In two requests for additional information, county planner focuses on a number of details yet to be ironed out

As Sarasota County Planning Division staff has processed the updated, proposed Comprehensive Plan amendments regarding high-rise hotel construction on Siesta Key — which a representative of Benderson Development Co. submitted to the division in May 2024 — one focus of staff focus has continued to be the potential impacts on hurricane evacuations, The Sarasota News Leader has learned.
In fact, documents that the publication received through a recent public records request show that representatives of Benderson Development met last year with Rich Collins, director of the county’s Emergency Services Department. The discussion focused on a state law that allows for “appropriate mitigation measures.”
Philip DiMaria, a certified planner with the Kimley-Horn consulting firm in Sarasota who is working for Benderson on the amendments, noted in a May 30, 2024 letter to county Planner Ana Messina that the measures could be implemented “through a binding agreement to memorialize the mitigation plan for each hotel, as necessary.”
As the News Leader has reported, one of the proposed amendments involves county Coastal Objective 1.3, which pertains to “safe and timely evacuation.”
DiMaria pointed out, “The [amendment] language, as drafted, is consistent with Section 163.3178 (8)(a)3 [of the Florida Statutes], which states that a proposed comprehensive plan amendment ‘shall be found in compliance with state coastal high-hazard provisions’ if: 1) the ‘adopted level of service for out-of-county hurricane evacuation is maintained’, 2) the ‘12-hour evacuation time to shelter is maintained,’ or 3) ‘appropriate mitigation is provided.’ ”
He added, “Importantly, the State does not require mitigation in addition to meeting the standards set forth in Section 163.3178 (8)(a)1-2 [of the Florida Statutes].”

Collins of Emergency Services did call for removal of language in the proposed new version of Coastal Objective 1.3 that specified the implementation of “operational standards for early evacuation, meeting or exceeding current hurricane construction standards, and providing vehicular shelter for EMS, fire, law enforcement, utility and other emergency vehicles and personnel during hurricane events and hurricane recovery events.”
DiMaria replied that that language had been stricken.
In the second county request for additional information, dated July 1, 2024, Planner Ana Messina wrote that Planning staff had “conferred with Rich Collins to receive input from the meeting he held with the applicant after the 1st sufficiency review comments were issued. Based on this input the Applicant has yet to provide the following:
- “Analysis of evacuation shelter and/or hardening costs (utilizing example of current under construction K-8 County School on Lorraine [Road]).
- “Analysis or data that can show a method to determine the amount of shelter space that a proposed New Transient Accommodation would incur.” (“Transient Accommodation” is the county staff term for hotel and motel rooms.)
- “Analysis or data for method to calculate a proportionate monetary contribution based on the proposed development, its shelter requirements, and the impact on evacuation zones A & B, potentially also to consider zone C.”
Evacuation zones A and B are those considered most vulnerable to storm surge. Ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall in the county in October 2024, county Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi urged residents in both those zones to leave the barrier islands, as the National Hurricane Center had forecast potential surge as high as 15 feet.
Messina also pointed out, “Based on prior determinations of inconsistency for hotels within the Barrier Islands, staff would consider amending Coastal Policy 1.2.3 to include reference to exceptions for encouragement of hotels within [evacuation] zones A & B when these are found in compliance with state coastal high-hazard provisions as noted per [Florida Statute] 163.3178(8)(a).”
Messina did note that Collins “is open to including mitigation measures for proposed development of New Transient Accommodations in SKOD [the Siesta Key Overlay District zoning regulations] that can demonstrate a compliance with the County Coastal Disaster Management chapter …”
Further, she wrote, “Planning staff has no objection to [Benderson’s] proposal for a binding mitigation agreement, but sufficient implementation language (including methods of calculation and applicability) needs to be included within the corresponding UDC text amendments that will reflect the intent of new FLU Policy 2.9.4.”

The UDC is the county’s Unified Development Code, which contains all of the land-use and zoning regulations.
The Balot hotel issue
Another issue that Messina addressed in the second request for additional information was the fact that Section 3 of Benderson’s proposed Future Land Use Policy 2.9.4 “would exclude the site noted as the Wells Fargo Hotel that is included within the Hotel Statistics table of the SKOD Land Use Analysis since this site is located seaward of Midnight Pass Road & south of Beach Road. Please clarify.”
In October 2022, Siesta businessman Dave Balot won unanimous County Commission approval for his proposed 112-room hotel on the approximately 2.15-acre site where the bank stood.

At that time, legal challenges were underway in regard to the inconsistency of a 3-2 County Commission vote in October 2021 to amend the UDC to eliminate the counting of hotel and motel rooms for residential density purposes. Siesta Key resident Lourdes Ramirez had cited Future Land Use Policy 2.9.1, which limited the density to that in place on the barrier islands as of March 13, 1989, in filing complaints with both the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) and the 12th Judicial Circuit Court that the board vote had violated the county’s Comprehensive Plan. (She ended up winning both cases in 2023.)
In December 2022, county staff refused to process what is known as a “site and development plan” application that Balot had submitted for his project. Planning and Development Services staff cited the legal challenges.
As Deputy County Attorney David Pearce has explained in a legal brief, “County staff reviews a site and development plan application to ensure proper design of the components of horizontal/lateral construction (as opposed to a building permit which reviews vertical construction). Such horizontal components include stormwater management, excavation and fill, bulkheads, sidewalks, paving, drainage plans, parking, and a master utility plan for water and sewer improvements.”
Tampa attorney Clay Mathews ended up filing a complaint against county staff because of that refusal to handle Balot’s site and development application, arguing that since no one filed a Comprehensive Plan consistency challenge of the board approval of the hotel within the timeline dictated by state law, the October 2022 commission vote was valid.
Ultimately, Circuit Court Judge Hunter Carroll agreed with Mathews. Nonetheless, Carroll stipulated in his ruling, with emphasis, that Balot could seek “no material alteration to the Special Exception Application and incorporated Binding Development Concept Plan previously approved by the [County Commission].”

