Industrial corridor threatens Polo Club and Waterside tranquility

Lorraine Rd in Waterside

]From The Observer:

Polo Club and Waterside at Lakewood Ranch residents are worried the makeup of their peaceful, rural area is about to be challenged as the county explores a zoning change for the Lorraine Road corridor.

In an Aug. 30 meeting, Sarasota County commissioners will decide whether to send a county-initiated amendment to designate Lorraine Road from University Parkway to Fruitville Road and Lorraine Road from Clark Road to State Road 681 as a Business Corridor overlay. Such an amendment would allow office space, light industrial and some business and service uses along Lorraine Road.

On April 26, the Sarasota County Commission adopted a new Business Park zoning district. The intention was to provide economic development and employment opportunities by allowing light industrial, office space and limited business and service uses in areas not previously zoned for such uses. Four original corridors — Fruitville Road east of Interstate 75, Bee Ridge Road east of I-75, the S.R. 681 and I-75 interchange and South River Road — were created.

Property owners with a minimum of 10 acres and access from an adjacent arterial roadway could request a zoning change that would allow them to host the above uses.  

On May 24, the two Lorraine Road corridors were added as potential Business Park Corridors.

Although virtual public workshops have been held, those living along Lorraine Road have received no written notice of the amendments.

"It's almost like Sarasota County is trying to do this in secret," said Polo Club resident Tim Hornung, who has been trying to notify all his neighbors about the significance of the Aug. 30 meeting.  More here

Click on Agenda item #85 for the relevant August 30 planning documents

Watch the August 17 Neighborhood Workshop:

 

A gaping barn door: The collapse of Sarasota's public planning

8.16.22

To the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners:

amaio@scgov.net, mmoran@scgov.net, rcutsinger@scgov.net, cziegler@scgov.net, ncdetert@scgov.net

RE: CPA 2022 B and CPA 2022-F - Failure to see the Big Picture

It's been a while since Sarasota could legitimately claim to be one of Florida's outstanding counties with regard to thoughtful planning. At one time, it was known for taste, moderate growth, and modest plans. Today it's in a dead heat with Broward County for Growth Gone Wild.

"Wild" not only because of the excessive overreach of developments such as Skye Ranch, Hi Hat, Wellen Park and Waterside, but also because you -- the County -- utterly failed to consider future needs, and to prudently provide for them before approving these and other large housing projects.

One specific proof of this is coming this Wednesday, when a half-baked plan to allocate lands on Lorraine Road for industrial and business uses comes up for a 6 p.m. neighborhood workshop. [Video of this workshop is now posted below.]

As you know, Lorraine will be an important North-South artery. When complete, it will extend south from Manatee County, running alongside key parts of Waterside, and Hi Hat down past Artistry to Skye Ranch before terminating where 681 connects with I-75:

When the proposal to set aside spaces for industry on Lorraine (CPA 2022-F) recently came up at the Planning Commission, it was voted down. The Commission didn't cite potential impacts to homeowners as its reason. Rather, the major sticking point was that Rex Jensen, Pat Neal, and the other developers involved with Waterside and Skye Ranch would not wish -- or allow -- such uses on their land.

Waterside, Hi Hat,
Skye Ranch

But there's a prior issue. You believe you are obligated to find land to meet the needs of future economic development, but have you done the analysis to demonstrate that this need exists? 

I ask because it has come to you only now, after Waterside is built out (and wishes to double its size), Hi Hat is approved, and Skye Ranch is well underway.

According to members of the Planning Commission, the developers whose wishes you approved are advising you in no uncertain terms that they will refuse industrial and business uses near their large, pricey developments.

And there's the rub: You knew the scope of Waterside, how it extended from University Parkway to Fruitville Road, and from I-75 to Lorraine. You knew the proposed scope of Hi Hat and that of Skye Ranch. You knew all this before these mega-housing projects were approved. Wouldn't that have been the moment to say:

Wait a second, Messers Jensen, Turner, Neal, et al, we will have a need for economic development east of I-75. We will need you to work with our planners to allocate space for future businesses before we can consider approving your plan.

Not only did you not apply forethought and public sense when you had bargaining power, but in fact you were giddy with delight in giving Rex and Pat the power to re-write Sarasota County's 2050 Plan-- the plan that is supposed to represent the collective vision of residents, builders, and the County. Rex and Pat took full advantage to write a chapter that allows them to increase density, to skip a host of planning steps, and to get underway while the market is hot.

