No residents object to plans during hearing
Before a recent board vote approving a request for a new seawall at 4163 and 4173 Shell Road on Siesta Key, Sarasota County Commissioner Mark Smith did seek clarification about one point of the proposal.
Addressing Howard Berna, manager of the county’s Environmental Permitting Division, Smith said, “Reading the [agenda] packet, it appears we’re just replacing an existing seawall?”
“You’re correct,” Berna responded. The property owner in the 1990s won County Commission approval “to put what is there today,” Berna added. “Basically,” he continued of the property owners, “they’re not tearing out the old wall. … They’re putting a new wall behind the existing wall.”
The staff memo in the March 26 agenda packet explained that the parcels located at 4163 and 4173 Shell Road “contain an existing concrete seawall in approximately the same location as the proposed seawall, a rock revetment waterward of a portion of the seawall at 4173
Shell Road, and a rock revetment return along the northern shoreline of 4163 Shell Road, which also has an existing concrete dock that will be replaced with a wooden deck.”
The petitioners, the memo added, are Three Birds Partners LLC and Thomas and Penelope Forshaw. The Florida Division of Corporations says that the Forshaws also are the managers of the limited liability company.
The county staff memo further noted that the petitioners wanted to replace the existing seawall “with a new vinyl sheet pile seawall on the landward side of the existing wall, installing new tie-rods, a new seawall cap, and … 75 cubic yards of new rock and 206 cubic yards of sand.”
The memo also pointed out, “The proposed work requires a Coastal Setback Variance for the new wall construction landward of the existing seawall and for the placement of new rock located waterward of the 20-Year Pass Hazard Line (PHL), which is subject to the requirements of the [county’s] Coastal Setback Code.”
The memo did explain, “No dune or beach habitat exists at these locations; however, the sites are unique in containing mangrove swamp habitat landward of the seawall. The new seawall construction will
impact 1,450 square feet of mangrove swamp/wetlands. The Petitioners have proposed 1,395 square feet of wetland restoration, 8,690 square feet of wetland enhancement, and 3,956 square feet of upland buffer
as mitigation at the subject properties.”
Further, a PowerPoint slide that was part of the agenda packet said, “No lateral pedestrian access along wet sandy beach exists at these subject sites.”
The Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s Office website says three Birds Partners purchased the 31,039-square-foot parcel located at 4163 Shell Road in April 2023 for $3.1 million.
The Forshaws, who have a Charlotte, N.C., address, bought the 67,039-square-foot site at 4173 Shell Road for $5 million in June 2021, the Property Appraiser’s Office website says.
The agenda item was listed as a Presentation Upon Request, meaning staff had not found it to be controversial, so no staff remarks would be provided unless a commissioner sought one.
After Berna answered Smith’s question, Smith made the motion to approve the petitioners’ request, and Commissioner Teresa Mast seconded it. With Commissioner Tom Knight absent from the meeting at that point, the motion passed 4-0.