Tropical Storm Debby floods site
An early July post on a Facebook page whose members advocate for protection of Sarasota County’s Celery Fields Regional Stormwater Project, and its environs, reported that the Sarasota County Planning Commission on Aug. 1 would conduct the first public hearing on Texas-based developer D.R. Horton’s plans for a 170-home community on property near the Celery Fields.
The site is known as the Smith Properties.
The woman who wrote the post on the Celery Fields Advisory Panel Facebook page provided an image of a postcard that she said she had received from the county about the hearing.
Subsequently, an administrator of that Facebook page replied that another county communication said the hearing had been postponed; no new date had been provided.
Speculation ensued as to whether D.R. Horton had asked that the hearing be scheduled after the Aug. 20 Primary Election, with two County Commission races on the ballot. One of those pits Teresa Mast, a former Planning Commission member who routinely endorsed new developments, against Sarasota County Charter Review Board member Alexandra Coe, who has called for limits on new residential communities. Both are Republicans. The winner of the primary will be the next commissioner for District 1.
In District 3, which encompasses most of Venice, Commissioner Neil Rainford, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the County Commission in June 2023, following the April 2023 death of Commissioner Nancy Detert, will face former three-term Sheriff Tom Knight. In recent campaign remarks, Knight referred to developers as gangs akin to those he fought in law enforcement. “They want to own this whole county,” he said.
Knight also has been steadfast in opposition to high-rise hotels proposed on Siesta Key.
Both Rainford and Knight are Republicans. The winner of the District 3 primary will face Sharon Kay Thornton of Venice, who has no party affiliation, in the November General Election.
Rainford routinely has voted for new developments in the county since he joined the commission.
Moreover, both Mast and Rainford have paid tens of thousands of dollars to a Tampa company — Strategic Image Management (Simwins) — that has been sending out mailers with lies about their primary opponents — as both Coe and Knight have attested.
However, based on a county staff comment that The Sarasota News Leader received this week, it appears that the D.R. Horton application never was intended to be considered during the Aug. 1 Planning Commission meeting.
In response to a News Leader request this week for a copy of the staff report on the D.R. Horton proposal for the Aug. 1 Planning Commission hearing — if such a hearing indeed had been scheduled — a member of the county Planning and Development Services Department wrote the following in an Aug. 7 email: “No staff report was prepared. Petition is still under review. No tentative public hearing date has been scheduled.”
On May 14, Sarasota representatives of D.R. Horton conducted a second, required Sarasota County Neighborhood Workshop on the proposal for the development, which would be built along Raymond Road, south of Palmer Boulevard and north of Porter Road, in the eastern part of the county.
The second workshop was necessary since it had been almost exactly a year since the first one was conducted. As of the afternoon of May 8, county Planning records showed that the application submitted to staff in August 2023 remained under formal review. If a land-use proposal has not reached the public hearing stage within a year, county regulations require the applicant to conduct a second workshop. In fact, the application for the May 14 event said, “This second Neighborhood Workshop is being held due to the passage of time since the first.”
Although the property where D.R. Horton has proposed its development comprises six parcels of agricultural land, encompassing approximately 49 acres, project team members have explained that only about 30 acres would be available for construction. That is a factor related to the need for a stormwater pond/lake to comply with county regulations.
Advocates for the Celery Fields, which has become an internationally known bird-watching destination, have protested that the new community would prove disruptive to the wildlife in the area. Visitors over the years have documented numerous migratory bird species that make their winter home in the Celery Fields, mirroring the human “snowbirds” who live in Sarasota County during the same time of year.
Sarasota Audubon leaders, especially, have expressed opposition to the D.R. Horton plans.
On Nov. 1, 2023, the Sarasota Audubon Board of Directors issued a statement with the heading Raymond Road aka Smith Property. In bold, that document made clear the organization’s thoughts about the D.R. Horton project: “A high-density residential development does not belong here. It will negate and undermine all the millions of dollars and planning invested by Sarasota County and its Stormwater Division.”
That statement added, “Sarasota Audubon Society has invested thousands of volunteer hours in maintenance and in environmental education for all ages at the Celery Fields.”
Then the document noted the following relevant data:
- 120,000 visitors to the Nature Center since 2015. Sarasota Audubon docents staff the facility.
- 3,000 volunteer hours per year since 2015, totaling more than 25,000 hours.
- 8,500 students since 2012 learning about watershed and bird identification.
- 1,000 teachers and chaperones introduced to the wetland habitat.
- $1 million raised to build the Sarasota Audubon Nature Center.
- $4 million target to be raised for ReWilding the Quads parcels, an initiative of Sarasota Audubon and the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, which is based in Osprey.
Yet another concern about the development arose again this week, with the flooding produced by Tropical Storm Debby. (See the related article in this issue.) The Smith Properties parcels were underwater, as shown in multiple photos shared on Facebook.
Opponents of the development stressed that those photos demonstrate clearly that no residential community should be constructed on the site.
We hope the county commission will finally listen to the people. The most up setting thing about the commission is they won’t even do environmental studies on these properties. It’s been 30 years since Siesta key has had an infrastructure study which would include environmental. The commission declined it except Mark Smith.