Throughout this process, no one seems to have considered the big picture -- balancing the whole set of needs that come with shaping a well organized, very attractive county. You handed over the controls built into our Comp Plan to Rex and Pat, who have rewritten it to satisfy their highly profitable business plans.

In short, Commissioners Maio, Moran, Cutsinger, Ziegler and Detert, the barn door is wide open, the horses are long gone. You're wondering how to meet the growing needs of Sarasota's business and industrial sectors, but where is the analysis that proves this need exists?

One  recent industrial "need" you tried to meet was Jim Gabbert's. You nearly approved putting a dump next to the Celery Fields, with no analysis of need.

At that time, our residents suggested looking at other areas where such uses could more sensibly be organized. 

Now, having now carpeted most of Northeast Sarasota with plans for yet more gated communities, you are facing two challenges: (1) Where to find space for putative industrial uses, and (2) How to justify erasing 89% of Old Miakka - our last unique rural community - in order that Pat Neal and Rex Jensen can pave it with yet more boring human warehousing, without their having proved any demonstrated need. 

Appeasement of private interests rarely meets the comprehensive demands of well-thought-out public planning.

                                                                                             Respectfully,

                                                                        Tom Matrullo

Business Parks on Lorraine: Neighborhood Workshop 

Kumbaya? Or abject public sycophancy?

SNL: Two of our largest developers have offered to write their own piece of the 2050 Comprehensive Plan (Sarasota News Leader story) to accommodate their unslakable desire to build every available open area of Sarasota County. 

Rex Jensen: Lakewood Ranch has about 2,000 home sales a year. 

    “We’re the second-fastest selling community in the United bloody States,” he added. 

[Commissioner Mike] Moran: “You’re such a visionary.” 

Jensen: “We haven’t developed much in Sarasota, though that will change.” 

    Note: Rex Jensen's Waterside at Lakewood Ranch is a 5,144-home, 5,500-acre development in Sarasota County set around a series of seven large borrow pits left over from mining operations. It stretches from I-75 to Lorraine Road:

Moran noted of Waterside Place, “That project is fabulous.” 

Jensen: “We’re going to be out of land shortly, and we have about 4,000 acres” that Shroeder-Manatee Ranch would like to develop.

“What really grates on us,” Jensen said during his presentation, “is the numerous prescriptive requirements [of 2050] — “the ‘Thou shalt’s’ and the ‘Thou shalt not’s.’”

So, Jensen and Pat Neal offered to write their own Shalts and Shalt Nots:

  Comprehensive Planning -- The Developer Version

“What’s wrong with what you see at Lakewood Ranch?” Neal asked. Jensen is just seeking “to dispense with the prescriptive requirements that you have in the 2050 [Plan].”

 “I think this is a great process,” Chair Alan Maio said

Commissioner Christian Ziegler concurred on the latter point.

And so, as the Sarasota News Leader reports, ". . . the County Commission has given Rex Jensen, the developer of Lakewood Ranch, the go-ahead to work with county staff on a new residential density category within the county’s 2050 Plan, which has guidelines for communities created east of Interstate 75."

 

Largest Development East of I-75 set Neighborhood Workshop for June 4

Stretching from Fruitville Road to Clark Road, "Hi Hat Ranch" will be the largest planned village east of I-75 with 12,000 dwelling units:

Hi Hat Ranch

A neighborhood workshop will discuss a Master Development Order for approximately 9,943 acres to be developed as a 2050 Village project within the Central Village Area for approximately 12,000 dwelling units and 450,000 sq. feet of commercial development. 

The workshop will be held Tuesday, June 4, 2019, at 6:00 p.m. at St. Margaret Episcopal Church, 8700 S.R. 72 (Clark Road), Sarasota, Florida.

For more information please see the information here.

Two other large East County developments already approved and underway are:

Rex Jensen's Waterside, between Fruitville and University, from I-75 to Lorraine, will have 5,144 homes:

And the Turner family's LT Ranch south of Clark Road plans 3,450 units, built by Taylor Morrison:

UPDATE: Four housing tracts will overrun east Sarasota County without a public long range plan

Updated as of July 24, 2018:

If you live in Sarasota east of the Interstate, or if you like to experience the country roads of rural Florida, prepare for the shock of large-scale development. Several super-sized housing tracts are coming to East Sarasota. Four projects alone will add nearly 28,000 housing units on 20,705 acres.

