Will Sarasota County's New Administration Center violate the principle of walkability?

To: The Board of Sarasota County Commissioners:

RE: Jan. 18 Agenda Item 37 a, b, c

Commissioners,

Tomorrow, January 18, 2023, you will be asked to approve a change to the interconnectivity element of the Fruitville Initiative Ordinance - an element that until now has remained in force despite other developers within the Initiative having requested to be excused from it. The entire premise of the Initiative, as put forth at charrettes held by Stefanos Polyzoides in 2010, invoked a model of a walkable mixed-use community. The Interconnectivity component was the core enabling element that guaranteed a grid of streets to render walkability possible.

Original Plan for Interconnectivity:

Revised Plan removing interconnectivity from the County Administration site (lower, far-right parcel):

Bottom right parcel without street grid

Having held all the other developers to this component, Sarasota County is now coming before itself - that is, this Board - to ask your permission to not be held to this core standard, with regard to the construction of the new Administration Building on a site known as parcel F7.

In its documentation, the applicant (Sarasota County) presents no site plan or other information explaining why this exemption is necessary. It would seem reasonable to ask the applicant for a detailed rendering of its plan, if such exists, or at the very least, some clear and sufficient explanation of why it is seeking this dispensation that has been denied to all other Initiative stakeholders. 

This seems even more significant when it's understood that this plan to flout the core value of walkability is for the county's Administration Center -- the tax-funded building serving as the County seat. Surely the public deserves a look at what architectural design the county has in mind, and an understanding of why the plan for the new symbol of Sarasota governance has to undermine the organizing principle of its own forward-looking Fruitville Initiative ordinance.

Consider that when this Board was asked to allow a completely incompatible plan presented by Benderson Development in 2015, it unanimously voted to deny that request. The vision of the Initiative was intact then, and deserves not to be ignored in 2023.

Please take this item from the Consent Agenda and request a public hearing that would give you and the public a first look at a project that can and should embody the values and vision of the people of Sarasota.

Respectfully,

Tom Matrullo

Citizens for Sarasota County

Public space can shape the soul of a city

Amanda Burden, a famed city planner who contributed to Manhattan's High Line, talks about the value and importance of public spaces as well as the happiness bestowed by them.

"Public spaces have power," says Burden. "A successful city is like a fabulous party -- people stay because they are having a great time."

The trick, she notes, is to get outside the compulsion of the developer profit motive, and make the most of opportunities for the common good.

"Communities can tell whether or not you understand their neighborhood," she says. "It's not something you can just fake."

To make successful public spaces, more than professional skills are necessary.

"You don't tap into your design expertise," says Burden. "You tap into your humanity."

County "contemplates" comp plan amendments

Sarasota County is "contemplating language" that could amend the terms of the 2050 Comprehensive Plan.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

At a Jan. 18 meeting, Sarasota Planner Vivian Roe presented two amendments proposed by developers for public input:

1. reducing the required open space (OS) for Villages from the current 50% to 33%.
2. reduction in size and or placement of Greenbelt buffers (currently required to be 500' in width).

What's driving the proposed changes?

• Developers who apply for villages have been revising comp plan policy requesting to reduce the OS from 50% to something less (for specific sites).
• If there is a change to the policy, each developer requesting a reduction of OS will not need to get a Comp Plan Amendment, just a rezoning, said Sarasota Planner Vivian Roe.

Those present had questions and comments:
-- If this is going to become part of the process, the notification should be expanded - the public needs to know - said one person.
-- To allow more of the open space to be housing - doesn’t this encourage more houses, or more single family format, with less walkability - said another.
-- Expediting development could mean faster tranformation of the remaining open land of the county to tracts of single family homes without character or 2050 value.

While the benefits to developers are clear:
-- simpler application
-- less costly
-- more land to put houses on

The potential downside to everyone else that could result:
-- Loss of village strengths (e.g., walkability)
-- Loss of 2050 priorities and values

Greenbelts could lose any depth or buffering, as happened with LT Ranch on Clark Road.

