Dear Editor,

Thank you for your opinions and recommendations on incorporation.  Like you, I think incorporation may be a good thing sometime in the future.  The reason I am writing is to highlight a fact that has not received any publicity, at least none that I have seen.

The proposed District 2 of incorporation includes Edgewater, the original LWR Country Club, and The Villages in Sarasota County.  The Villages, part of Sarasota County’s 2050 plan for expansion of that county East of I-75 over 50 years, calls for 5,144 units of small, low income, ”workforce housing“.  That development, awarded to SMR with a 2012 start date, is not at all compatible with the Edgewater and Country Club communities.  With so many new homes, The Villages will quickly control the District 2 voting, and the things that this community may want (several children’s parks, etc.) probably are not what the existing LWR communities will need in the future.  Pardon me for being a pessimist, but I think life will change for the worse for Edgewater and the LWRCC if the incorporation and District 2 plan move forward.

In fact, I don’t have exact numbers of homes in LWR, but it seems that District 2 would be the largest population, and largest voting block in all of LWR.  5,144 units of workforce housing is a huge number to overcome in an election, or am I missing something?

I am not a part of either the pro or anti-incorporation groups, but for this and other reasons you point out, I am concerned that the current plan of incorporation is not a good move for LWR.

Tom Streck
Lakewood Ranch

related:

Lakewood Ranch Incorporation Argument Seems Just as Thin in 2011