On unanimous vote, County Commission denies rezoning petition for 126-home development next to Celery Fields

Dozens of speakers urged board members to consider numerous factors demonstrating inconsistency of project with county policies

This graphic in the Feb. 12 county staff report shows the Smith Farm in context with surrounding developments. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Approximately six hours after the hearing began on Feb. 12, the Sarasota County commissioners voted unanimously to deny a rezoning petition for a 126-home project next to the Celery Fields in the eastern part of the county.

They cited the incompatibility of the proposal with the approximately 400-acre regional stormwater project that has evolved over about three decades to become an internationally known bird-watching destination.

Commissioner Teresa Mast made the motion, noting that the Celery Fields is in her District 1 territory.

Referencing a comment that Sarasota attorney Charles D. Bailey III, of the Williams Parker firm, had made on behalf of the applicant, Mast said, “For me, this last piece of the puzzle does not fit. It is not compatible, in my opinion, with what this gem is.” The “gem,” she made clear, is the Celery Fields. She was a member of county staff, she noted, when the decision was made for the county to purchase the property that became the Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Project.

Bailey noted that a policy in the county’s Comprehensive Plan encourages infill development within the Urban Service Area, which is the portion of the county with infrastructure — such as roads and utility lines — already in place to support new communities.

An infill development, he said, is “the most difficult [to achieve]. You’re the last piece of the puzzle” amid surrounding communities.

“I do not think this was a difficult decision,” Mast added, noting that she had gone through “a very methodical process” to make that decision. She added that she had read each of the “hundreds and hundreds” of emails that people had sent to the commissioners about the residential housing proposal.

Commissioner Teresa Mast offers her views on the petition. News Leader image

Mast had begun her remarks by pointing out that infill developments — which is how Bailey had characterized the project planned by Arlington, Texas-based homebuilding company D.R. Horton — offer the community an opportunity for more affordable housing to be constructed.

“And I totally respect the private property rights of the Smith family,” she added, referring to the owners of the land.

Yet, Mast continued, “This is a really unique parcel requiring a very unique project.”

Commissioner Tom Knight seconded the motion. He thanked Mast “for everything [she] just said,” calling her remarks eloquent. “More for me,” he added, “it’s common sense. It simply is a cherished area,” Knight said of the Celery Fields.

He further noted the efforts the board already is taking to try to improve the handling of stormwater in the county, given the flooding of many areas during the 2024 storm season that were not in designated floodplains.

Many of the speakers during the Feb. 12 hearing showed the commissioners photos of flooding on the Smith property and in the surrounding environs, as a result of the 2024 storms.

Taking his turn, Commissioner Mark Smith told the audience, “To me, it’s pretty simple. The area floods, and bringing fill into a site that floods is going to disperse the water elsewhere. … We’re not supposed to do that. We apparently have done that in the past, and this is where we are today.”

During Bailey’s rebuttal after the public comments ended, Smith asked Andrew Pluta, a professional engineer with the Kimley-Horn consulting firm in Sarasota — who was part of the project team — about the amount of fill that would be needed on the Smith property before the homes could be built.

The elevation of the site is “on average, about 18 [feet],” Pluta told Smith. The Base Flood Elevation, Pluta added, would be about 19.6 inches.

This is the Binding Development Concept Plan presented during the hearing. Image courtesy Sarasota County

“So we’re looking at, at least, an average of 3 feet of fill” on the entire site, Smith responded.

Attorney Bailey stressed at the outset of his presentation that morning, and during his rebuttal, that the project would be handle 11.8 inches of rain in 24 hours, exceeding the county’s requirement that a new development be able to handle 10 inches of rain in 24 hours.

“We’re willing to stipulate that,” Bailey added of the proposed stormwater design.

Pluta noted that Spencer Anderson, director of the county’s Public Works Department, has emphasized that the county’s standard is the highest level in the state.

Moreover, Pluta said, “You can always rely on Kimley-Horn to always go above and beyond the minimum standards.”

As he continued his remarks, Smith also expressed concern about the fact that stormwater from the property ultimately will flow into Phillippi Creek. “That area already is overtaxed,” he pointed out, as residents on the creek had testified to the commission in January, providing a number of photos.

