre parcel in Bern Creek, told the board, “I’m offended that anybody might think that we’re here as a circus with no clowns.”
A decision to make
Following the public comments, Chair Cooper said that in his years on the commission, he could not recall another example of such a request for a Comprehensive Plan amendment.
Spaeth confirmed that staff had not received another one from residents, as allowed by County Code Section 94-87.
When Cooper asked whether Spaeth felt the Old Miakka group had “done everything it needs to do” to comply with the County Code, Spaeth replied, “In my estimation, yes.”
A graphic shows the area at the heart of the amendment, as depicted on one of the Future Land Use Maps in the 2050 Plan. Image courtesy Sarasota County
Then Planning Commissioner Teresa Mast asked Spaeth whether, during his tenure with the county, any privately initiated Comprehensive Plan amendment ever had been proposed “that would impact another individual’s property and change the designation of that zoning?”
“To my knowledge, no,” he told her.
In response to other questions, Assistant County Attorney Joshua Moye indicated that changing a designation on a county Future Land Use Map indeed might prompt an attempt at legal recourse under provisions of the Bert Harris Act. He had not specifically researched this proposed amendment, Moye added, but, based on the testimony that night, “There would be some concerns on the county side [that litigation might ensue].”
This is a section of the Bert Harris Act in the Florida Statutes. Image courtesy State of Florida
“I think it’s within your judgment call to consider [recommending the County Commission allow the proposed amendment to be processed],” he continued. Nonetheless, Moye said, the planning commissioners could base their decision on whether they believed the amendment would be good or bad.
“To me, the 2050 Plan was extremely well vetted,” Planning Commissioner Andrew Stultz said, reprising comments Brockway of Icard Merrill and some of Stultz’s colleagues on the commission had made earlier.
Cooper noted that the 2050 Plan “was called a good compromise” after it was approved. Yet, the county still had to face litigation over it, he said.
Cooper believed, he continued, that “We should have just incrementally moved the Urban Service Boundary.”
Regardless of his feelings, however, Cooper said he had to consider the County Commission’s policy decisions regarding the 2050 Plan. “Until [the county commissioners] tell us otherwise as advisers, I have to assume that [the existing 2050 Plan] is what they want.”
Since the County Commission will vote on whether to direct staff to process the amendment, Cooper added, “They may say, ‘Hey, this is time to revisit this map.’”
