Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/235968
Sarasota News Leader January 3, 2014 that a new development will produce enough revenue through impact fees and taxes to make up for the increased burden on county services such as roads, schools, libraries and more. The first 27 pages of the 48-page report barely mention Sarasota. They instead feature an extended attack on the very notion of smart growth itself, going all the way back to Chaucer to make the case that smart growth is "authoritarian," "coercive" and "elitist." The report draws largely from the work of writers such as Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded in part by Charles Koch, one of the infamous Koch brothers, and Wendell Cox, affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, also funded in part by the Koch brothers. The Sarasota Downtown Improvement District (DID) board on Nov. 12 decides to give a loan to a merchants association to speed up the installation of decorative lighting in time for the holidays. The DID board is reviewing a proposal for $135,000 to put color-changing lights around 28 trees in Five Points Park. Meanwhile, the Sarasota Downtown Merchants Association is looking at a $14,800 project to illuminate 22 trees with white lights along Main Street. "We just finished a fantastic streetscape and we need to attract people to enjoy it," says DID Chairman Ernie Ritz. The Sarasota County Commission in mid-November roundly dismisses the first draft of an analysis of portions of the county's Sarasota 2050 Plan, while at the same time absolving Laffer Associates, the consulting firm that Page 114 prepared it, of blame, and recommitting to its contract with the company. The firm's contract with the county called for Laffer to "review the history of New Urbanism/ Smart Growth development" and to "place the Florida state regulations, as well as the Sarasota 2050 Policy, into proper context." "They did what they were asked to do," Commission Vice Chairman Charles Hines says of Laffer. Chairwoman Carolyn Mason agrees: "It's not this firm's fault." Interim County Administrator Tom Harmer says the request for the history of smart growth was added at the behest of Laffer, but that "staff is responsible for managing the contract and finalizing the scope of work." After speaking with Laffer representatives that morning, Harmer tells the commissioners the document the county received should be considered an "initial preliminary draft," and that the firm is willing to rework it and come back with a second first draft. Under the revamped arrangement, Laffer is due to be paid half its $90,000 fee upon delivery of that version, and it will present its final draft in January instead of December, as originally planned. On Nov. 18, the Sarasota City Commission votes unanimously to approve a request from attorney Bill Merrill for a speedy change to the city's comprehensive plan to increase density in the Rosemary District. Merrill will work with staff to triple the current 25-unitsper-acre density in the Rosemary District, just across Fruitville Road from downtown. A staff report says that will "allow for the development of smaller, market rate housing units." Merrill's plan calls for creation of a "Rosemary Residential Overlay District."