On Feb. 5, County Commission to conduct workshop on proposed changes to policies and regulations to allow voluntary demolition and reconstruction of aged condominium complexes on Siesta Key

Commissioner Smith requested workshop after board declined to approve amendments after September 2024 hearing

The County Commission seated at the time meets in the Third Floor Think Tank on June 23, 2022. News Leader image

At 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 5, the Sarasota County Commission will conduct a workshop in downtown Sarasota regarding Commissioner Mark Smith’s proposed changes to county policies and regulations to allow the voluntary demolition and reconstruction of aged condominium complexes on Siesta Key.

Smith launched the initiative prior to his November 2022 election to the board.

At the conclusion of a September 2024 public hearing, his colleagues declined to approve the proposed changes, joining Siesta residents in expressing concerns about potential unintended consequences of the action.

Nonetheless, Smith did win their support to hold a workshop on the proposed amendments to the county’s Comprehensive Plan, which guides growth in the community, and the county’s Unified Development Code (UDC), which contains all of the land-use and zoning regulations. His goal, he indicated, was to provide in-depth answers to their concerns.

This is the proposed new Comprehensive Plan amendment for consideration on Feb. 5. Image courtesy Sarasota County

The Feb. 5 workshop will be held in the Think Tank on the third floor of the County Administration Center standing at 1660 Ringling Blvd. in downtown Sarasota.

The standard Open to the Public period for comments is scheduled before the discussion will begin.

In January 2022, Smith — who is an architect with a long-established practice on Siesta Key — appeared in his professional capacity before the commissioners seated at that time to point out that the only way a condominium complex’s homeowners association could take down decades-old structures and rebuild them with their existing residential density was in the aftermath of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane.

Yet, he said, The Sea Club V owners had paid for a structural engineering report prepared by Sarasota architect C. Alan Anderson and Snell Engineering Consultants of Sarasota that said that that complex’s structural components were corroding. “This deterioration became significant after 20 or 30 years,” the resulting report pointed out.

This is an engineering drawing that architect Mark Smith provided to the county commissioners in January 2022, before his election to that board. It shows details about the reconstruction issues for Sea Club V, based on current zoning regulations. Image courtesy of Mark Smith

As a representative of Sea Club V in his January 2022 remarks, Smith said the condominium owners wanted to prevent a disaster. “They’ve been putting Band-Aids on their buildings for years.”

Sea Club V, as its website explains, is a 41-unit time-share property “situated directly on the Gulf of Mexico” on Siesta Key. The complex comprises two two-story buildings and one three-story building, the website adds. Sarasota County Property Appraiser William Furst’s website says Sea Club V dates to 1957.

Under the current zoning of the property — Residential Multi-Family-3 — Smith told the commissioners that only 18 units would be allowed if the owners voluntarily demolished the existing structures and built new ones.

Then-Commission Chair Alan Maio proposed that County Administrator Jonathan Lewis and staff determine what could be done in response to the concerns Smith had raised. Among the potential actions, Maio noted, could be the drafting of an amendment to the county’s UDC. Maio emphasized of the Sea Club V owners, “In this case … they’re willing to tear [the complex] down at their own expense and rebuild.”

During County Commission discussions following the release of the staff report and Smith’s election to the board, staff-proposed Comprehensive Plan and UDC amendments have been tweaked.

Smith emphasized one point during the Sept. 11, 2024 public hearing that he has made several times: “If a condominium wishes to take the enormous financial investment to rebuild, they could keep their [residential] density,” based on the proposed amendments.

One major point of contention among Siesta residents — and members of the County Commission-appointed members of the Planning Commission last year, when it held its hearing on the amendments — was the height of rebuilt condominium complexes.

County Planner Everett Farrell had indicated that the new buildings could exceed the height allowed in their zoning districts, creating the potential of 65-foot-tall living space levels over parking.

However, Smith pointed out to his colleagues during the County Commission hearing that the intent never was to permit higher multi-family structures than those already allowed in the county’s zoning regulations. The maximum should remain 45 feet over two levels of 12-foot-high parking levels, Smith said.

For condo complexes on property zoned Residential Multi-Family 1 or 2, the maximum height would be 35 feet over two levels of parking.

Farrell’s slide that day showed a 65-foot-tall building over two levels of parking.

Smith suggested a revision to the applicable amendment: “The maximum permitted height of the zoning district shall apply.”

Yet, a Sarasota News Leader review of the slides prepared for the Feb. 5 workshop found one that still showed the potential of 65 feet of condo floors over two, 12-foot-high parking levels.

This is the relevant slide in the Feb. 5 agenda packet. Image courtesy Sarasota County

The county staff memo in the Feb. 5 agenda packet does note that, during the September 2024 County Commission hearing, “the Board requested a [staff] review of the City of Sarasota and Town of Longboat Key ordinances related to the height of residential structures relative to the minimum flood elevation requirement. Specifically, the assignment was to include how building height is measured above elevation and whether additional building height is granted if a building is voluntarily elevated to a specified height above the minimum. In addition, the assignment was to explore whether other comparable jurisdictions have any similar provision and provide any recommendations.”

Other slides in the Feb. 5 agenda packet address those issues.

This is the proposed UDC amendment, as found in the Feb. 5 agenda packet. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Speakers’ caution

Leaders of both the Siesta Key Association and the Siesta Key Condominium Council argued against the amendments last year, citing the potential for developers and condominium complex associations to try to take advantage of the proposed changes to increase residential density on the barrier island well above the limit set forth in Future Land Use Policy 2.9.1 in the Comprehensive Plan.

During the Sept. 11, 2024 hearing, Siesta resident Lourdes Ramirez, who has fought for years against allowing any increased density on the island, told the commissioners, “It’s been known for decades that Siesta Key has the most intensive residential development in all of Sarasota County. Nowhere else in the unincorporated [areas of the] county,” she added, “are there so many tall buildings like we have on Siesta Key.”

Moreover, she pointed out, the island has the highest number of buildings with greater residential density than the levels allowed in the current zoning code.

In June 2024, when the county’s Planning Commission conducted its hearing on the proposals, Neal Schleifer, vice president of the Siesta Key Condominium Council, pointed out that his organization represents 100 complexes on the barrier island, with about 7,000 households.

Neal Schleifer addresses the county commissioners on July 13, 2021. File image

He said that if the amendments went into effect, “You could go from 400 to 600 square feet [in condos] to 3,000 to 4,000 square feet,” which would result in a significant increase in the density and intensity of residential development on Siesta Key.

Schleifer also emphasized that developers in other coastal areas already are trying to tear down old complexes and replacing them with “transient accommodations,” which is the county term for hotel and motel rooms, though it also can be used to refer to short-term vacation rentals.

Attorney Ralf Brookes of Longboat Key and Cape Coral, who was representing south Siesta resident James Wallace III, confirmed the statement. “Two-story condos in Naples are being torn down and replaced with eight-story condos with more density, more intensity and more height,” Brookes said.

Other comments that night focused on the prospect that developers might see the approval of the amendments as affording them the opportunity to purchase multiple units — or all of the units — in condominium towers. Then, after the existing buildings were torn down and rebuilt, the developers could use the units on a year-round basis as short-term vacation rental housing.

The Planning Commission members ended up voting unanimously to recommend that the County Commission decline to approve the proposed amendments.