If you oppose paving over Rural Sarasota, be online Monday, March 27, 6 pm

 ALERT: THIS MONDAY, 6 pm, online:

Neighborhood Workshop for proposed Lakewood Ranch Rezone  -  March 27, 2023 at 6pm (Online only)

NOTE: As of now, the Comp Plan chapter penned by Rex Jensen and Pat Neal has not yet taken effect. Yet Rex and Pat wish to power along their expansionary plans for thousands more "dwelling units" in East Sarasota.

Pat Neal

Rex Jensen

Do the developers simply assume the County will crater to their wishes? They're probably right. The public has a chance to weigh in on Monday - the workshop is online only - no chance to meet in person, see plans, talk directly to the players.

Lakewood Ranch wants to rezone from rural to RSF-2/PUD to develop 1,718 dwelling units and related buildings. This is just the first part of the 4,000 acres in the comprehensive plan amendment that has been legally challenged and is not in effect.  The land in this rezone petition goes from the end of University Parkway at the north down to the entire north boundary of Bern Creek Ranches.  LWR doesn't care that this rezone is not legally authorized because of the pending challenge. 

 

Please participate in the online workshop and voice your concerns.  This rezone is incompatible with adjacent rural homesteads and agriculture. We need maintain our opposition to this development and to the breaking of all the promises the County made to us about protecting rural life.

 

The sign in for the online workshop is: https://bit.ly/LWRSEREZONE

     -- Or call in at 833-436-6264, Conf ID: 419 985 011#

From Becky Ayech, one of the Old Miakka leaders opposing the change to a higher density:

Lakewood Ranch Southeast is holding a virtual Neighborhood Workshop on March 27 at 6pm.

Below is the information from the county's webpage.  The link at the bottom will take you to the file on record.  It shows a map.  They say part of the land is OUA, but on their previous request that is being challenged, they said all the land was OUE, OUR and Hamlet.  Interesting.

Neighborhood Workshop: Lakewood Ranch Southeast Project Areas 1, 6, & 7

Date: 03/27/2023 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM  
Contact: Katie LaBarr, AICP (941) 907-6900

Link to Monday's meeting: https://bit.ly/LWRSEREZONE

Private opulence, Florida, and how this relates to Poverty in America

The quotes are from a brief interview with Matt Desmond on Fresh Air:

If you are a family of means, you have the incentive to rely less and less on the public sector. So we used to want to be free of bosses, but now we want to be free of bus drivers. We don't want to take the bus. We don't want to often enroll our kids in the public school system. We don't need to play in the public park or swim in the public pool. We have our own clubs, our own schools. We have our own cars. And as we withdraw into the private opulence, we have less and less incentive to invest in public services. 

A lot of us are getting these tax breaks and we don't see that as a government helping us. We see that as us getting to keep more of what is rightfully ours. And often that leads to a kind of attitude, a political attitude, where we don't think the government is in our lives. And so those of us who are more apt to take that mortgage interest deduction are also more apt to vote against affordable housing proposals. Those of us who already have employer-sponsored health insurance — which by the way, is government subsidized in a massive way — we're often apt to vote against the Affordable Care Act. And so it does have this kind of strange political, maddening irony in our lives.

Desmond's 2017 book Evicted, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, examined the nation's affordable housing crisis through the lens of those losing their homes. 

Desmond's new book is Poverty, By America, studies various factors that contribute to economic inequality in the U.S., including housing segregation, predatory lending, the decline of unions and tax policies that favor the wealthy. Desmond says that affluent Americans, including many with progressive political views, benefit from corporate and government policies that keep people poor.  

Guardian interview: “Bearing witness is the start” 

Bay Park under threat of commercialization, and a Control Growth Now Picnic

Development interests have their eyes on our parks. 

Both Warm Mineral Springs in North Port and The Bay Park in Sarasota are at risk.  Unfortunately, some in both City governments are supportive of plans to convert public lands to private gain.

Most immediately, on Monday March 20, the Sarasota City Commission will consider measures to facilitate opening up the 53 acres of City-owned bayfront known as The Bay to extensive private development.

