Proposed Preserve Raises Process Questions

The proposed Braden River Preserve raises some interesting questions about public land acquisition and whether Manatee County needs to explore options that would make funding such projects and deciding criteria for eligibility more formal and efficient.

After a pretty big brouhaha at the January 23 BOCC meeting, county commissioners are scheduled to hold a public hearing March 6, on whether to create a Municipal Service Taxing Unit area to fund the preserve. The MSTU would essentially create a district of a little more than 1,400 homes that for the next 30 years would be assessed $53 for every $100,000 of their homes’ taxable value annually, in order to pay back the $3 million purchase of the land from developer Pat Neal.

It seems that residents in the proposed MSTU are about split as to whether or not they want to be taxed to fund it, and it seems as though at least some of the difference in opinion relates to how close those homeowners’ properties are to the preserve. The preserve itself would be about 50 acres large, nearly 12 of which would come from the donation of an adjacent parcel willed for conservation purposes by Carl Bergstresser, who owned the land until he died of pancreatic cancer in July of 2016.

That’s understandable. Not everyone’s decision is going to be based on the idealistic points of land and habitat preservation, and being asked to fund a small preserve that backs up to your property, or whose trails would be near your front door is a different proposition than being asked to fund one you couldn’t see from your house or would most likely have to drive to in order to enjoy. Distance would also change your perspective on things like construction noise and other inconveniences related to development.

But before we get into that debate, let’s take a look at how we got to this point. Neal originally wanted to build a development that had significant issues with the county comprehensive land use plan, as well as its zoning rules. The parcel’s location–adjacent to a perennial stream (the Braden River) and within the Watershed Protection and Special Treatment Overlay districts–presented some challenges because of special approvals that would be required. However, the biggest problem was that he wanted to develop a gated community that would block access to an extension of Linger Lodge Road that was in the county’s future land use maps, but that his site plan did not account for.

Both county staff and the Manatee County Planning Commission said that he would require comp plan amendments and recommended against approval of the preliminary site plan he’d submitted in 2016. This looked to kill the deal. Neal didn’t own the land yet, and it didn’t seem possible that the lengthy process of comp plan amendments could be resolved within his option to purchase window.

Enter Save Our Woods, a non-profit group that was formed from among the nearby residents who’d been opposing the project as it went through the process. They were able to negotiate an option to purchase the land from Neal (who had still gone ahead with the deal to buy it in December of 2016 without approval for his development) for what seemed at the time a very overpriced $3 million–about $91,000 per acre. That would give the developer a sizable profit on his $1.67 million purchase price. That option is only good until March 31, however.

Meanwhile, something else happened, and this shouldn’t be too hard for anyone who follows these issues regularly to imagine. The politically-connected developer was able to get the county commission to push through a comp plan amendment last August that eliminated the Linger Lodge Road extension from its future land use maps. The approval came on a 4-3 vote with commissioners Betsy Benac, Vanessa Baugh and Priscilla Whisenant Trace dissenting.

This cleared the way for him to re-submit a preliminary site plan that, once some stipulations were added, easily conformed to code and the comp plan. County commissioners approved it 6-1 in December, with only Commissioner Baugh–whose district the project resides in–dissenting. That approval now suddenly put the land's market value at least much closer to the $3 million proposed purchase price.

The development would cluster Neal’s one-unit-per-acre development rights onto smaller parcels for 32 units that are sometimes closer together in order to more easily avoid interfering with wetlands, most of which Neal says he will donate to the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast (the same group that holds Bergstresser’s adjacent 11.6 acres), which, since he can't develop them at that point is another shrewd move.

As we’ve seen, there’s certainly worse possible outcomes in terms of impact on sensitive wetlands when it comes to development in Manatee County. Nevertheless, I feel the need to point out the role the county commission played in making the development possible and creating the value for the sale. By going against the experts in county staff who advised them to preserve the option of extending Linger Lodge Road, reasoning that we may need it in order to deal with future transportation challenges, they changed the conversation drastically on a parcel that in October of 2015 sold for just $375,000, according to records at the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office.

After approving Neal’s site plan, however, the board was surprisingly supportive of the MSTU at the January 23 meeting. This suggests that Neal perhaps would prefer the quick flip, now that they’ve made the property so much more valuable. Only Commissioner Robin DiSabatino seemed dead set against it, making some very fair points that echoed most of the dissenters–although it should be pointed out that DiSabatino voted in favor of the comp plan amendment sought by Neal.

Anyone familiar with my column knows that I’m a conservationist who’s in favor of publicly owned and managed preserves. However, I couldn’t help but empathizing with many of those at the meeting who felt like they shouldn’t be somewhat arbitrarily forced to pay for one, especially at an inflated price, when it will only spare 32 units on what amounts to a very environmentally-responsible site plan on land that has development rights for 33 homes anyway. This is a rare instance in which the development proposed would actually result in something more responsible than is allowed.

I think the real fight was in the comp plan amendment, and I think the board should have listened to staff and preserved the option for future connectivity options in that part of the county. The prevailing commissioners' echoing of the applicant’s argument that the county had no current funding for the extension and that it would probably never be built sounded short-sided and hollow. Anyone who’s watched as we struggle with our current traffic problems would find it hard to argue against preserving available options for the future.

From a public policy position, transportation isn’t about current funding or immediate plans. The need for roadway connectivity is continuous, and until we come up with a replacement for the automobile that won’t require nearly as much of it, population growth suggests that we will always need more, which is why I suppose this extension was conceived of as a future use in the first place.

Perhaps we should instead be having a conversation about a referendum on creating a land acquisition assessment similar to the one Sarasota County has. This would create a process in which the county commission would be empowered to make such purchases within clearly defined parameters, buying back land development rights when it makes sense–and it would make sense often. Our current comp plan has far too many development rights in it already, and purchasing developable land is one of the best ways to ensure a better balance.

It simply makes more sense to do these kinds of projects with a countywide funding source and within a clearly defined strategy. That way, the county could acquire land like this when it costs $375,000, rather than increasing a politically-connected developer’s land value with a comp plan change and then voting to make surrounding property owners fill his pockets through this sort of purchase. As much as I admire the intent of the conservationists who are leading this effort, it just doesn’t seem like the right path to get to the end result.