Major developable swaths of east Sarasota County are either already underway or set to be approved before the inevitable next crash in the Sunshine State's housing cycle.

Sarasota County Map of developments to the East of I-75, north of Palmer Boulevard 

One of the four largest, Lakewood Ranch (LWR), ranks #5 among the "fastest growing suburbs in the US":

Sprawl: Fastest burbs in the US: LWR = #5

The four largest are Waterside at Lakewood Ranch (Rex Jensen), Hi Hat (Turner), LT Ranch (Turner) and Grand Lakes (Pat Neal). Stretching from University down to 681 near Venice in East Sarasota, these ambitious projects will replace East Sarasota's rural ranchlands and open space with huge tracts of housing.

And more gated housing projects are coming, including Lindvest, Lakepark Estates, Worthington, Palmer Place, Sylvan Lea, Hidden Creek, Rivo Lakes and more.

While quickly granting concessions to private developers, Sarasota County's elected Board displays no evident awareness of its civic responsibility to gauge cumulative impacts, nor, as the public steward of the land, to integrate these impacts within a larger vision of intrinsic tradition and commitment to public uses. One looks in vain for a discussion of bringing greenways or waterways into alignment to create walking paths, wildlife corridors, kayakable sloughs and riding trails that could offer the people of Sarasota public recreation North to South, and East to West.

During a public discussion of a County proposal to reduce open space requirements for developers, one resident put it this way: "If we make changes like this, it changes the character of Sarasota County that was the reason many of us came here."

Here's a brief overview of the four largest developments that are either underway or whose plans have received approval:

Rex Jensen's Waterside at Lakewood Ranch

It’s the first project coming to fruition in Schroeder-Manatee Ranch’s Waterside at Lakewood Ranch, a 5,144-home, 5,500-acre development in Sarasota County set around a series of seven large lakes left over from SMR’s aggregate mining operations. 

The Waterside project generally runs from Interstate 75 to east of Lorraine Road and between University Parkway and Fruitville Road. It is located south of the Sarasota Polo Club and the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park.

"Waterside"

"Waterside" will add 5,144 units, 5,500 acres

=

Turner Family: Hi Hat Ranch 

Stretching from Fruitville Road to Clark Road, this 10,000-acre mega-development of a former ranch will add an estimated 12,000 homes. 

Hearing July 11, 9 a.m. County Commission Chambers.

UPDATE: Board Action: Hi Hat Petition Approved July 11.

Add: 12,000-13,000 units, 10,000 acres

==

Turner Family: LT Ranch

This former ranch is approved and underway. It will start with 3,450 units.

LT Ranch

". . . the 1,725-acre property owned by the Turner family will break ground in the “2050 South Village” mixed-use development plan for the largely rural stretch leading out to the Myakka River State Park. 

"The massive project includes up to 3,450 residential units throughout the neighborhoods, up to 300,000 square feet of commercial space at the corner of Clark Road and Bee Ridge Extension, and a host of environmental and road improvements throughout the area, according to the plans." Herald Tribune 11.9.2016

UPDATE: Apparently this wasn't "massive" enough, because the Sarasota County Board in 2014 deviated from the Comp Plan to allow a more ambitious development:

Property owners planning to add a village on 4,672 acres near Clark Road and Interstate 75 got a lot more leeway Wednesday on how and when they build. 

County commissioners decided to amend the county’s 2050 growth plan to allow the owners, 3H Ranch LLC and LT Partners LLLP, to create 9,344 homes on the land, roughly 5,500 to 6,300 more than the guidelines permit. Herald Tribune 3.5.2014

        Update June 2024: Pat Neal's 3H Ranch proposal plans to construct 6,576 units. 

Skye Ranch + 3H Ranch together will add some 10,026 units on 4,672 acres.

==

West of LT Ranch, Pat Neal's "Grand Lakes" proposes to put 1,000 homes on 533 acres south of Clark Road at Ibis. The number of Pat Neal dwellings all told in Sarasota County will soon approach 10,000 units.

Hearing continued to July 11, 1:30 pm at Commission Chambers.

UPDATE: Board Action: Neal's Grand Lakes approved despite one-road access* was approved. The action raised a potential public safety issue for this giant cul de sac -- an issue acknowledged, but not addressed, by the Commissioners. Neighbors are considering options for an appeal, and say the Board ruling could open the way to sprawl across East Sarasota County.