The City Planning Commission voted 4 to 1 to recommend denial.  The City Commission should do the same.

Phase 1 of The Bay project has been wonderful, with environmental and civic improvements consistent with the present limits on development.

However, the private interests behind the Bay Park Conservancy, represented by Bill Merrill and Phil DiMaria, an attorney and planner respectively for developers including Benderson, are seeking changes that would open the door to extensive commercial and other private development in The Bay Park moving forward.

At present, most of The Bay Park is limited under the City’s Comprehensive Plan to “Recreation, Entertainment, Museum, and Cultural Facilities - (Civic Center Complex).”  That is exactly what is planned there now, in the City’s Master Plan for The Bay Park.

The north end, now called Centennial Park, is instead designated “Open Space-Recreation-Conservation.” Only “minimal” development for “food, beverage, and entertainment uses” is allowed, but “the type and scale of activities which have been associated with the ‘Marina Jack’ facility” are prohibited.  Again, this is consistent with the present Bay Park Master Plan, which includes only one modest “food and beverage” building in that area.

All of this would be replaced by the Comprehensive Plan amendments up for public hearing and approval Monday morning.

The new wording provides broadly for a “flexible mixed-used district” for all 53 acres.  Without any limits, the following would be allowed (emphasis added):  “uses including but not limited to parks and open space, government uses, restaurants, performing arts centers, museums and cultural facilities, galleries, retail, and mixed-use development with a maximum residential allowance for 10 live/work units within (The Bay Park).”

At present, the City Charter requires a supermajority vote of the City Commission (at least 4 to 1) to loosen the present restrictions on development in The Bay Park, as a Comprehensive Plan amendment.  If the amendments up on Monday are approved (by that supermajority vote) then any limits will only require a regular 3 to 2 vote, in the Zoning Code.

This is the same move in which development interests and their supporters in City government failed (by one vote short of a Commission supermajority) to move limits on downtown building heights from the Comp Plan to the Zoning Code.  It is the same as what they tried and succeeded (4 to 1) for density increases in much of the City.

Already, the Bay Park Conservancy has proposed massive restaurant development on the north end of The Bay Park, far more than in presently allowed by the Comprehensive Plan. In a Powerpoint to the City Commission, they presented plans for three-level restaurant buildings on all three sides of the boat basin, totaling 26,000 square feet of rooftop dining and 14,750 square feet of indoor dining, for a total of 40,750 square feet. Compare for example, the large Selva Grill restaurant in the UTC Town Center, at 5,000 square feet.   

Who knows what other commercial development they have planned in our public park?

The amendments would also eliminate public hearings and votes of the Planning Board and City Commission for Bay Park site plans and replace them with backroom administrative approval by supportive City staff.   

Although those site plans would have to be consistent with a one-page graphic which is the “Master Plan” adopted by the City Commission, already the Bay Park Conservancy shows how they can depart from that if they get administrative approval.  Amazingly, they contend that their extensive restaurant plan is consistent with the Master Plan when clearly it is not.

BPC leaders have also said that the Master Plan is “outdated” and should be changed in ways they do not disclose.

A requirement for a “public community workshop” prior to administrative approval “for structures of less than 10,000 square feet” was added.   That’s an obvious typo in that “less” should be “more.” Not only is that meaningless due to that size (none of the BPC’s restaurant buildings are over 10,000 square feet) but a workshop is no substitute for public hearings and Commission votes.

City Commissioners should vote NO on Monday.

Dan Lobeck, Esq.

Law Offices of Lobeck & Hanson, P.A.
2033 Main Street, Suite 403
Sarasota, FL  34237
(941) 955-5622

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Control Growth Now Annual Potluck Picnic

Saturday, March 25

11:30 am – 2 pm

Colonial Oaks Park, 5300 Colonial Oaks Blvd, Sarasota, FL

 

Please register today:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/571055280717

 

Free and Open to the Public!  Come to Control Growth Now's Annual Meeting and Potluck Picnic at beautiful Colonial Oaks Park Saturday, March 25 from 11:30 am to 2 pm.  

