Sarasota News Leader

12/28/2012

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Sarasota News Leader December 28, 2012 directional bore is on-site at The Pointe Condominium complex on south Siesta Key that day, in preparation for the horizontal drilling under Little Sarasota Bay. The drilling is under way, she tells the News Leader. It is expected to continue for approximately two weeks, including weekends. ��������� Less than three months after $300,000 in state money became available for Sarasota County���s Energy Economic Zone, county staff is already working on a rebrand. Economic Development Coordinator Lisa Damschroder says that beginning early next month, county staffers will come together to figure out a new name for the program, to reflect the new, less geographically specific direction it has taken. According to Damschroder, the 2009 state legislation that created the Energy Economic Zone Pilot Program (which was also taken up in Miami Beach) was originally a ���land-use program��� focused on fostering green businesses within two strictly defined geographic areas: the State Road 681 corridor in Nokomis and Page 60 the central county landfill. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, which oversees the Pilot Program, writes on its website that Sarasota County chose an undeveloped area of approximately 1,000 acres within the adopted Urban Service Area as one of the two designated Energy Economic zones. A compact site served by the Legacy Trail, which is more than 10 miles in length from just south of the City of Sarasota to Venice and proximate to a network of major roadways, the locale affords opportunities for a mixed-use land use design that integrates multi-modal and transit features. In addition, the county���s program model includes the creation of clean technology and ���green��� jobs within this zone, thus promoting a balance of jobs to housing. But the program has shifted, Damschroder says, to a more generic economic incentive plan that offers tax breaks to clean technology and green businesses in those original zones, as well as in several designated Major Employment Centers throughout the county. % Documented Siesta Village maintenance costs handled by Sarasota County were shown to be more than $100,000 less than the tax assessments property owners paid for the upkeep over the past year, county officials say. Photo by Norman Schimmel

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