Lobeck: Road Plan opens way to more urban sprawl

After the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners approved a new plan for Lorraine Road on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, attorney Dan Lobeck sent this follow-up to his earlier analysis, which found the plan lacking required elements and details which are required by the Comprehensive Plan. Below is the complete follow-up email. The earlier analysis is here.

County Commissioners today followed through on their evident commitment to political kingpin Pat Neal and other development interests by approving a Plan amendment intended (as County staff stated) “to open up new areas for development”, for even more urban sprawl east of I-75 and south of Clark Road.

(A full explanation of the now-approved Plan and its problems is in my email below)

No one addressed my point that this will be hugely expensive and that the agenda records omit any calculation of that cost or who will pay for it, in violation of the requirement that the road network be “financially feasible.”

That is, other than Pat Neal, in his comments urging a “Yes” vote. He stated that he and the other four large landowners who will benefit from this road scheme “have a pretty good idea of what this is going to cost” and that they are prepared to contribute perhaps $20 million towards that expense.  (Typically, they would get that back in impact fee credits, in a “Developer Agreement”).  However, he did not state what portion of the total cost that will be and, again, no numbers are included in the County records for the meeting and none were discussed at the meeting other than that statement by Neal.

Most shockingly, in defending the Plan amendment, Commissioners made demonstrably false statements.

Commissioner Hines stated, “We’re minimizing environmental impacts.” The exact opposite is true, as they are re-routing Lorraine Road directly through an environmentally sensitive Greenway and a County preserve instead of having it hug the Interstate as it does in its current route.

And several Commissioners falsely claimed that the amendment creates a new, much needed north-south arterial east of I-75 as an alternative to that highway.  In fact, however, that arterial is already in the adopted planned road network – Lorraine Road hugging I-75 and connecting to Ibis Street (recently added) to the north and Rustic Road to the south, which then proceeds into east Venice.

 What the Plan amendment does is push Lorraine Road to the east, in order to open up more land to urban sprawl development, runs it entirely through the Greenway and connects to a new extension of Knight’s Trail deep into the County’s wildlife-rich Pinelands Reserve.

Indeed, the new route for this four-lane Lorraine Road is much less direct than the one in the existing Plan, pushed out east as the amendment does to facilitate new sprawl development.

Then there’s Christian Ziegler’s comment, after voting for the amendment.  This sort of “proactive planning” will actually “alleviate traffic later on,”  he claimed.  As if rerouting and adding roads to open up new areas for urban sprawl will not create more traffic, much of which will find its way into existing urban areas.

It is disappointing enough that we have a system in which big developers, led by Neal, invest tens of thousands in their hand-picked candidates and then reap millions from favors like this in return, at the expense of the taxpayers, the environment, traffic mobility and neighborhoods.

That is made even worse, however, when our elected representatives not only betray our interests but then refuse to be transparent and honest about the motivations and effects of their actions.

Fortunately, we have choices in Commission elections, and the benefit now of single member districts.  We all need to be working hard for our chosen candidates, now.

The future of our community is at stake, and its integrity.
  

Dan Lobeck, Esq.

Florida Bar Board Certified in
Condominium and Planned Development Law
Law Offices of Lobeck & Hanson, P.A.
2033 Main Street, Suite 403
Sarasota, FL  34237

Telephone:  (941) 955-5622
Facsimile:   (941) 951-1469