Guest Op/Ed: Commissioners Must Listen to Testimony, Uphold County Laws

I and my colleagues have analyzed Carlos Beruff’s Aqua by the Bay proposal for consistency with the Manatee County Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code. We found numerous violations of the letter of those laws, as well as stark inconsistency with the very aspects of Manatee’ County’s character that those codes were written to protect.

Many other people spoke at the hearings and pointed out other violations and inconsistencies. These were people with solid credentials, deep experience and standing in the community. Their public comments were factual and linked directly to the code–what is referred to as "substantive and competent“ testimony. This is the gold standard of participatory democracy at the local level. It is the testimony that the commissioners can, and must, heed in their decision-making, or risk exposing the county to a variety of challenges.

And yet, when the commissioners held their discussion afterward, most of those violations were ignored, as if they did not matter. No commissioners were observed taking notes. Each commissioner brought up their own impressions, as if the testimony never happened. Commissioner Trace didn’t like the canal and sea wall, yet she made no mention of the specific code violations associated with the canal and seawall. Commissioner Whitmore, who is up for re-election in 2018, called Mr. Beruff "Carlos,“ denoting a measure of familiarity that many found inappropriate. Commissioners Benac, DiSabatino and others felt that there may be too many tall buildings, and that a stipulation might fix that problem.

Are you kidding me? The buildings are in flagrant violation of the county’s coastal height limitation of 35 feet. At 75-95 feet, over sixty buildings will create a solid wall of structures that will make anything on Longboat Key look like a pastoral landscape by comparison. Make no mistake, this will be a city looming over Sarasota Bay, and if the commissioners think they will fix it with a stipulation or two, they are deeply mistaken.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that Beruff’s well-paid staff spends months and months holed up with county staff, but the public has been told by Manatee County Building Department Director John Barnott that it is expressly "forbidden“ for them to meet with staff, even for as little as ten minutes. This leads to an easy familiarity among regulators and regulated, with the inevitable result that the county is being overdeveloped, with no regard for the consequences. Ten years from now, when Aqua and Lake Flores are even partially built, we won’t be able to get to the beaches and restaurants on Anna Maria island, and neither will the tourists, who actually pay the bills in this county.

Digging in coastal waters is expressly forbidden by the Comprehensive Plan, and yet that is exactly what will happen as Beruff’s men create the so-called "estuarine enhancement area,“–a two-and-a-half-mile canal that will take in most of the storm water from both Aqua and portions of Lake Flores, and will become fresh water during even common, minor rain events, killing off any actual "estuarine“ life, and turning the thing into a stagnant, lifeless ditch overflowing with solid fresh water in sheet flows through the last, best unspoiled stretch of mangroves on Sarasota Bay. Predictable results will follow.

All the commissioners have to do is send Beruff home with the admonition to fix this greedy and inappropriate project so that it meets code. Period. And if they don’t, they will be in court–as they should be. The problem is, none of the commissioners will be personally liable for the costs incurred by an approval. Rather, the taxpayers will pay Mickey Palmer and his staff to spend millions answering challenges, and none of the commissioners will be accountable.

This is wrong on so many levels. Citizens who agree, can click here to sign a petition to deny the application.