In November 2024, the county commissioners chose not to appeal that decision, as County Attorney Joshua Moye advised them that he and his staff believed the county would not prevail on appeal.
The 15% factor
Yet another issue that county staff addressed in the May 2024 request for more information was Benderson’s proposal for just 15% of the property zoned Commercial General (CG) and Commercial Intensive (CI) on Siesta Key to be allowed as new hotel sites.
That section pointed out that comments and requests that staff provided as a result of a pre-application conference last year called for “justification or analysis behind the proposed 15% area limit for hotel development … to be included within the Consistency document received. However, staff are unable to find this. Although the Consistency document notes the proposed 15% maximum as a form of limitation of development that could be found consistent with the existing Comprehensive Plan policies that encourage low intensity and development within the Barrier Islands, the [Benderson] document does not contain any data or references to any analysis performed to determine” why the 15% figure had been proposed. “Please include language that explains and/or justifies the reason to administer the proposed limit and if other percentages were contemplated,” that staff comment said.
“Of the 44.37 acres noted by the applicant,” that comment added, “there are approximately 31.77 acres of property (parcel areas) under the CG [Commercial General] and CI/SKOD [Commercial Intensive districts with the Siesta Key Overlay District] zones … [Therefore,] 15% of these parcel areas is 4.77 acres and not 6.6, [as DiMaria of Kimley-Horn had written in that earlier document]. Please also note that there are ±1.31-acres of current hotel/transient uses on the CG and/or CI/SKOD zones, so if these are to be included in the 15% cap for hotel/transient uses, then that would leave ±3.46 acres remaining for hotel/transient accommodations.”

DiMaria noted in his response that Section 124-2(h)(1-2) of the county’s Unified Development Code, “relating to ‘Interpretation of District Boundaries’ expressly states that where district boundaries follow the centerline of … ‘dedicated streets, highways, alleys, or rights-of-way,’ such boundary ‘shall be construed as following such centerlines.’ “Additionally,” DiMaria continued, “when a boundary of a district approximately follows lot lines that ‘are adjacent to a dedicated street, alley, highway, or right-of-way and the zoning status of the street, highway, alley, or right-of-way is not indicated, the boundaries shall be construed as running to the middle of the street, highway, alley, or right-of-way.’ … Therefore, based on the requirements of the UDC, the total acreage of the CG/SKOD and CI/SKOD zoning districts includes both the acreage attributable to individual parcels as well as the acreage attributable to the portions of public rights of way located within the district (44.37 acres). Likewise, the district as a whole should be considered when determining the 15% area limit, which equates to approximately 6.655 acres.”
Moreover, DiMaria pointed out, “As noted in [Benderson’s] proposed [Future Land Use] Policy 2.9.4 and UDC Section 124-102(b)(4)e.4., the 15% cap is limited to ‘New Transient Accommodations’ and would not include existing hotel/transient uses within CG/SKOD and/or CI/SKOD …”
He further explained, “The proposed 15% area limit for New Transient Accommodations (pursuant to [Future Land Use] Policy 2.9.1 and 2.9.4) was determined, in part, as a natural settling point between the desire to limit impacts to CG/SKOD and CI/SKOD while also accommodating the existing proposals. … Finally, the 15% cap for New Transient Accommodations encourages other forms of commercial development on the remaining portions of CG/SKOD and CI/SKOD. This contributes to a diverse landscape of commercial development which enhances the pedestrian experience for Siesta Key residents and visitors and provides an appropriate mix of uses within the SKOD. Moreover, the amount of land for New Transient Accommodations will diversify available tourist accommodations, enhance the tourist experience, and maintain the competitiveness and legacy of Sarasota’s tourism on Siesta Key.”

The county’s Long-Range Planning staff did note that it would “verify the exact CG/SKOD & CI/SKOD total acreage to include within the proposed new FLU Policy 2.9.4, which will exclude any ROW [right of way] portions.”
In the second request for additional information, in July, Messina acknowledged that DiMaria had indicated how rights of way “will be excluded from the acreage size of a New Transient Accommodation …” She then wrote, that, since the county’s standard “Special Exception process … only applies to the applicable parcel area, staff would also like the same to apply for the total combined zone acreage from which the 15% cap will derive.”
She further pointed out, “Staff are aware that zone district boundaries can be extended to the centerline of street frontages.” However, she continued, “[T]he request to exclude the ROW stems from establishing a consistency with the parcel acreage calculation. Since the potential sites for New Transient Accommodations do not include … proportionate street frontage zone boundary acreage share, please update the submitted SKOD Land Use Analysis table to reflect the CG & CI/SKOD zone area & site area acres utilizing the same criteria,” or, as she noted, “just developable area.”