Sarasota County needs new approach on development

This column by environmentalist Jono Miller first appeared in the Herald Tribune:

Sarasota County needs new approach on development

Jono Miller

Guest columnist

Animals are able to implement some amazing plans – just consider weaverbird nests or beaver dams. But as humans we can record our intentions on paper, whether it is a clipped recipe, a kitchen remodel blueprint or a detailed trip itinerary.

We’ll never know if a particular beaver dam ends up meeting the beaver’s expectations.

However, we humans doknow when things don’t taste right.

Or when the cupboard shelves haven’t been properly aligned.

Or when the trip itinerary actually ends up taking us in the wrong direction.

That’s sort of where Sarasota County is with a development theory known as 'conservation subdivision.'

On paper this approach seemed to hold a lot of promise: instead of evenly spreading homes out across a rural parcel, they would be concentrated, thereby leaving plenty of open space for the residents and habitat for wildlife. The environment would benefit – and it might even cost less to build.

Sarasota County’s administrative staff summed up this approach well when it stated that conservation subdivisions should 'preserve environmental systems, rural character, and the viability of agricultural land by creating greater flexibility' in the design of residential developments.

But it’s worth reviewing just how large-scale residential development proceeds in Sarasota.

Big challenges

The biggest challenge has been land cost; Sarasota is popular, and land prices reflect its desirability.

The next biggest hurdle is hydrologic: Sarasota’s first settlers chose higher, drier areas (downtown Sarasota, Old Miakka and scrubby areas elsewhere). But most of the rest of Sarasota historically would have been covered with several inches of water during portions of the summer rainy season.

A few inches of flowing water are not a problem in many situations – for example, consider Myakka River State Park, which floods each year. Native ecosystems are generally adapted to this inundating sheet flow, but new residents are not so tolerant.

The roofs of homes, driveways and roads create another problem because their impervious surfaces promote quick runoff, and you’re not supposed to increase the rate of water flowing toward your neighbor. So the runoff water is required to be 'detained' and released slowly over a period.

The default approach to all of this is dig a detention lake which should accomplish three things:

•Create some storage to slow down runoff.

•Provide fill to elevate house pads.

•Create some 'waterfront' property so that your lanai is not 20 feet from the neighbors.

But all of these solutions create their own problems:

•The excavated subsoil used for the house pad – and parts of the yard – is basically lifeless and not great for growing things.

•The vegetation that already does exist won’t survive growing through layers of this austere fill, which in turn creates an incentive to simply remove it and add landscape plants back in after the fact.

•The lakes take up a lot of space, which means single-family residences need to be smushed close together on small lots.

So what’s been the local result of this approach? Again, it’s worth quoting the Sarasota County staff, which has determined that from 'a high-level perspective, the Conservation Subdivisions that have been completed appear to be conceptually no different than a conventional subdivision.'

Sarasota isn’t Indiana

The dream was different.

Conservation subdivisions didn’t originate in Sarasota – they were imagined by proponents of the New Urbanism movement and their appealing sketches include forests and fields in a rolling upland landscape, as first proposed in Indiana.

And, significantly, no stormwater ponds are shown in these sketches.

But in flat Sarasota, with its high water-table and copious summer rains, stormwater ponds have become obligatory. So recent conservation subdivisions in this area feature big, steep-sided lakes with minimal wildlife value.

In theory if we built on pilings, used cisterns, permeable paving and other technologies that kept offsite runoff the same, stormwater ponds wouldn’t be needed. But unless it’s mandated, no developer is likely to try such an unconventional approach.

That’s a big reason why recent conservation subdivisions in Sarasota County have proven to be failures. And it’s why the Sarasota County Commission needs to halt any new proposals to expand this flawed approach across the county.

Sarasota is not Indiana.

Jono Miller is a local educator and the former co-director of New College of Florida’s environmental studies program

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