In Sarasota County, your investment capital is safe. Your community, not so much. Just ask the people of Old Miakka after developers like Jim Gabbert got through threatening Sarasota at today's hearing.
James Gabbert
James Gabbert was one of several developers who own land in East County to come out to the September 23 Board hearing on Old Miakka's effort to preserve its rural way of life.
Gabbert demonstrated that all that matters to him is money. As the purest form of Capitalist, land is not a place to him - not the site of memories and tradition, quiet evenings and a million stars, not the scene of family, friendship, hard work and good times.
As with the Celery Fields, Mr. Gabbert proved that land = money. And if turning that land into money destroys the way of life of a 170-year-old community, ah well. If putting a Demolition Dump on it takes the priceless quality of the Celery Fields, too bad.
Land is money, Gabbert is a Developer/Investor/Capitalist - pure and simple. As he explains here:
The Board agreed with Gabbert, William Merrill III, amid a bevy of landowners who said they intended to develop their land, but hadn't done a thing about it so far. Still, waving the Bert Harris Act,* they threatened to sue the County for millions "lost," which they woulda-coulda-shoulda been investing before now.
Detert made the motion, Maio, Ziegler and Hines voted for it, Mike Moran was absent. They protected the developers' investment -- to the eventual destruction of Old Miakka.
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*David G. Guest, a land use consultant and former regional manager of Earthjustice, Inc., testified to the absence of relevance of the Bert Harris Act at the hearing. He said in part:
. . . the Bert Harris Act allows claims for losses of reasonable nonspeculative future uses, which then can be the subject of reasonable investments that create expectations. The land at issue has no Hamlets on it and has never had a single proposal to rezone it for a Hamlet Development Master Plan. His full statement is here.
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The Staff said they didn't need Hamlets;
ReplyDeleteThe property owners said they couldn't build them with a huge outlay of your tax dollars (CPA-2018-C);
Residents throughout the County supported Keeping the Country...Country.
95% of the Staff report supported CPA-2019-C.
But sadly as we have come to learn facts don't matter.
It is very troubling and dangerous when our elected officials reject public participation in our government.
Becky Ayech, President Miakka Community Club