Board members continue to talk of potential for ‘legacy stormwater project’ on site
Residents of the Gulf Gate area will be surveyed about Sarasota County Government’s potential use of a special taxing or benefits district to pay for the county’s purchase and improvements of the nearly 50-acre, former Gulf Gate Golf Course, the board members decided this week.
The special district expense per billing unit — typically a household — could range from $340 to $500 per year, over 20 years, county Stormwater Director Ben Quartermaine told the commissioners during their regular meeting on Sept. 8, which was held in Venice.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis noted two potential types of districts that should be considered: a municipal services taxing unit and a municipal services benefit unit.
The Palms & Properties Group of Keller Williams Elite Realty explains, with emphasis, “A Municipal Service Taxing Unit, or MSTU, is a special taxing area created for specific neighborhoods or communities. Only property owners within that boundary pay the tax, and the money goes directly toward improvements or services that benefit just that area.”
Escambia County points out on its website that a Municipal Services Benefit Unit “is a non-ad valorem assessment district established to provide for funding for improvements in a specific geographic area within the county. An MSBU is a group of properties that share in the cost and benefit of that improvement.”
During the discussion, Chair Ron Cutsinger was the board member who pointed out that when such special districts have been under consideration in the past, county staff has surveyed the property owners who would be affected, to learn whether they would support such a proposal.
The survey will need to provide specific details about county plans for what the board members have called a “legacy stormwater project” on the golf course site, Commissioner Mast stressed, as well as “reasonable expectations of cost, because $300 to $500 is a significant impact on many households.”
She added that she would prefer “we err on the side of the high end … If you’re going to have a shocker to your budget,” she continued, “I’d rather know it upfront. The only surprises I like, I tell my husband, are large diamonds.”
Moreover, Mast called for “some very hard negotiations with the current property owners” over the price they want for the land.
She was referring to Gulf Gate Holdings LLC, which is based in Miami.
(The manager of Gulf Gate Holdings LLC is Arnaud Karsenti, who also is the managing principal of 13th Floor Investments, a Miami real estate investment and development firm based, according to its website.
Matt Osterhoudt, director of the county’s Planning and Development Services Department, explained that staff had had three appraisals done, while Gulf Gate Holdings had paid for an appraisal on its own. The latter effort resulted in a value of $14.6 million, Osterhoudt said.
The county appraisals were as follows: $5.3 million, $6.527 million and $9.5 million, he noted. They dated to 2025, as shown in a June 30 written update about the golf course that Osterhoudt had provided the board members.
The owner’s appraisal, that report said, was handled by Mick Stiksma of CRE Valuation Services, dated March 3 of this year and submitted to the county staff on March 19.
The county staff report explained that after staff received that private appraisal, staff “conducted a detailed review and identified several questions regarding the methodology, assumptions, and conclusions contained within [the CRE document].”
The report added, “Both parties believe their respective valuations are defensible, resulting in a substantial gap in value discussions.”
However, Osterhoudt told the commissioners during his Sept. 8 presentation, staff learned that, during a March 4 hearing of the county’s Value Adjustment Board, information prepared by the Flanagan Bilton LLC law firm in Chicago, on behalf of Gulf Gate Holdings, said the 2025 market valuation of the golf course property was $4,621,900. That document used details from Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst’s website, as shown in the materials provided to the county commissioners in the Sept. 8 agenda packet.
Based on a number of factors, that presentation continued, the value is $2,346,300. Among those factors was the negative perception of the property because of the County Commission discussions about purchasing the site, the materials noted.
The Planning and Development Services report for the commissioners did note, “As part of more recent discussions, the Office of the County Attorney (OCA) provided the ownership representatives with the VAB [Value Adjustment Board] materials … Based on OCA’s meeting with the representative of the ownership group, there appeared to be some surprise regarding portions of the VAB information and the implications it may have on the ongoing valuation discussions.”
Nonetheless, the report pointed out, Michael Nunziata, who was representing Gulf Gate Holdings, told county staff “that $14.6 million remains [the company’s] benchmark value based on the CRE appraisal; however, that figure would be negotiable and would likely fall somewhere between their valuation and the high end of the County’s appraisal range ($9.5 million). Mr. Nunziata,” the report added, “indicated that any offer near or below the County’s highest appraisal would be difficult to justify to the ownership group’s investors.”
Commission Chair Cutsinger told his colleagues that the asking price is “not in the realm of reality, as far as I’m concerned.”
Referring to the VAB action, he added, “That’s a dramatic difference,” between the $2.3 million and the $14.6 million.
Commissioner Mark Smith said he agreed with Commissioner Mast about the negotiations. “I don’t want people to perceive that we’re paying more than we’re supposed to,” he added. “Fourteen million dollars is just plain out of the question.”
Mast ended up making the motion to direct staff to undertake the survey of the property owners who would be affected by an annual assessment, including how much they might have to pay, along with details about the possible stormwater legacy project.
Staff should make clear in the survey that the potential expense of a Municipal Services Taxing Unit or Municipal Services Benefit Unit is what she emphasized “is a ‘guesstimate.’ ”
Smith seconded the motion, which passed 4-0.
Commissioner Joe Neunder, who has championed the purchase of the site for a stormwater initiative, was absent from the Sept. 8 discussion.
How to pay for the land
County Stormwater Director Quartermaine was the person who brought up the idea of the creation of a Municipal Services Taxing Unit or a Municipal Services Benefit. Unit.
