OPINION: Sarasota doesn't need high-rise buildings to be special

Just weeks after Sarasota city officials covertly pushed through an expensive replacement of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, they’re at it yet again. This time it’s an "Under Cover" operation to repeal the city's limits on development.

During its Monday, May 16 meeting, the Sarasota City Commission – with no community outreach – will vote on a scheme by City Planning Director Steve Cover to increase building heights and densities while also reducing public hearings.

Sarasota should not continue to be "Any City USA" according to Cover; he says our community needs to create a city skyline that's "exciting" – like the one Chicago has with its Sears and Wrigley towers.

When Cover said that 14 months ago, he got a 3-2 approval from the city commission to engage in a year of “community engagement” on his proposals, which would include two rounds of meetings throughout the city and conferences with citizen coalitions. But that never happened.

Instead Cover is simply seeking to slip through his evisceration of growth controls – an effort that will continue both during Monday's meeting and the second public hearing and vote required for Comprehensive Plan amendments (which is scheduled for August, when many residents are out of town).

The proposed changes are bad ones, and here are just some of them:

• Eliminating all limits on building heights from the Comprehensive Plan. Currently, these limits are 10 stories in the downtown districts (from the Core – Fruitville Road to Ringling Boulevard and US-301 to Pineapple Avenue, among other areas), 18 stories in the Bayfront and five to seven stories in the Edge.

• Eliminating all limits on density in downtown districts for any development in which even one unit of “attainable housing” is included.

• Replacing Planning Board and City Commission public hearings and approvals with “administrative approval” for a development anywhere in the city when any “attainable housing” is included – a clause that glosses over the fact that "attainable housing" is merely a euphemism for "pricey housing."

Those who support this plan say that removing the height limits in the Comprehensive Plan is just to fix a “redundancy” with the zoning code. The truth, however, is that it seeks to make height increases much easier to implement. That is because a supermajority commission vote – one that is 4-1 or unanimous – is required by the City Charter to increase height limits in the Comprehensive Plan. In addition, there must be two public hearings and a state review – neither of which is required to increase height limits in the zoning code.

Former Sarasota Mayor Mollie Cardamone has testified that the height limits were deliberately put in the Comprehensive Plan decades ago to preserve the city’s charm and quality of life. That was followed by a citizen initiative and a referendum, approved by 62% of the voters, to add the supermajority vote protection. But it is that protection that Cover – and the developers and politicians who back his proposal – now want to take away from citizens.

Developers initially sought to strip the supermajority requirement from the City Charter, but that attempt was thwarted from going to referendum this fall. Their current gambit, however, is to simply nullify that requirement by removing all height limits from the Comprehensive Plan – and to do it without voter approval.

With the lack of setback controls now in place, just imagine the terrible future sight of buildings crammed lot line to lot line – all of them reaching to the sky and blocking out the sun and picturesque views. But when I raised concerns about Cover's proposal during one meeting, City Commissioner Hagen Brody responded by saying, “We can’t be guided by comments like, ‘Don’t block my view.'"

And what about the increases in densities and administrative approval for developments with any “attainable housing”? Well, the Comprehensive Plan defines that as affordable to buyers and renters earning 120% of Area Median Income. For a family of four, that’s an annual income of $108,480, for rent and utilities of $3,013 a month or a mortgage of $459,134. Hardly what we would consider a modest income – or what we would consider affordable housing.

Even City Commissioner Kyle Battie, who is usually pro-developer, called this effort an example of "hijacking" the concept of affordable housing and using it as an empty excuse to provide giveaways to developers.

People are flocking to Sarasota not because of tall and dense buildings; in fact, one reason they are coming here is because they are attracted to our sense of scale and charm. Please, let our commissioners know that you want them to reject this undercover scheme to overdevelop Sarasota. You can attend Monday’s hearing, or you can email the commissioners at Commissioners@SarasotaFl.gov.

Dan Lobeck is a Sarasota resident and attorney. He also serves as the president of Control Growth Now, a local community group. For information on the group, visit www.controlgrowthnow.org.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Taller buildings will diminish what makes Sarasota special