Commissioners Have an Easy Choice in Denying Aqua by the Bay Application

Carlos Beruff's Aqua on the Bay development is once again up for approval before the Manatee County Commission on Wednesday. In what can only be described as a dizzying array of convoluted, inconsistent, and downright incorrect information, nothing less than a total and outright deception is being presented to this community and our board of commissioners.

Citizens and environmental groups, including experts not paid to testify, have consistently implored the commission to deny the application, while arming them with an endless list of reasons supporting such a decision. At this week's meeting, Beruff lined up his usual roll call of financially-connected individuals to express support during public comment for a project that many of them will directly benefit from. This tactic is to make it seem as if it is an issue that the community is divided over rather than one that the overwhelming majority are clearly united against.

So desperate to find such people to testify for the project, Beruff actually trotted out Bob Waechter, his politically-disgraced crony who plead guilty to a felony after he faked the identity of a Republican Sarasota County Commission candidate in order to fraudulently make contributions to Democrats in her name. How Waechter's support could possibly be taken seriously is far beyond me.

Nevertheless, despite all of the deliberate obfuscation and sleight of hand, the issues before the board in this application remain clear. The county comprehensive plan first calls for the protection of all wetlands from land development activities. If the destruction of wetlands can be avoided in development, it must. It then specifically prohibits the "removal, alteration, or encroachment within wetlands except in cases where no other practical alternatives exist that will permit a reasonable use of the land." It has been very clearly demonstrated that Beruff can develop this property without destroying the wetlands. Hence, discussions on mitigation are moot.

While Beruff and his team were content to allow the county staff, planning commission and BOCC to move forward with the misunderstood notion that there would be only two buildings that exceeded the county's 35-foot coastal development height limit, it is now clear that there will be an undetermined amount of high-rise buildings over that limit, which Beruff says will be decided by "market demand," some of which could be as high as 145-feet.

This wall of buildings will destroy the current shoreline vista and drastically alter the surrounding community forever. It very clearly lacks compatibility, yet the county staff has somehow decided that "survivability" is akin to "compatibility," an unprecedented standard for which no obvious understanding of its definition exists. County commissioners must not be fooled. Those limits exist because they determine what our coastal shoreline will look like and implement polices to protect waterfront vistas. Through its comprehensive land use plan, Manatee County has decided that it does not want to look like Miami and other Florida coastal communities that have seen their shorelines swallowed up by large high-rise condo towers. Beruff's project would create the most dense collection of high rises along the west coast of Florida.

Beruff and his team are calling a two-mile long, 8 foot-deep canal that they they are planning to dredge on the backside of the mangrove shoreline an "estuary enhancement area." This sort of double-speak would make George Orwell proud. Every single expert in opposition has said that quite far from improving anything, this will instead fragment the mangroves, possibly causing them to die in the future, while having adverse impacts on the juvenile fish population in the area known as "the kitchen," a key component to our local fisheries.

To understand why Beruff is so intent on including this environmentally-destructive component to the development, one needs to look only at his other permit applications. The mitigation bank permit we are currently challenging includes a separation along the shoreline of Sarasota Bay and over seven sea grass credits. If successful, those sea grass credits will be used to dredge Sarasota Bay, something not allowed by current codes and policies. He will then seek to channel to the bay, connecting it with his canal, where waterfront homes with boat docks could now gain bay and gulf access.

With a straight face, Beruff is actually proposing to offset destroying all of that sea grass in the dredging of the bay with nothing more than about $5,000 worth of buoys–not even on his property–that would have signs encouraging boaters not to go through sea grass areas. This would supposedly protect them from prop-scarring, which has been demonstrated to cause minimal damage to their functionality, at the expense of completely destroying seven acres of productive sea grass elsewhere. As one expert put it, he's proposing to remedy a problem he's creating with a solution to another one that doesn't exist. It's a laughable proposition that we will continue to challenge, but by following its own rules to deny the canal/lagoon/estuary enhancement area in this application, the board can ensure that this channel never gets dredged.

The overall goal for Beruff's plan is simple to see. When this project came before the board in 2013 as "Long Bar Pointe," the plan was for a channel into Sarasota Bay, providing access for a marina to augment waterfront homes and a proposed hotel. Community opposition to the environmental destruction this intense coastal development would cause was fierce and historic. Carlos sued the county on its environmental rules and lost.

Beruff is simply trying to get a similar project approved, only piecemeal this time. He claims that the 76,000 sf of commercial development he is seeking (more than twice what was originally approved for the development) will be used for things like "Starbucks." Really? All of that commercial space for a gated community not accessible by non-residents will be filled with retail?

Beruff wants the board and citizens to trust that he will only do what’s right for the community, that he only wants to build projects that both he and they can be proud of. But how can a community trust a developer when he’s already used a bogus agricultural use exemption to begin developing the land before the county weighed in and clearing conservation easements he didn’t own. Residents of the neighboring Legends by the Bay have already spoken up about what Beruff’s activities have meant to their way of life, painting a vastly different picture than the "good neighbor" the developer promises to be.

Manatee County Commissioners have an easy decision before them on Wednesday. Follow the county’s rules and deny an application that does not comply with our comprehensive plan for a development that, as proposed, threatens our community’s character, as well as environmental resources critical to our eco-tourism, commercial and sport fishing industries. This change in character is not inevitable, as the developer and his team have suggested. The land has already received development approvals, proving that this is not an anti-development issue with the community, just a simple request to follow the rules and respect this community's goals and character.

Many people ask what they can do to help. Well, I still think writing emails to the commission helps, even though the county attorney dismisses these comments and states that you should attend the meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday to give public comment. The applicant gets unlimited time with staff, and that greatly influences the decision, yet the community request to meet with staff was refused. So, while we don’t like to sue our own county, we must be prepared. We need funds to fight the good fight. Suncoast Waterkeeper is the 501c3 organization that you can make donations to in order help pay for the court reporter we have hired and for challenging environmental permits. So, please consider helping with a donation as well. Better yet, consider it an investment in the future of our community.

Click here to donate.