County Investigates Possible Illegal Land Clearing Near Long Bar Pointe

BRADENTON – Suncoast Waterkeeper has filed a complaint with Manatee County, alleging that developers of the controversial Long Bar Point project in southwest Manatee County have illegally cleared land that doesn't belong to them in connection with a forthcoming subdivision.

The complaint alleges that part of a county conservation easement, as well as property belonging to an adjacent development–Legends Bay–were cleared along with Long Bar Pointe property, in violation of county ordinances.

Residents of Legends Bay recently began noticing that some of the most attractive green space property in their development had been cleared–property they had understood would forever be preserved.

"There was a lush, green environment with a stream that goes all the way to the bay," said Legends Bay resident Arlene Dukanauskas. "It was beautiful. You could watch the birds and other wildlife. It was really serene. Now there's a field of brown dirt to look at."

Dukanauskas said that she and her husband built in Legend's Bay precisely because it was a development in which nature was respected and its beauty could be appreciated. She said that not only will the environmental destruction decrease property values, but that it would lower the quality of life for residents who live there.

"We had a developer who preserved everything, the wetland areas, the habitats," said Dukanauskas, "and now someone else comes in here and just clears it out. It's terrible."

While part of the cleared land is on an area that plat records show to belong to Legends Bay, part of it also appears to be on a conservation easement belonging to Manatee County. Manatee County Building and Development Services Director John Barnott assured me that the county is not taking the situation lightly.

"We are involved in an extensive investigation of this and other matters related to the development,“ said Barnott on Tuesday. "I've got meetings the rest of the day and the rest of this week regarding this situation. The FWC and other agencies have been contacted. We're talking to everybody who is a potential stakeholder to ensure that it's handled correctly with the best outcome for our community.“

Upon hearing about the clearing, former Manatee County Commissioner and TBT publisher Joe McClash attempted to locate a permit that allowed the developers–Medallion Homes CEO Carlos Beruff and his partner Larry Lieberman–to begin working on the subdivision. It didn't exist. It turned out they had used a loophole that allows developers who claim that they intend to use land for agricultural purposes to bypass the permitting process in the early phases, often altering the land in ways that can benefit their future applications.

"All they have to do is claim that they intend to farm the property, even when everyone knows it's going to be a housing development, and they can do pretty much whatever they want," explained McClash. "You might have an area that contains functional wetlands or critical habitats that groups might challenge during the application process, so the developer just uses the ag exemption to clear it and destroy all of these things, so that by the time it gets to the permitting process there's nothing left to challenge.“

Those plans may have become more difficult, however. Last week, FWC responded to reports that a Bald Eagles' nest on the Long Bar Pointe property that had mysteriously vanished in September had been rebuilt by a couple of industrious eagles who were photographed using the nest. A mature couple typically begins nest building 1-3 months prior to mating. The original nest would seem to follow a timeline congruent with the egg laying season for our local latitude, which begins this month. Bald Eagles and their nests are federally protected, and the nest has been issued a temporary nest I.D. to identify it for preservation.

The area where the nest is located is owned by Beruff and Lieberman through an LLC. That land had always been identified as a wetland until it was delineated by the Southwest Florida Water Management District in 2011–while Beruff was serving on its board. The land will be up for review again this month. Had it been cleared under the ag exemption, there would have been no chance for environmental groups, including Suncoast Waterkeeper which has already challenged the delineated status, to prevail. That led McClash to suspect foul play regarding the nest.

This is not the first issue on which McClash and Beruff have met. While serving on the Manatee County Commission for 22 years, McClash was a well-known smart growth advocate who fought to preserve the county's wetlands and other environmental resources from exploitation for short-term gain by developers. In fact, he was the only Manatee County Republican to ever get endorsed by the Sierra Club. In that capacity, he often came up against Beruff, a politically-connected developer who wielded tremendous influence with the board. In 2012, Beruff finally got rid of McClash, funding an expensive and misleading attack ad campaign that saw him lose his Republican primary by just 494 votes to Betsy Benac, a former development consultant funded primarily by Beruff.

Suncoast Waterkeeper's Justin Bloom agrees with McClash that the actions taken by the developers at Long Bar Pointe are cause for concern.

"This seems like just one more in a long list of efforts by these developers to skirt the law, or at the very least circumvent its intent, in order to squeeze more profit out of every inch of this development at the expense of our community and its environment," said Bloom.