This week, the Manatee County Commission approved a comp plan amendment that will radically transform a massive piece of Parrish farmland into a small city over the next two decades. In doing so, the board has cast off any illusions that Manatee County has a growth strategy beyond allowing big development to do whatever it wishes.

The Lindsay family, whose patriarch was the one-time owner of Sarasota’s Herald Tribune newspaper, asked the board to allow them additional development rights on the family farm that would transition 5,000 acres into a future city comparable to Lakewood Ranch. The pitch, presented by land use attorney Mark Barnebey, was a good one that promised a trendy agri-village and mentioned amenities like a community farm and horse trails.

The thing is, Manatee County citizens really have no idea what will ultimately become of the project once it’s flipped to developers other than there will be a lot of houses where there are currently none. The project site is also on the other side of the Future Development Area Boundary, you know, the one they are going to allow Schroeder Manatee Ranch to develop past now that they’ve just about built out Lakewood Ranch.

This sort of leapfrog development, in which the outcomes are based more on where the land developers want to build on is located rather than an actual growth strategy, marks the beginning of the end of our grow-west-to-east strategy, in which there was at least a pretense of thoughtful, long-term planning.

Commissioners were quick to say that this is only the amendment and that the board would still have to approve all site plans for future development. But in September, they also said, "we’re just voting to send it to the state for comments," and just like I said then, it only gets harder to slow down a train as it builds momentum, and while the transmittal put the writing on the wall, the vote to amend the comp plan is the writing on the wall.

Future developers and boards aren’t bound by concepts and even if it comes to fruition exactly as presented, "Gamble Creek" will be 7,200 homes in what is now a pastoral greenspace, acre after water-permeable acre. And now that the amendment is in place, future boards would have a difficult time nixing development proposals and, just as importantly, should expect a lot more property owners who sit between the FDAB and this project to make their cases for exceptions based on "compatibility."

Commissioners tried to save face by promoting the idea that because there are already entitlements for around 1,200 homes at one per five acres, they were somehow preventing 1,200 septic tanks from being built. In reality, no developer would have been interested in the property with its previous land use designation and it would have taken 100 years to sell them off one at a time because there simply isn’t a big demand for five-acre tracts in the middle of nowhere on well and septic systems.

What’s more, every other developer and landowner east of the line will now have the precedent to make the same argument. But ask yourself whether preventing even all of the possible new septic tanks is worth it if it means putting around 650 percent more density in its place, as commissioners did here.

Commissioners also related to the family’s explanation that younger generations simply aren’t interested in farming. Fine, but since when is it the government’s job to enrich those who own farmland by making it more attractive to sell off to developers? Sell it or lease it to Big Agra at its agrarian value, or develop it as entitled. But when a single vote increases the value of a land parcel by tens of millions of dollars, that’s problematic on a host of levels.

Look, it’s human nature to try and get the most you can for something you own and wish to sell, and the Lindsays did a good enough job of selling their vision for the future use of their land to win approval. But it should be the government's nature to enforce reasonable existing regulations on land use, especially when it’s in the greater interest of the community. As usual, this county commission failed in that role.

I get asked a lot what I think might be the end game in the breakneck development of this county. You’re probably looking at it. This is what the beginning of the end looks like in terms of overdevelopment when even the pretense of growth management falls away and you can almost hear the hands slowly wringing the last drops of milk and honey from the rag before tossing it aside and moving on to the next community.