A coupling of development fees has political leaders threatening action against the City of Sarasota. They suggest the city has lost out on tens of thousands each on a number of projects while limiting transparency to the public. But developers say it’s already expensive to do business in the city without additional, potentially prohibitive costs. 

The dispute centers around site plan and building fees. Civic group STOP says the city frequently allows large projects to be built without providing sufficient notice to citizens or paying site plan review fees to the city. “They need to provide a definitive answer about whether they are going to provide notice for all of these administrative projects that require a site plan and need to decide whether they will collect fees,” says Kate Lowman, a STOP steering committee member. “If they are not going to do those things, they need to say why.”

Sarasota city spokesman Jason Bartolone says developers have the option to have site plans processed in conjunction with a building permit, rather than doing one process and then the other. “Only one fee is charged in those cases because less staff time is required to process both at the same time,” he says. And that would appear to be an option growing in popularity.

STOP officials says they reviewed 16 projects permitted over the past five years and of those, nine elected to do site plans in conjunction with their building permit review. Lowman says her chief concern with the process is citizens effectively lose the right to appeal approvals on these projects because affected parties don’t get notified the same as when a site plan gets reviewed separately from winning its final permit. And she suggested city staff, knowing developers involved in the permit process have already invested substantially in a project, end up being less likely to advise site plan changes that make for better city planning.

Beyond transparency, she says there’s also a financial cost. She looked at five projects that did pay fees separately—BLVD, Cityside, The Mark, Renaissance and The Vue—and on average those developers paid $23,897 per development.

But one of the developers who elected to process site plans and a building permit simultaneously says it would make no sense to force developers to pay more than they already get charged. While his BOLD Lofts appears on the list of developments STOP says paid no site plan fee, BOLD developer Jesse Biter says that’s because the project did not require an initial site plan approval. “We submitted for building permit,” he says. “There is no reason to take an initial site track when the project meets all zoning by right.” Still, pulling all necessary permits for BOLD Lofts cost almost $200,000, and that’s before another $522,000 in impact fees.

Lowman says that shows that for a developer, the site plan fee would represent a fraction of total cost. Law firm Lobeck & Hanson sent a letter to the city saying STOP is prepared to take legal action to compel the city to fulfill its obligations regarding the fees.

Bartolone says right now developers who undergo the formal Development Review Committee process get charged appropriately. But city officials will review their process. “Senior staff, administration and the City attorney plan to meet sometime in the next week or so to address possible changes to administrative procedures involving site plan applications,” he says. 

All candidates who qualified to run for county commission have been invited by CONA Sarasota (Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations) to participate in a candidate forum scheduled for their race. The forums are free and open to the public. The forum for district two candidates for county commission will be held by CONA on July 9. The forum for district four candidates for county commission will be held by CONA on August 13. The location for both forums is the Sarasota Garden Club. A social at 6:30pm precedes the forum that begins at 7pm. Qualified candidates for any scheduled local race and those proposing ballot initiatives are welcome to attend the social before each of the forums in order to make contact with voters and to distribute literature and yard signs—even if not scheduled as a member of the panel for that forum. 

CONA Sarasota

The Sarasota County Commission has awarded Embracing Our Differences a $52,082 Tourist Development Cultural/Arts grant to help fund its 2019 exhibition season, which runs January 19 through March 15 in Sarasota’s Bayfront Park. For 15 years, Embracing Our Differences has drawn on the passion and perception of artists, children and others to create powerful statements of diversity and acceptance in its annual outdoor public art exhibition consisting of 45 billboard-sized works of art and accompanying quotes. The scale and impact of this outdoor exhibition has continued to grow, attracting more than 2.7 million visitors since its inception. This exhibit is the heart of a year-round program of activities designed to use art as a catalyst to create awareness of and promote diversity. A call for art and quote submissions for the 2019 exhibit is ongoing through October 15.  

Embracing Our DIfferences

The Sarasota County Commission awarded the Sarasota Concert Association a $46,116 Tourist Development Cultural/Arts grant to help fund its 2019 Great Performers Series. The 2019 Great Performers Series features the piano duo Anderson & Roe (January 14); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (January 24); the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, with mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (February 11); Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with Jeremy Denk, piano (February 21); the Pavel Haas Quartet (March 15); and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, with Fabio Bidini, piano (April 3). Five of the concerts are at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and one concert is at Riverview Performing Arts Center. SCA also presents Music Matinees, a free concert series that includes performances by high-caliber, area-based artists. The series is designed to offer a variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz and opera, and features vocal and instrumental performers. 

Sarasota Concert Association

Amy Worth, broker-associate with RE/MAX Platinum Realty in Sarasota, recently earned the Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist (CLHMS) designation from the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. The CLHMS designation recognizes experience, knowledge and expertise in high-end residential properties. Worth joins an exclusive group of real estate professionals who have completed the Institute’s training and have a proven performance in the upper-tier market. A local real estate professional for more than 25 years, Worth is president-elect of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee. She holds the Graduate Realtor Institute (GRI), Accredited Buyer's Representative (ABR), Certified Depressed Property Expert (CDPE) and e-PRO designations. 

RE/MAX Platinum Realty