Gulf Gate has approximately 1,500 households, residents have pointed out.
His estimates for annual payment figures, Quartermaine noted, did not factor in potential grants the county might win for environmental remediation on the site.
Commissioner Mast was the first board member to bring up the issue of paying for the property. She noted that remarks of Gulf Gate residents that morning, during the commission’s Open to the Public comment period, included a call for the board to take money out of the federal grants it has received for recovery from Hurricane Ian in 2022 and the 2024 storm season — the Resilient SRQ Program — to buy the former golf course. None of those funds would be available for acquisition of the site, she pointed out, given the strict federal standards for their use.
At her request, Stormwater Director Quartermaine came to the podium.
One option, he said, is a capital stormwater assessment that would be separate from the regular stormwater assessments that county residents pay. Such a fee in the Gulf Gate area could be tied to the basins for Matheny Creek and Elligraw Bayou, in the Little Sarasota Bay watershed, which “were developed primarily before our current regulations [went into effect],” he said. Unlike Palmer Ranch, for example, Quartermaine continued, those basins do not have ponds and swales that are used to treat stormwater before it reaches the county’s bays and other waterways.
Further, he noted, “There are about seven roads within the Gulf Gate neighborhood that still experience a level-of-service deficiency that could be addressed with stormwater improvements.”
When Chair Cutsinger asked Quartermaine how he had arrived at the range of $340 to $500 a year, Quartermaine replied, “We looked at the cost … conservatively of the cleanup [of the golf course],” plus the expense of maintaining the property after the clean-up process was completed. Additionally, Quartermaine said, staff factored in $8 million as the county’s purchase price, based on the county appraisals.
When Mast asked about the number of affected homes, Quartermaine told her he was not certain. His staff had calculated the figures using a count of dwellings in the Gulf Gate community and those in the Elligraw Bayou basin.
“This would be a legacy stormwater project in a basin that’s built out,” Quartermaine told the board.
“We would also have a significant reduction of nitrogen” flowing into the waterways and ultimately to Sarasota Bay, he pointed out.
Nitrogen loads also could be lowered with stormwater initiatives, he said.
Nitrogen is the primary food for the red tide algae, researchers have reported.
The financial aspects of the arsenic issue
Yet another issue related to the potential county acquisition of the former golf course is the environmental contamination documented there, as Osterhoudt of the Planning and Development Services Department also mentioned during his Sept. 8 remarks.
During a February discussion with the board members, Osterhoudt explained that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is managing the golf course property and overseeing its remediation, with arsenic contamination the primary factor.
County staff could be faced with securing FDEP permits for improvements of the site, if the county purchased it, Osterhoudt pointed out.
A December 2008 report by multiple authors that has been made available on the website of the National Library of Medicine, titled Arsenic Transport and Transformation Associated with MSMA Application on a Golf Course Green, says, “A survey conducted on Florida golf courses showed that about 96% of golf courses spray herbicides containing the active ingredient monosodium methylarsonate (MSMA),” which contains arsenic.
The study points out, “Long-term exposure to low concentrations of arsenic in drinking water can lead to skin, bladder, lung, and prostate cancers.”
The county staff memo prepared about the Sept.. 8 agenda item said, “Based on current estimates provided by Phillips Environmental, an environmental contractor with specialized experience in environmental remediation, contaminated soil and groundwater management, environmental remediation would require approximately $4.9 million to $7.3 million in capital costs and approximately $800,000± in remediation-related operations, maintenance, monitoring, and reporting costs, for an estimated remediation cost of approximately $8.1± million.”
Further, the memo pointed out, “[D]evelopment of the property for regional stormwater purposes would range between $6.9 million [and] $10.5 million … including contingency, with approximately $50,000± in annual operations and maintenance costs.”
The memo continued, “These costs would be in addition to the negotiated acquisition price for the property and represent a significant consideration in evaluating the overall financial implications of a potential acquisition.”
Stormwater Director Quartermaine confirmed that the Phillips report said that arsenic had been found in both the soil and the ponds on the golf course.
Residents of the community, Osterhoudt told the board, have broached the prospect of the designation of the former golf course as a brownfield site. The County Commission would have a role in that process, he added, with a public hearing required.
He referenced Section 376.80(2)(c) of the Florida Statutes, which is called the Brownfields Redevelopment Act.
Gulf Gate Holdings has applied to the state for that designation, Osterhoudt continued. The commissioners could be asked to deal with that issue later this year, he said.
One of the benefits of such a designation, Osterhoudt noted, would be grant opportunities.
The ‘entitlement’ issue
During the discussion, Chair Cutsinger also addressed Gulf Gate residents’ comments during the Open to the Public part of the meeting that morning, which indicated that people believe that the county could prevent development on the site even if it did not buy the land.
“I want to be very clear about the fact that this property is already entitled,” Cutsinger stressed, referring to County Commission vote that approved plans for home construction there. He believed that was in 2017, he added.
Osterhoudt confirmed that, noting that the site was rezoned for 108 dwelling units.
Moreover, he said, Gulf Gate Holdings LLC has proceeded to what staff calls the “site development permit phase,” which, he continued, entails county approval of the engineering for “the horizontal development” of the property, involving the installation of stormwater systems and roads, for examples.
He added that he believed the owner also has received permits for some of the demolition on the site that would be necessary for the new construction.