Further, Smith complimented one of the speakers, Anthony Sellitto Jr., who had testified during the Feb. 12 hearing that the project was inconsistent with multiple policies in the county’s Comprehensive Plan, which guides growth in the community, and a variety of the county’s land-use regulations.

Yet, Everett Farrell, the county planner who was lead in handling the rezoning application, pointed to yet another policy that Sellitto did not touch on —Future Land Use Policy 1.2.17:

Image courtesy Sarasota County

Farrell, told the commissioners during his Feb. 12 presentation that staff had found the application inconsistent with that policy.

Yet, in his rebuttal, attorney Bailey told the board members, “This project checks every single box” in that policy.

During his remarks after the hearing, Smith also pointed out, “The good news for the property owners is they’re sitting on an incredible opportunity.” He noted testimony that day regarding the fact that “hundreds of thousands of people visit that area annually,” referring to the Celery Fields.

Commissioner Ron Cutsinger — like Mast — commended previous commissioners for having “the bold foresight” to create the Celery Fields, which he called “an amazing amenity.”

Cutsinger did acknowledge, “I am also a property rights advocate.” Nonetheless, he said, “This hasn’t been a difficult decision for me at all.” He commended the speakers, adding, “It’s been a long day, but I’m wide awake,” prompting laughter in the Commission Chambers in downtown Sarasota. “The testimony was engaging, really well done,” Cutsinger said.

Chair Joe Neunder pointed out that he had little to offer, after hearing from his colleagues. He, too, commended the people who came to address the board and the other audience members. “You all came, we listened, and we heard,” he said.

“Environment’s in my background,” Neunder continued, including his academic background.

He added that he visits the Celery Fields about once a month with his children. Then, noting that one speaker had called the hill on the land “Mount Celery,” Neunder said, “When I run that, it’s ‘Cardiac Hill’ … and it takes me about a week to recover from it.”

His children, he said, “love [the Celery Fields].”

A better use of the site

Smith was the first commissioner to suggest that members of the public collaborate to purchase the 50.82-acre site from the Smith family, from which D.R. Horton would have bought the property.

Susan Kessler, the conservation chair of the Founders Garden Club of Sarasota, told the commissioners, “Many conservation groups … are teed up to purchase the Smith Farm if it is not rezoned.” She added, “The Smith family will not be harmed financially.”

Kessler had talked of the fact that the club dates to 1927, noting that a number of prominent Sarasota women were the ones who established it, including Mable Ringling and Marie Selby. “The founders wished to conserve the natural beauty here,” while still allowing for growth, Kessler added.

“What would Sarasota be” she asked, without Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, The Ringling Museum campus “and these Celery Fields?”

Smith talked of the potential for a “Hermitage-type birder sanctuary, you might say … [or] an environmental oasis” or making the property part of the Celery Fields.

“If someone told me I had a 100,000 people coming next door to me,” Smith added, “I’d figure out a way to cash in on that baby., I tell you.” Laughter rippled through the audience.

Changes in the plans and emphasis on ‘competent, substantial evidence’

During his presentation about the proposal, attorney Bailey discussed several changes that the project team had made in the aftermath of the Nov. 21, 2024 Planning Commission hearing on the application.

That board voted 4-3 to recommend that the County Commission deny the rezoning petition.

Bailey explained that the number of single-family homes had been reduced from 170 to 126, which allowed the team to request rezoning of the Smith farm to Residential Single-Family-1/Planned Unit Development (RSF-1/PUD), which allows up to 2.48 dwelling units per acre. The prior rezoning request was for RSF-2/PUD, which allows residential density up to 3.35 dwelling units per acre.

These are the changes that attorney Charles D. Bailey III referenced during the hearing. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Bailey stressed that the RSF-1 designation “is the least dense [residential single-family] district permitted under moderate density residential designations [in the county].” The latter comment was a reference to the county’s Future Land Use Map showing that the Smith parcel was designated “Moderate Density Residential,” which allows up to 4.99 dwelling units per acre.

Moreover, he said, “We enhanced the buffers closest to the Celery Fields.”

He did acknowledge “that the project has great interest … and a lot of people have expressed concerns. One need only look to social media,” he added, along with the emails that the county commissioners had received, to realize that.

