The Lake Sarasota Community Blog

This is one perspective on the County's ambitious plans to change the 2050 Comprehensive Plan for the rural areas of Sarasota - mostly East of the highway. The comments have been submitted to the County planning department. If others have comments that they wish to share, they can send them to LakeSarasota at gmail dot com and we'll post them. An important public hearing about these changes to 2050 is set for Wed. Aug. 27th, 5 pm at the County Commission, Ringling Blvd., Sarasota. August 19, 2014 Anyone who looks back at how Sarasota County’s 2050 Comprehensive Overlay was developed has to be impressed by both its inclusiveness and its methodical approach. The county took years to work with residents, developers and commercial interests to produce a vision for East Sarasota County looking out to 2050. It hired the distinguished Urban Land Institute to provide a broad perspective and in-depth analysis. The result didn’t please everybody, but it brought order to ...

The Sarasota 2050 plan offers generous development options in exchange for taxpayer and community protections. But what began as a compromise and is being finagled into a free ride. More here. What one community leader is saying: The deal struck with Sarasota 2050 is this: If you want to develop rural land at high density before we need to move the USB, then you pay for the infrastructure and develop in an efficient, environmentally friendly way that creates enough tax revenue to pay for the services the development requires. Now 6 firms want to keep increased density and welch on the rest. This isn't about the free market, this is about a free ride. - Cathy Antunes, vp Sarasota CONA Find out for yourself: Sarasota County Public Information Meetings about 2050:      June 18, 2014   Robert L. Anderson Administration Center,  Commission Chamber, 4000 S.Tamiami Tr., Venice, FL  June 26, 2014  County Administration Center, Co...