Several who attended brought up the question of the top-down nature of the county process. In this case, developers propose changes - the public is invited in a secondary move to REact, provide "input" -- followed by the County Commission deciding the issue. What if, at the time developers are PROposing, the County invited citizens to PROactively PROpose, as well? In some cases, as with the proposed recycling center within spitting distance of the Celery Fields, the very land in question is owned by the county - i.e., by us.

Should we not have some proactive procedural primacy?

Citizens with comments can email them directly to the presenting planner, Vivian Roe, at VRoe@scgov.net.

A few slides from the PowerPoint presentation at Gulf Gate Library

An Election Day Word from Sarasota Audubon

From the most recent edition of "The Brown Pelican" -- the Sarasota Audubon Society Newsletter.


ELECTIONS

By the time you receive this Brown Pelican, the national, state and local elections might have already been decided. Thanks go to those of you who are registered Sarasota County voters and who work and vote for strongly environmental candidates and, especially, those who will vote for amendment #1, the Water and Land Conservation Amendment to the Florida Constitution. Also thanks to those of you who vote elsewhere but who help support those people and that amendment. If you're a registered Florida voter please vote and bring along family and friends to vote as well.


If the amendment passes with the necessary 60% of the votes, let's celebrate! If it doesn't, after crying in our beer, let's start lobbying for the Legislature to put all or most of that 30% of the land transfer tax that the amendment would have allocated to environmental purposes to the same end through Legislative action, as was routinely done only a few years ago.


SARASOTA COUNTY: ENVIRONMENTALLY SPEAKING, WHERE IS IT GOING? WHERE SHOULD IT GO?


Back a decade ago, we were optimistic. The county voters, by impressive majorities, had just passed three amendments to the County Charter requiring a super-majority (4) of the County Commission to amend the Comprehensive Plan to increase the density or intensity of development beyond the urban services line, to require a unanimous County Commission vote to move or abolish that line, and to retain existing land regulations on land annexed by municipalities (a ploy by developers prior to that amendment had already doubled the size of Venice).


A compromise overlay for eastern County lands, called Sarasota 2050, was adopted to guide development for the next 45 years with a series of villages that were fiscally neutral to existing taxpayers, walkable around small urban cores, had ample open space, reasonably wide green borders, wildlife corridors, and many other elements of "new urbanism". While they were denser than many of us preferred, they were, after all, a compromise with landowners and would-be developers. The County Commission at that time seemed responsive to citizen input, and was dominated neither by developers nor environmentalists.


All that has changed. Despite a large majority of opponents at a public hearing on October 22, the County Commission substantially gutted Sarasota 2050, changing it from a means to ensure slow and managed development that preserved a green network for wildlife and people to a means of shoehorning in more people and more quickly, while preserving just enough remnants of the original plan to retain a facade of new urbanism. The result may be hard to differentiate from the standard, new bedroom developments of two to four houses per acre that we see sprawling across the landscape in adjacent counties.


Other results, of course, will be more roads, more cars, more traffic delays, more wildlife roadkill (and probably pedestrian and bicycle roadkill as well), more demand for schools, fire, police, water, waste disposal, gasoline stations, etc. In other words, sprawling suburbia. That's "where Sarasota County is going".


But it doesn't have to be that way, and Sarasota citizens seem to be realizing that as they recuperate from the "great recession", though most Commissioners still don't seem to get it. The County's annual citizen opinion survey done on contract by the University of South Florida shows that population growth and new development combined with traffic and transportation is now the principal concern of 37% of Sarasota County's citizens, up from 20% in 2013, this year dwarfing jobs and the economy which dropped to only 11%.


Even if Sarasota County aspires to be a second Tampa, it can't be. The regional airport, the Interstate nexus, the port, etc. are already there. Its niche for prosperity continues to be as a beautiful, uncrowded place with beaches, arts, outdoor opportunities, open space, birds and other wildlife that attract entrepreneurs and other relatively wealthy people who have made their money elsewhere. They usually come first as tourists and then as residents who spend and invest their money here. Rapid growth and too much growth will destroy that attraction. We already have almost 400,000 residents in the County. Where will it stop? At a million people? 2 million? 20 million?


