Some background on Hi Hat and Old Miakka

Some history behind the Miakka Community Club and its opposition to Hi Hat Ranch's proposal to change Hamlet to Village overlay on its 10,000-acre property in Northeast Sarasota - from a resident, Jane Best Grandbouche:

The Miakka Community Club incorporated in 1945.  This is the same year the Turner family purchased Hi Hat Ranch.

The motto of the Club is “Conservation and Preservation of the Rural Area.” During the intervening years, the Club has worked to ensure that ranchers like Hi Hat had the opportunity to ranch. Hi Hat Ranch’s ability to be stewards of the land was supported by the Miakka Community’s continued vigilance in conserving and preserving the rural areas.

The Miakka Community Club (MCC) participated in ALL of the various meetings with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) including as a member of ULI’s Focus Group.

The Miakka Community Club also participated with written and oral testimony during both the transmittal stage and the final adoption stage.

As explained in all of these meetings and hearings, the Resource Management Areas (RMAs) define how the County would develop until the year 2050.  It is now 2021.  We are not half way there.  

You will not find in either the Comprehensive Plan or the Unified Development Code any reference to having Hamlets changing to Villages.  This idea wasn’t even contemplated or discussed.  Just as there was no reason to contemplate changing Hamlets to Villages then, there is no reason now.

If the Board wants there to be that opportunity, then that idea should be given public debate and due process.

The 1,200 acres Hi Hat is seeking to urbanize by changing the Hamlet overlay to Village overlay is productive agricultural land.  Since the Hamlet is a voluntary overlay, it is not necessitated that a Hamlet be developed there. Hi Hat Ranch could sell that productive agricultural land to someone else who wants to be in agriculture.  As farm land in the west and east dwindle, our produce needs to be grown somewhere.

The County recognizes the importance of agriculture as noted in FLU2.2.1 and FLU Policy 2.2.2 (a).

The County has a program to purchase agricultural development rights (DR Policy 1), so the Turners would get money for the development rights and then they could sell the land for agriculture production.

There is no valid reason to change the Hamlet overlay to Village overlay.

Please call and/or write the County Commissioners on this most important proposal. And please show up for the meeting September 8th. Once they paved over our rural area, it is gone forever. 

DENY CPA-2019-D