"there’s gonna be a dead kid.”

Massive Tatum Ridge apartment proposal underscores Live Local concerns

By: Derek Gilliam | Suncoast Searchlight and Michael Barfield | Florida Trident

Dozens of residents gathered inside a quiet, gated subdivision off Tatum Road last week, many dressed in yellow golf shirts, to protest a plan they fear could transform their rural corner of east Sarasota County.

They came in waves — retirees in polos, young families in T-shirts and jeans — united by frustration over a proposal to replace the Tatum Ridge Golf Links with a sprawling apartment complex that could bring thousands of new renters into a low-density area where cows and horses still graze along narrow country roads.

“Our kids and our grandkids play outside,” resident Mark Salomonsky said. “You put 4,000 cars running down Racimo Drive, there’s gonna be a dead kid.”

The proposed development was filed under Florida’s Live Local Act. Passed in 2023 and expanded in 2025, the Live Local Act was designed to accelerate affordable housing by shifting key development decisions away from local governments. Projects that meet the law’s requirements can be approved administratively, without public hearings or votes by elected officials. And elected officials argue it can be used to push through projects that might not otherwise win approval. 

In Tatum Ridge, neighbors say that is exactly what is happening. M

https://suncoastsearchlight.org/live-local-tatum-ridge-sarasota/