Tom Lyons on the Whole Foods Wetland Mitigation Fiasco

Follow-up via the Herald Tribune:

The decision to allow the total destruction of a long-protected 4.5-acre wooded swamp to accommodate a parking lot was an unpleasant surprise to some local environmentalists, only in part because the mitigation project offered in return wasn't in the same county. It was in Manatee County. Nothing about the mitigation site sounded like it would entice Sarasota County commissioners with visions of a local restoration project to point to as a worthy swap. 

But as reporter Emily LeCoz revealed in Sunday's Herald-Tribune, that wasn't the half of why this mitigation deal looks really bad.

Read the rest here.

“There is a lot of growth; we can’t stop it anymore."

Following up on the Sarasota County Commission's decision on Whole Foods' wish to build on living wetland:

Shocking absolutely no one at all, the Sarasota County Commission bowed to Whole Foods and WaWa Tuesday, approving the erection of those commercial enterprises on a wetland on University Parkway at Honore.

One resident near the wetlands site was quoted by the Herald Tribune as saying: “There is a lot of growth; we can’t stop it anymore." 

Herald Tribune:

A forested wetland preserve standing in the way of a new Whole Foods Market at Honore Avenue and University Parkway will become a parking lot after the Sarasota County commissioners approved a rezoning change over the objections of some staff and residents. 

The measure passed 4-1 with Commissioner Charles Hines voting against it. 

“Clearly this is a good location for this end user, except there’s a wetland right on it,” Hines said. “There is testimony in the record that says it’s a functioning wetland. It still has value. It still has use.” 

More . . .

Citizen advocate Bill Zoller wrote to acknowledge the effort of Commissioner Hines [link added]:

Dear Charles: 

Thank you very much for voting against the Whole Foods proposal which will result in the destruction of the wetlands at that site. That wetlands was the basis for the denial, some years ago, of the McKay et al proposal for that site. At that time, all aspects of the issue, and of the importance of the wetlands, were aired, discussed, and dissected in great detail. Since that time, nothing has changed that would warrant the destruction of the wetlands, nor has the role of that wetlands in the overall ecology changed. 

I am a little surprised that Whole Foods, given its image as a champion of environmental issues, would pursue this environmentally destructive path to a new store. 

Again, your concern and your vote are much appreciated in this matter. Sarasota will lose one more important piece of its natural systems, which is a loss for us all. 

Best, 

Bill

UPDATE: The loss of Sarasota's wetland is now a component of Wikipedia's entry on Whole Foods.

Degrading Sarasota County, one wetland at a time

From Dan Lobeck, Sarasota attorney and citizen advocate:

PAVING PARADISE AND GRIDLOCKING OUR ROADS

On Tuesday, January 26 shortly after 1:30 pm at their downtown Sarasota location, the Sarasota County Commission will consider allowing a developer to pave over 4 ½ acres of very rare and valuable forested wetlands for commercial development and to create traffic gridlock at an important intersection. 

It is a public hearing, with the right to speak for up to five minutes.
Sarasota County staff is recommending against this, and would require that the wetlands be preserved on the 8 ¼ acre site at University Parkway and Honore Avenue. They point out that most of these wetlands were agreed to be preserved in a previous business park approved for the site, so the developer would violate the requirement of the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan that there is “no reasonable alternative” but to destroy the wetlands. 

Staff reports that the particular wetlands “are very rare in Sarasota County” and “have a high degree of environmental importance for water filtration, assimilation of nutrients, floodwater storage and as a refuge and habitat for a wide variety of species that rely on this urban environment.” “Such isolated habitats within the urban environment,” staff says, “are becoming increasingly more important to migratory species.” 

The wetland destruction would be “mitigated” six miles away on Manatee County property unconnected to any Sarasota County habitat, which staff says also violates the Comprehensive Plan requirement that mitigation (where there is “no reasonable alternative” to destruction) should be on-site or nearby. 

If this is approved, it will follow a brand-new pattern of the Sarasota County Commission allowing destruction of valuable habitat for mitigation in Manatee County, as it granted to Benderson Development last year for expansion of the University Town Center.
The proposed commercial development would also create severe traffic congestion at the University Parkway-Honore Avenue intersection which can only be solved by a large, expensive road and intersection improvements and a traffic light. Two lanes must be added to University Parkway from Honore to Medici Court and to Honore Avenue from University Parkway to Desoto Road, if the traffic is to be handled. However, amazingly, transportation staff recommends – without any evident concurrency analysis required by state law – only to require the developer to add the traffic light. There are no plans for the other improvements. 

So not only do valuable wetlands get paved over, but another stretch of University Parkway, and of Honore Avenue, and their intersection, gets gridlocked. 

The Planning Commission, which the County Commission has stacked with development interests, unanimously recommended approval of the developer’s proposal. (Earlier on the County Commission agenda, the Commission will most likely pass over citizen advocates Lourdes Ramirez and Ray Porter to appoint two developers and a development contractor to the Planning Commission, if they follow what they have done before). 

Will the County Commission act again to let developers pave over wetlands which their environmental staff says are required to be preserved, and gridlock the roads in the process? 

-- Dan Lobeck

Who ordered this?

via the Herald Tribune:

Traffic in the Sarasota metropolitan area jumped 152 percent in February compared with the same month last year, according to traffic and transportation analytics firm INRIX.

Because of traffic delays, the average trip took a Sarasota driver 7.4 percent longer in February than during the same month in 2014, the Kirkland, Washington-based company reports.

Meanwhile, the two-county region's year-round population is back in growth mode. On top of the 702,000 people who lived here in 2010, there will be 81,600 more by 2020, pushing the total close to 800,000, U.S. Census projections suggest.

Last week, the region's main traffic planning group published a report showing that 13 percent of Sarasota County corridors and 18 percent of Manatee's already are heavily congested. Out of possible congestion grades of A, B, C, D, E or F, that means, in general, that an eighth of our corridors get a D or worse grade.

More...