Please register for yourself and anyone you are bringing with you. Enjoy our grilled burgers, hotdogs, veggie burgers and drinks -- bring a side dish or dessert to share if you like -- in the good company of people who care about the future of our community.  

At a short meeting in the clubhouse we will honor Valerie Buchand as our Citizen of the Year for her good work in bettering the quality of life in the Newtown Community and throughout Sarasota. Join Control Growth Now if you like, or renew your membership for 2023-24 (annual dues $20 – an option on the Eventbrite registration) or just be our very welcome guest!

                                                                                        -- Dan Lobeck    

DeSantis, Florida, and the seeds of Fascism

 

Heather Cox Richardson:

The attempt to take over schools and reject the equality that lies at the foundation of liberal democracy is now moving toward the more general tenets of authoritarianism. This week, one Republican state senator proposed a bill that would require bloggers who write about DeSantis, his Cabinet officers, or members of the Florida legislature, to register with the state; another proposed outlawing the Democratic Party.

DeSantis and those like him are trying to falsify our history. They claim that the Founders established a nation based on traditional hierarchies, one in which traditional Christian rules were paramount. They insist that their increasingly draconian laws to privilege people like themselves are simply reestablishing our past values.

But that’s just wrong. Our Founders quite deliberately rejected traditional values and instead established a nation on the principle of equality. 

 

NBC: Florida bill would require bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state

The bill proposed by Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur would also require bloggers who write about state officials to disclose who is paying them and how much.

 

  

  . . . the seeds of Fascism begin in fear & contempt . . . 

Curmudgucation - The DeVos School Privatization Plan Turns Twenty-One: 

Way back in 2002, Dick DeVos, husband of Betsy, was at the Heritage Foundation, where he was introduced by former education secretary Bill Bennett. In a speech there, he laid out strategy for the dismantling of public education and replacing them with a privatized system. 

It would, he said, have to be done on the state level, with a certain amount of stealth. 

We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities. Many of the activities and the political work that needs to go on will go on at the grass roots. It will go on quietly and it will go on in the form that often politics is done . . .

 

Daily Beast - Batshit Bill Would Force Bloggers Who Write About DeSantis to ‘Register’ With the State: 

The bill, which sounds better suited to Soviet Russia than the Land of the Free, includes a dizzying list of requirements. If a blogger writes more than one blog post, they would have to submit monthly reports that disclose, among other things, the amount of compensation received for each post. Failure to do so would result in fines of at least $2,500 per article, and a subsequent requirement to file a notice of failure to file.

 

DeSatan Is A Stinking Fascist

Continued depravity by Republican Party in the longest state to hang precariously off the bottom of the eastern United States is reaching a fever pitch!

Governor Ron DeSantis leads his merry band of womb wreckers into “F*ck Free Speech” territory, inspiring the  one-upsmanship that is currently on display by  white nationalist legislators in New Disney—I mean Florida.

 

Holocaust Encyclopedia

Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted.  

Book Burning

 

Herald Tribune: Banning books has nothing to do with liberty | Editorial

There are public school classrooms in Florida where teachers wrapped paper around bookshelves to shield the books from students. Why? If one of the books were to fall afoul of the new state law on book appropriateness, the teacher could face a felony charge.

Some, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, call this liberty and freedom.

To us, it looks anything but.

Book banning are two words that don't partner with the ideas of liberty and freedom. 

 

(How) Fascism Is When People Don’t Want You to Exist - Umair Haque

DeSantis banned…teaching…books…words…classes. He’s realized that, well, why bother with any of the niceties of democracy at all — let’s just ban people we don’t like from existing. Let’s disappear them — first, ideologically, in the mind, then socially, as in, they’re not really allowed to exist…and it hardly takes a genius to see where that particular road ends. 

Meanwhile, the new “Women’s Health and Safety Bill” makes it a crime for women to…use the internet. Remember when I pointed out that it wasn’t just “the end of Roe” that the Supreme Court had brought about, but had effectively eviscerated the rights women have, the basic ones, from expression to association to speech to privacy? Now — think about this — just using the internet in ways the GOP doesn’t want you to is to be a crime. More...