Nonprofit Protect Siesta Key preparing for new fight over ‘mega hotels’ on barrier island
With Sarasota County’s Planning Division staff still engaged in a review of Benderson Development Co.’s 2024 proposed amendments to the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan to facilitate construction of high-rise hotels on Siesta Key, businessman and chiropractor Dr. Gary Kompothecras apparently has decided to launch his own effort to get his hotel built on the southern part of the island, The Sarasota News Leader has learned.
At 6 p.m. on Monday, May 12, Robert “Bo” Medred, principal of Genesis Planning and Development in Bradenton, will host a Neighborhood Workshop via Zoom to present details of Kompothecras’ plans for a more limited Comprehensive Plan amendment than those Benderson has submitted to the county Planning Division staff. The new initiative mirrors one that Kompothecras launched in 2020 to enable him to construct a seven-story hotel on Old Stickney Point Road.
The Zoom link, long with the meeting ID and passcode, may be found through the calendar of the Sarasota County Planning and Development Services Department.
Although Kompothecras eventually won County Commission approval in November 2021 to build a hotel, legal action that Siesta resident Lourdes Ramirez pursued resulted in two rulings that an amendment to the county’s Unified Development Code, to allow for that construction and a hotel on the edge of Siesta Village, violated a policy in the Comprehensive Plan, which guides growth in the community.
Those decisions — issued by an administrative law judge with the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) and a 12th Judicial Circuit Court judge — prompted Benderson’s filing of the Comprehensive Plan amendments.
The Unified Development Code (UDC) contains all of the county’s land-use and zoning regulations. It takes only three commissioners’ votes to amend the UDC, whereas any amendment to the Comprehensive Plan needs four “Yes” votes to succeed.
Siesta residents speculated that the team behind a proposed eight-story, 170-room hotel on Calle Miramar, on the outskirts of Siesta Village, chose to seek the UDC amendment because of worries that four of the commissioners seated in the fall of 2021 would not vote to approve the necessary change to the Comprehensive Plan. Indeed, then-Commissioners Nancy Detert and Christian Ziegler opposed the UDC modification, which eliminated the counting of hotel rooms for residential purposes countywide.
As of May 1, when the News Leader reviewed the status of the proposed Benderson Comprehensive Plan amendments necessary for high-rise Siesta hotels, the “Record Status” for them said, “Revisions Required.”
The narrative for Kompothecras’ new undertaking, included in a document that Medred of Genesis Planning and Development submitted to county staff in April, explains that two of Kompothecras’ companies — 1260 Inc. and Stickney Storage LLC — propose a Comprehensive Plan amendment that would allow properties already zoned Commercial General/Siesta Key Overlay District (CG/SKOD) and Commercial Intensive/Siesta Key Overlay District (CI/SKOD) “within the ‘South Bridge Area’ of Siesta Key to provide transient accommodations; that is, to allow the hotel use within the South Bridge Area of Siesta Key.”
In the past, Kompothecras has referred to the commercial district south of the intersection of Stickney Point Road and Midnight Pass Road as the “South Bridge Area.”
Medred’s narrative adds, “Future Land Use Policy 2.9.1 of the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan relates to future development of lands within the Barrier Islands future land use designation. This policy, as currently written, provides future development on the Barrier Islands is prohibited from increasing the intensity or density of that allowed under County regulations as of March 13, 1989.”
Kompothecras’ proposed amendment to Policy 2.9.1 is shown below:
In early December 2020, Medred and attorney Charles D. Bailey III, of the Sarasota firm Williams Parker, hosted a Neighborhood Workshop on Kompothecras’ plans at that time for a Comprehensive Plan amendment, along with details of the proposed construction of the hotel, plus a five-story parking garage that would be built between Old Stickney Point Road and Stickney Point Road.
The proposed amendment to Future Land Use Policy 2.9.1 in 2020 would have allowed “lands located south of Stickney Point Road which are zoned CG [Commercial General] and CI [Commercial Intensive] (the ‘South Bridge Area’ under the Siesta Key Community Plan) … [to] be redeveloped to contain transient accommodations which exceed the density restrictions of the zoning regulations existing as of that date without violating this policy.”
“Additionally,” Medred’s narrative in the new, preliminary county application says, “consistent with the proposed amendment of Policy 2.9.1, this [Comprehensive Plan amendment] proposes to add a definition of ‘South Bridge Area’ to the ‘Plan Definitions’ portion of the Sarasota County Comprehensive Plan”:
Protect Siesta Key preparing for new fight over ‘mega-hotels’
Siesta resident Ramirez, who won the legal challenges in 2023, is president of a nonprofit organization called Protect Siesta Key.
It was established in January 2024.
After learning of the May 12 Neighborhood Workshop, she sent out an e-blast to supporters this week.
The email explained, “Public workshops are hosted by the developer as required by Sarasota County. Please note that this is not a public hearing; rather, it is an informational workshop for the public to learn about the proposed plans. This is the second workshop aimed at changing the Comprehensive Plan to permit mega-hotels on Siesta Key. The first workshop, held in January 2024 by Benderson Development, focused on allowing mega-hotels on any commercial property on Siesta Key. The upcoming workshop on May 12th is being organized by a different developer and proposes to permit mega-hotels specifically in the South Village, south of Stickney Point Road. We believe that once the County changes the Comprehensive Plan to allow mega-hotels on Siesta Key, the approval will not be limited to just the South Village.”
It added, “We are currently reviewing the workshop documents and will send out another newsletter with additional information before May 12th.”
In the meantime, the e-blast urged supporters, “Please mark your calendars and spread the word to your neighbors and friends.”