‘Competent substantial evidence’

Following the last of the speakers, to provide rebuttal to their comments, Bailey asked for a bit more time than the standard 5 minutes. Chair Neunder granted him 10.

Among the points Bailey emphasized was that the hearing was what is known as a “quasi-judicial” proceeding. That means that it is akin to a case in court. An application, he stressed, must be considered on the basis of “competent, substantial evidence,” not speakers’ opinions.

For example, he noted that one individual that day, Chris Bales, had shown the commissioners a video and photos related to a 2018 rezoning application for approximately 49 acres; Bailey represented that applicant, as well.

As with the Smith Properties application, Bales said, “This 2018 application did not require proof that stormwater mitigation would prevent off-site flooding from increased density in the floodplain. Instead, that proof was deferred to the [site and development] submittal stage.” She was referencing the process in which an applicant who has won board approval for a project must work with county staff on the final details of the plans before construction can begin.

Chris Bales created this slide to show that the site of the development approved in 2019 is in a High Risk Flood Zone, using a county graphic on the right. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Bailey had testified, as shown in the 2019 County Commission hearing video, that the members of that project team would be “engineering our stormwater system to meet the county standards so that all the stormwater that flows on the site we must accommodate. It can’t flow off-site … at any greater rate than it currently does.”

Bailey also noted during that hearing that county Future Land Use Policy 1.2.5 requires that “no development order can be issued for lands within the floodplain that would adversely affect the function of the floodplain.” His client in that case, as well, Bailey testified, would have a stormwater system designed to exceed the county’s stormwater standard. “We think [it is] going to benefit the function of the floodplain,” he said during that hearing.

Bales then showed the commissioners a photo of flooding on that development site, with just two houses under construction, as seen on June 11, 2024. That was in the aftermath of the heavy rainfall produced by the Invest 90L storm.

This is Chris Bales’ slide showing the flooding in June 2024 on the construction site. A still from the 2019 public hearing on the project is in the lower right corner. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Yet, Bailey told the commissioners, “That’s not competent substantial evidence.”
At one point, he cited a judicial precedent in the 1974 Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal case, City of Apopka v. Orange County, in which the court found that the evidence in opposition to a Special Exception request “was in the main laymen’s opinions unsubstantiated by any competent facts.”

Bales may have thought that the flooding her photos depicted was a result of a poorly designed stormwater system, Bailey continued, but she offered no evidence to prove that.

‘Celery Fields is very important’

By count of The Sarasota News Leader, 65 speakers took their turns at the podium on Feb. 12, all but one of them urging the board members to vote against the project.

After the first speaker, 15-year-old Sophia Haakman, concluded her remarks, applause rang out in the Commission Chambers. That prompted Chair Neunder to remind everyone to be respectful of the board’s Rules of Procedure, which forbid clapping or cheers. “I hope I don’t have to say it again,” Neunder added.

Andromeda Rhea reads her statement to the board. News Leader image

However, Neunder encouraged a bending of those rules at the conclusion of the statement of 9-year-old Andromeda Rhea, who told the board members, “I don’t know everything, but I know one thing that’s for sure: Celery Fields is very important. People really care about all the animals and plants that live there.”

She talked about the view from Mount Celery, noting the buildings in the area. “They kind of mess up the amazing image, the scenery. Since I’m talking about the buildings,” she continued, “I’ll just say it: When you build in that area, it doesn’t do a lot of good.”

Many speakers used photos to illustrate their concerns, and several cited data compiled by the eBird app of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology program to underscore the value of the Celery Fields not only as a county-created regional stormwater project, but also as an eco-tourism destination.

Kathryn Young, a member of the board of directors of the Sarasota Audubon Society, provided details, as well, demonstrating that construction of an apartment complex near Ackerman Park, which is located in the northern cells of the Celery Fields, had driven away birds. Prior to the start of that development, she said, she used to lead tours for people to observe ducks wintering in the park.

Young used Cornell University eBird data to underscore the decline in the number of species of birds found in Ackerman Park after the construction began in 2020.

This Sarasota Audubon Society slide shows the location of Ackerman Park. Image courtesy Sarasota County
This is the eBird data that Kathryn Young showed the commissioners, regarding Ackerman Park. Image courtesy Sarasota County