The Lake Sarasota Community Blog

Notices about the proposed  80+ luxury home project with two entrances on Hand Road  have been mailed out, but it's unclear how much of the Lake Sarasota community is included in the mailing. Note that this project poses potential safety considerations for our school children as well as parents driving their kids to Lakeview Elementary and Oak Park Schools.  No traffic study has been done. The County Commission Hearing on Nov. 28th will be the final decision on this project. Here's a  link to the official hearing announcement , which indicates a 9 a.m. time, but this could be updated when the official Agenda comes out. - More information about this project and Sarasota Baptist's sale of acreage to David Weekley Homes, is at these links: We spoke at the Planning Commission Hearing . Two commissioners saw the potential hazard of the design and voted against the proposal.  Does this project invite danger? The Planning Commission is an appointed board  of Real...

Monday ,  April 10 ,   2017 7 : 00 p . m . surplus lands and community treasures  -  crucial decisions  - a town hall examination   ​          ​ On Monday, April 10, 2017 please join  CONA  for a town hall examination of our surplus lands policies and zoning processes that are putting lands considered community treasures in danger, perhaps irreversibly. Such crucial decisions require public participation.     ​          The current offer to sell public lands adjacent to the Celery Fields for a construction waste processing facility has drawn the focus of adjacent neighborhoods, environmental groups, conservationists, and many concerned individuals. The issues will be examined to determine what should drive decisions about public lands and how policies may be changed to assure protection of our community treasures while making appropriate decisions about devel...

Latest update: At today's meeting at Frutiville Library, Spencer Anderson of Public Works stated that four of the five Lake Sarasota locations listed by Public Works were not relevant and would be removed from the list. (The four were: Luzon Way, Hand Road, Lago St. and Mauna Loa Blvd.)   The fifth location is one bit of turf near the end of Jarvis Rd. at 6268 Molokai. The County had been paying a contractor to mow it, and will cease, if the Commission approves the plan. A public hearing is Aug. 24, and anyone may speak. If approved, the new plan with fewer rights of way mowed by county contractors (especially in Sarasota Springs) will begin Oct. 1. Update: Some clarification this afteroon from Public Works: The target for our effort is the small amount of space between private properties and their adjacent local or residential roadways.  I've attached a draft exhibit illustrating these areas. In general most residents already maintain these areas, as is done in ...

A new blog is now consolidating information, background resources, and current conversation surrounding the proposed changes to Sarasota County's 2050 Comprehensive Plan. The blog is SarasotaVision2050 , and it can be found here: http://sarasotavision2050.blogspot.com/ The stakes are not trivial for communities East of I-75. If developers get the green light to start building all at once, not only will they choke our roads and land with excessive housing, but the new housing will dilute and degrade the market of existing homes - yours and mine - in Sarasota County. What's more, the developers will be competing against each other for a very limited resource - the high-end retiree market. Instead they should be planning a knock-out beautiful public vision of East Sarasota - and let the developers consider all kinds of housing - for working people, families, as well as rich retirees. If the changes to 2050 pass, and it is expected they will at a County hearing on Oct. 22 (...

Members of the Board and other interested residents of Lake Sarasota will meet today with representatives of TerraCap in a final effort to negotiate a neighborhood-friendly agreement addressing the concerns regarding safety, tranquility, and property values. The results will be reported here. === A conversation about a legally binding Covenant between Lake Sarasota residents and agents for TerraCap Mgmt. has not progressed since a June 12 meeting . The community has concerns about traffic, nuisance noise and odors, and damage to property values that could arise from mishandled development of the commercial land opposite the front entrance of the Lake S. community at Mauna Loa Blvd. and Bee Ridge Road. Agents for TerraCap , the Canadian owner of the Bee Ridge Park of Commerce who sold the front property to Racetrac, were approached in April about a Covenant, but ignored the Community's overture. After the developer's latest rezoning plan failed to receive County app...

County Commission candidate Lourdes Ramirez will visit Lake Sarasota Wednesday afternoon, April 16th. Ms. Ramirez, a Republican, is the first candidate to come to the neighborhood this campaign season, and the visit is on her own initiative. She is president of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations, or CONA. Her candidate page is here . One key issue of this year's County Commission campaign concerns the "2050 Plan" -- the County's directives for new development east of I-75. The position of CONA is that new development should pay for itself. From CONA's home page : NO new taxes for current county residents, especially to pay for new development. Ramirez will be meeting residents of Lake Sarasota on Wednesday afternoon. Look for her car (with name signs) on Mauna Loa Blvd as well as other neighborhood roads. More about Ramirez and this year's issues  here ,  here, and here .

Sarasota County Commission March 2014 District 1 Commissioner Carolyn J. Mason cmason@scgov.net 1660 Ringling Blvd. Sarasota, FL  34236 941-861-5344 District 2 Commissioner Joseph A. Barbetta jbarbett@scgov.net 1660 Ringling Blvd. Sarasota, FL  34236 941-861-5344 District 3 ​ Commissioner Christine Robinson crobinson@scgov.net 1660 Ringling Blvd. Sarasota, FL  34236 941-861-5344 District 4 Commissioner Nora Patterson npatters@scgov.net 1660 Ringling Blvd. Sarasota, FL  34236 941-861-5344 District 5 Commissioner Charles D. Hines, Esq . chines@scgov.net 1660 Ringling Blvd. Sarasota, FL  34236 941-861-5344​

A video of the recent Neighborhood Workshop for TerraCap's proposed rezoning of 7.7 acres of the Bee Ridge Park of Commerce, directly across from Lake Sarasota's front entrance.   The video is posted to Youtube . Here are a few brief highlights from the meeting.