Session to start at 6 p.m. in clubhouse, located at 1000 Circus Blvd.
Following the recent Sarasota City Commission decision “to integrate the 300-acre Bobby Jones Golf Club into the entire community with a parks component and greater public access to the property, initial talks with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast about a possible permanent conservation easement” have resulted in the city’s setting a public comment session for park planning, City Manager Tom Barwin announced in his Oct. 4 newsletter.
“How do you envision Bobby Jones as a conservation area?” Barwin asked in the newsletter.
He encouraged the public to attend a community meeting that will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15, at the Bobby Jones Golf Club clubhouse, which is located at 1000 Circus Blvd.
“An agreement for a conservation easement would ensure the permanent conservation of this vast green space for the betterment of the community,” Barwin wrote. “For generations to come, golf and light recreation would be allowed on the protected parkland, which plays a vital environmental role [by] retaining and filtering stormwater from the region” before that water flows into Sarasota Bay.
“In the near future, 36 of the 45 holes at the historic municipal golf course will be renovated, with the remaining estimated 50 acres integrated into parkland,” Barwin explained. The entire 300-acre Bobby Jones property is being considered for permanent conservation through the Conservation Foundation, he added.
“With hundreds of trees, dozens of species of birds and a multitude of wildlife species on the property, located within one half-mile from where the Legacy Trail extension will cross Beneva Road, the possibilities abound,” he pointed out.