See also the Letter to the Editor titled "Something is suspicious in Neal project approval":

All of the 300 current homeowners on Ibis were confined to their property earlier this year when a fire closed the road for hours. Now the county approves 1,100 additional homes, nearly a 400 percent increase, without fixing the egress issue on a dead-end street.

Grand Lakes

Add: 1,000 units, 533 acres

==

If all these tracts are approved as planned, they'll add more than 27,600 units to 20,705 acres of a rural area sparsely connected by two-lane country roads, which has no commercial, park or recreational areas. More are on the drawing boards -- including the 450-acre Lindvest tract at Fruitville and Dog Kennel Road, with 900 units. Changes to the 2050 Comprehensive Plan have helped Lindvest progress. Is Sarasota County going to answer these private developments with a balancing vision of public uses -- open spaces, trails, adequate roads and and recreational areas available to all? 

Here's a December 2017 Sarasota County map of developments between Fruitville Road and University Parkway:

Developments in NE Sarasota County: Source: Sarasota County

======

It's time to ask our elected officials: What are you thinking? Are you even thinking? What is this Board, as our representative, doing in response to this appetite for rampant growth? 

Here, for example, is a map of East County, with athletic fields open to the public. For those living east of the highway, one must drive 9-10 miles to the west or south.

Will our elected commissioners address the need for public planning and adjust impact fees to prepare for the coming demand for roads, trails, amenities, commerce, arts and recreation, or will they abdicate responsible governance, do nothing, and have us all go hang?

*Sarasota News Leader story made available through kind permission of the publisher.

Gentleman Jensen of SMR / Lakewood Ranch

The villages are coming — at last. 

Delayed by nearly 15 years of political and legal battles, efforts to get the design and building regulations in working order and an economic recession, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch — developers of the 48-square-mile Lakewood Ranch — broke ground Tuesday on its long-anticipated villages development. 

Waterside, formerly called the Villages of Lakewood Ranch South, becomes SMR's first residential development in Sarasota County. Tucked on 5,490 acres southeast of the University Parkway and Interstate 75 interchange . . . MORE

In the context of today's tale of the first sighting of the Villages of Lakewood Ranch, one might do well to remember this exchange from 5 years ago:

Dan Lobeck's email and Rex Jensen's response

Published: Friday, November 4, 2011 at 8:23 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, November 4, 2011 at 8:23 p.m.

From: Dan Lobeck [mailto:dlobeck@lobeckhanson.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 12:11 PM

Subject: [SarasotaVoices] Selling Out Cheap To Developers and Shorting the Environment

There is a second issue to come to the Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners this afternoon which is of enormous importance.

Again, there is no public hearing but comments may be made under Open To The Public.

The BCC is being asked by staff to sell “development rights” on County land to developers at rock-bottom prices, significantly below their actual value. They would then be used by developers to build intense urban developments east of I-75 under the Sarasota County 2050 Plan.

The worst thing about this is if developers can buy those rights cheaply from the County they will have no incentive to transfer them from Greenways, which is the other way they can develop under the Sarasota 2050 Plan. This preservation of Greenways was one of the big selling points when the County sought public support for the Sarasota 2050 Plan.

The staff proposal is to set the price of a development right per unit to 2.5% of the price of an affordable housing unit, that is one which is very cheaply priced.

The County’s consultant admitted in his report that this came from the recommendation of “one particularly successful Sarasota and Manatee County developer,” which is likely to be Rex Jensen of Schroder-Manatee or Pat Neal.

Once again, we have a case of the developers determining development policy, shorting the taxpayer and the environment in the process.

The consultant’s report at one point discusses charging 5% of the actual sales price of each unit but then cuts that in half as a “discount” to make it cheaper for developers. The report also discusses basing the charge on actual market prices but staff has cut the price further by basing it on affordable housing.

The consultant also provided the option of basing the price on the County’s cost of acquiring the land, which for the Walton Tract would be a higher price of $6,615 per unit. That could be even more, the consultant reported if ten years of maintenance cost was added.

The County Commission should not adopt staff’s recommendation but should either set the higher price based on the County’s acquisition cost or send the matter back for further study.

-- Dan Lobeck

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rex Jensen [mailto:rex.jensen@smrranch.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 12:36 PM

The next time you take my name in vain and in error, be prepared for a series of very bad days you walking manure pile.

Sent from my Blackberry. Please excuse brevity, abbreviations & misspellings.

Lakewood Ranch's Rex Jensen