Why not stop now? Why not focus on quality rather than quantity, stopping the incessant demands for more density that will destroy the natural environment that continues to be a major element in bringing those people who drive our economy and share our quality of life. I hope that soon becomes the direction in which "Sarasota County should go".

Wade Matthews, Conservation Chair 

Walkability - A good investment

There are strong connections between walkable environments and economic viability.

"Real estate values over the next 25 years will rise fastest in "smart communities" that incorporate traditional chareacteristics of successful cities including a mix of residential and commercial districta and a "pedestrian-friendly configuration." - Walkable Communities, Inc.

Two studies shed light on the issues of Walkability and can be downloaded from the sites below:

From the Local Government Commission, The Economic Benefits of Walkable Communities.

From Smart Growth America, Foot Traffic Ahead.

Walkable communities are not just wealthier, but healthier. More here and here.

Changing Demands in Form-Based Codes

Reposted from SRQ

"You talk to millennials or to aging boomers and what they are looking for in places is the ability to get to activities they want to go to in the shortest time possible, whether that is parks, museums or coffee houses," he said. "They want to be close to things, and time has become much more important."

Development

BY JACOB OGLES   |   SRQ DAILY FRESHLY SQUEEZED CONTENT EVERY MORNING   |   WEDNESDAY OCT 1, 2014

Whether helping pull together celebrated redevelopment efforts in Orlando or contributing to a major revitalization of Nashville, Rick Bernhardt has been in the background helping make sure legal aspects of key projects come together. During a visit to Sarasota as a guest of the Downtown Sarasota Alliance, he stressed good planning can make sure developments aren't stalled, largely by getting the entire community on board with the same vision.

"We had situations in Nashville of 30 years of conflict with neighbors and developers and nothing ever got built," Bernhardt, executive director of the Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County Planning Department  told SRQ in advance of a Tuesday night event at The Francis. "But the system was set up to bring a proposal to neighborhoods and have them respond. We never opened up the process to say what was important to neighborhoods and what they actually would want. The system was set up to be contentious."

Bernhardt more recently has won accolades for work turning that pattern around, notably through the adoption of more than 30 form-based codes aimed at establishing a shared vision for growth and bringing it to fruition. The codes were developed through a process that involved the community, and that has led to developers being able to move on projects with less opposition.

Of course, form-based codes are not new to Sarasota, and Bernhardt had some role in bringing them here as well. He was one of the consultants working with Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company more than a decade ago on the Downtown Sarasota Master Plan. It has been between eight and ten years since Bernhardt was last in Sarasota, but at first blush he likes what he sees. "It looks like a lot of the plan has been implemented," he said. "The streets look nice and the scale is good."

Tensions between neighborhoods and developers, though, have not disappeared. The conflict remains central to the city politic, and also has been the greatest source of discord in an update to the Sarasota County 2050 Plan.

Even when a community vision is put forth, Bernhardt said, it needs routine updates. Modern demands for more dense urban cores are a perfect demonstration of why, he said. 

"If you look at the plans in the early 2000s, even up to 2005, things were very different from today," he said. "Nobody actively anticipated the change in millennials—the change in household size, household make-up and demand for an urban community." While people a decade ago still tended not to buy homes until they started families, a shift in mindset has younger buyers getting units now. Combined with the retiree population that lives an active lifestyle for longer, Bernhardt noted, the highest demand in the housing market is not for one-person homes.

Beyond housing, there is also a change in demand for centralized amenities, which means dense, mixed-use development. "You talk to millennials or to aging boomers and what they are looking for in places is the ability to get to activities they want to go to in the shortest time possible, whether that is parks, museums or coffee houses," he said. "They want to be close to things, and time has become much more important."