Sarasota County once led the state of Florida in progressive comprehensive planning. Our county created the first Comp Plan, and from there went through several community exercises–the Multi-Stakeholders Group (MSG) in the '90s, followed by the Comp Plan of the early 2000s, and the Fruitville Initiative of 2010, featuring walkable streets.
Designed in 2010 by a team of planners, landowners, and residents, the Fruitville Initiative was not just a plan for 300+ acres east of I-75 on Fruitville Road. Its foregrounding of a walkable grid, street parking and mixed residential and commercial uses was a visionary attempt to express Sarasota's difference from the Browardized world of counties that had sold out to corporate developers. The resulting chaos of Broward reflects the kind of development that cares about sales, but not so much about meeting people's needs. Developers like General Development Corp., which paved North Port and Port Charlotte before being indicted for fraud.
Today, the Comprehensive Plan has been shredded by the board's desire to please aggressive, large, boring-but-very-rich developers. The apparent success of Sarasota in the world of real estate and "happening" places is belied by the craven actions of our elected officials. Instead of reining in overly aggressive but unimaginative developer projects, the board has bent over to hasten their sales.
For example, it gave two major developers–Pat Neal and Rex Jensen–free rein to write their own section of the 2050 Comp Plan. That made it easier and less costly to pave over a 170-year-old rural Northeast Sarasota community.
Recently, our elected officials blessed Benderson Development's slaughter of all trees (Sarasota News Leader story) on the land Benderson plans to develop as "Siesta Promenade"–an oversized traffic-generating monster at Stickney Point Road and Tamiami Trail, near the south Siesta Key bridge. There were grand trees on that site–the go-ahead to cut them down was done without public input. So much for transparency.
And on January 31, the same county officials intend to relax the grand trees ordinance. This after exploding the walkable requirement of the Fruitville Initiative on the parcel where the new County Administration Center is to be built. The board has no qualms about blowing up thoughtful public planning for itself, as well as for major moneybag developers.
What's next? Take a moment to read Adrien Lucas's "Call to Action." What she's pointing to isn't a new wrinkle in our corruption, but the latest twist in the sad, sorry saga of Sarasota Sold. Then, come to the commission on Jan. 31–if they uproot our grand trees, they'll have to do it in front of us.
Tom Matrullo
Citizens for Sarasota County
Citizens for Sarasota County (CSC) is a coalition founded in 2014 to promote ethical, responsive government that preserves and enhances Sarasota's unique natural environment and cultural heritage while building a sound local economy based on effective stewardship and innovation.
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