Growth in Sarasota
County staff produced the information below to advise the Board about what large developments it has approved in North, Central, and South county. The document is not dated, and appears to be out of date.
Some large housing projects the Board has approved in principle, such as Hi Hat Ranch, projecting 13,000 dwelling units, are not included. Then there's Wellen Park in South County, which projects 23,000 units totaling 60,000 residents. What other large developments, destined to be approved, are not included?
Add in Hi Hat and the total for North County alone is about 23,000 units. With Wellen, the county total comes to about
79,000 dwelling units
What's not included are small developments, new developments, and developments yet to approach the Board for approval.
Most residents of the County never see this information, because it's not published for us, but maintained in-house for internal use.
Under Single Member District voting, you would be able to request this information for your district from your Commissioner, and ask him or her questions - such as, what will this do to our traffic? How much will the new services cost? What portion of these costs are paid for by the developers?
And your Commissioner would have to provide you with real answers.
That's now how it is now. Under At-Large voting, you can ask all the questions you want of the 5 County Commissioners. They will just stare at you. They do not have to provide you with information, they often do not respond to emails from constituents, and rely on people to forget about the development issues in their district by the time the next election rolls around.
Single Member Districts count more than many imagine.
North County
Add Hi Hat Ranch: 13,000 units.
Central County
South County
There's a way to slow this rampant growth. It's to make each Commissioner accountable to the voters of his or her district. In 2018, voters across all five districts approved Single Member District Voting. Now the Board is doing all it can to revoke the citizen Charter Amendment -- to avoid direct accountability to the people of their districts, whom they are supposed to represent.
Don't Let the Board Dumb Down Your Vote!
Retain Single Member Districts
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