Stupid Growth
How Sarasota County fails to follow through on its great plans
On January 23, 2007, the Sarasota County Commission approved University Town Center. Designed by the “godfather of New Urbanism”, Stefano Polyzoides, it was truly meant to be a little town. What was promised, and what was built, are entirely different animals.
You can see Stefano Polyzoides presentation for the University Town Center plan here (about 20 minutes).
University Town Center was supposed to be filled with smart growth features.
The promised University Town Center was to have an esplanade along the adjacent lakefront. Polyzoides describes how parking would be a short distance from that esplanade, so people from all over the County could come and enjoy the lake. What was built was an asphalt track around the lake, not the promenade that was planned.
There was going to be a Main Street at University Town Center, with shops and offices. It was going to be truly walkable, with plenty of trees. The plan required shaded walkways so shoppers could comfortably walk to the adjacent shopping center.
There was going to be a trolley system to make it easy for people to hop on and get easily to another area of University Town Center. The approved plan included a mercado placed in front of a public green.
There were to be 1750 housing units, including work/live housing. The plan required 437 of those housing units to be affordable housing units. The housing units would be part of live/work development along Main Street, as well as apartments to be built between Main Street and the lake.
The University Town Center original plan was a design intended to provide a town which offered opportunity to live, work and recreate in the same area, all without the need for a car. It was designed to enhance, not cannibalize existing retail centers (like Southgate Mall and Sarasota Square Mall).
It was a great plan. What happened?
Bit by bit, piece by piece, smart growth elements were removed. First, Benderson Development asked for removal of the required affordable housing, because they “no longer wanted to be in that business”. The plan deteriorated over time, until it became a strip mall and shopping mall, the kind of plan that was rejected by Sarasota County in 2006, because they were concerned about traffic and the impact on existing retail.
Southgate Mall and Sarasota Square Mall withered away - because how many malls do you need? Guess who owns them now?
We used to have a County Commission which required sound planning standards. We now have a County Commission which allows good plans and good policies to be gutted in a “death by a thousand cuts” manner. Certain developers come back again and again to get exceptions, to exempt their projects from smart planning rules, to eliminate strong policy altogether. It’s happening agains with the recent approval of Pat Neal’s 3H Ranch.
Sarasota residents bear the brunt of these bad decisions with traffic, reduced quality of life, and now, it appears, terrible flooding.
It’s a shame. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Have a look at the video of Stefano Polyzoides presentation before you visit UTC mall again, so you can see what the original plan was. We can get back to smart growth. We can get back to good planning. We need a different philosophy from our County Commission.
Right now, our Board has created a planning system that fails the people in every respect. The Planning Commission is just industry insiders; the planning dept. is run by someone who is not a professional planner, but who goes out of his way to enable the worst plans to come before the Board.
To get back to good planning, we need a different County Commission. It will need to hire tough planners who can stand up to the Neals, the Beruffs et al, and can work to halt or correct very bad plans (3H Ranch) before they're built.
Sarasota board members are bought and paid for by developers. Just like Manatee county. Between they aren't pay impact fees either. These. 4 or 5 developers have destroyed both countries. There should be some multiple billion dollar class action for them to correct this mess and pay for the infrastructure.