Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/112475
Sarasota News Leader March 1, 2013 Page 26 Bradenton recently finished and adopt- B. Would you favor expanding adminised a form-based code, and it seems to be trative site plan approval to the North palatable to everybody. Trail? Chapman: The reality is the development community in this community has always felt the rules could be changed for their benefit. They never consider the need for the neighborhood or the existing developed area to have compatibility as well. There has to be predictability on both sides in order to reach an agreement. Holland: It���s so tricky. I say [it can be handled] through ��� Planning Board [hearings] and the redevelopment meetings. I���m a neighborhood person, and I understand the issues of neighbors not wanting tall buildings next to their houses. I understand lot sizes are a problem, the depth of the lots. Otherwise, we���re going to repeat this conflict again and again and again. We seem to be on the road to it one more time. When the density bonus was there, we proposed a compromise; we thought we had a compromise: ���Let���s do a test case and see if its works.��� By Monday, there was no compromise because they decided they could beat us. I do not have the fear of administrative approval that some neighborhood candidates do. I think the discussion needs to continue. You and I have done this: We���ve gone to meetings since the 1980s about the North Trail. Some things have been done. There have been improvements, but there is still so much that needs to be done. It turned out we beat them, and thus began my I feel it could be a tool. But I have a real strugreputation of being anti-development, wheth- gle with it, not because I���m afraid to say, ���Yes��� er I am or not. or ���No��� as a candidate. It���s that balance I alYour voting record on the Planning ways struggle with, having worked so long Board does not suggest you are anti-de- and so hard to protect neighborhoods and be velopment. sensitive to neighborhoods, and yet know that we���ve got to have redevelopment, retrofit, parChapman: Ninety-three percent of what the Planning Board sees is approved. What is not ticularly on the North Trail, where those placapproved is things that are changes that are es sit there stagnant, and in some instances are magnets for the criminal activity there. incompatible. The reality is, we don���t have a supply issue. We have a demand issue. But we also have a development community that, in their belief system, actually believes Sarasota is anti-development. [Administrative site plan approval] deserves some serious consideration, but I understand the friction with the neighborhoods and how you come to some kind of agreement. I do not have, and perhaps I should, have the fear of it. They honestly believe that, sincerely believe Citywide? that. It���s not true. Just because you don���t get a change of every rule every time you want it Holland: I would consider it. Yes, I would consider it. doesn���t mean we���re anti-development. ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���