SEERD Update for September/October 2025

Here is the full text of our SEERD Update for September/October 2025.

We apologize for the delay in sending the email notice and hope that you enjoy the update. We have a message coming out next week via email with a preview of some of our plans for the new year and an in-person meeting being scheduled as soon as we can find a convenient venue to share details with our neighbors and answer your questions about what comes next.

1. Noise Complaints Continue. Residents in Bee Ridge communities located adjacent to The Classical Academy (TCA) have been once again disturbed by noise on Friday evenings, apparently resulting from football games with amplified announcements and music. Recently, the sound levels were lower than previous games, suggesting that resident complaints to the Sheriff’s Department, County Code Enforcement and County Commissioners may have made a difference. We continue to monitor and document those impacts along with the traffic and parking situation so that the neighborhood can seek relief from these largely unmitigated impacts via discussions with the school, the County and through the courts. SEERD will be hosting an in-person meeting with the neighborhood next month at a date to be announced to provide an update and answer questions from our neighbors and supporters.

2. Florida law restricting local growth plans draws another challenge. The lawsuit, filed by the City of Tallahassee in Leon County Circuit Court, came after 25 cities and counties filed a similar legal challenge last week. What was Senate Bill 180 after being signed into law on June 26, 2025 has created many challenges to local growth management plans and regulations, resulting in costly uncertainty. In many cases this legislation has stymied efforts to enact more effective regulations aimed at protecting the health, safety and welfare of residents faced with a new set of natural and manmade conditions that threaten both life and property. This loss of local control over planning and development negates many of the well-known advantages of local self-governance with the state exercising authority but not taking responsibility for the outcome.

3. Florida law facilitating conversion of church properties to private schools with minimal local authority draws encouraging response from local planning and design professionals. Section 1002.042(19)(c), Florida Statutes, that first took effect in July 2024 and was amended a year later pre-empts some of the local building and growth management responsibilities when private schools attempt to repurpose property designated for public or religious use. There are other instances, including here in Sarasota County where planning and design professionals are considering how to responsibly convert these properties that currently represent an uneconomic and, in some cases, financially unmanageable use of land into things that could serve urgent public needs such as affordable housing. We will be watching how these efforts proceed to see if a better balance can be struck between private use of real property and the public interest so that progress toward more sustainable development is possible.

4. Road and other infrastructure need improvement. We noticed that some repairs have been made to Clark Road after potholes developed and grew on portions of the roadway, west of the traffic circle at Lorraine Road. There are similar problems that need to be addressed on Lorraine from Clark to Bee Ridge as well as further south on Lorriane from Bee Ridge to Palmer. The perennial “dig” to bury new pipelines along Lorraine seems to have ceased for the time being. Some areas are being resodded, but other areas of standing water, barricades and equipment remain. The County’s newly improved and expanded sewage treatment system is due to be commissioned by the end of the year. How that impacts the quality of treated water, how much can be recirculated for irrigation versus injected back into the aquifer and its impact on adjacent land uses in terms of noise and smell, will be things that we will all be interested in.

5. Sarasota County’s Continuing Governance Challenges. Thankfully, we have not yet had to test the improved maintenance on our stormwater management system this hurricane season. It appears that much of the long-deferred maintenance has been tackled by the newly created County Stormwater Management Department using funds appropriated through the Stormwater Assessment and the utility created for that purpose. Residents, with the help of the Stormwater Environmental Utility Advisory Committee, will want to monitor future performance to understand how larger capital projects involving new infrastructure and major improvements to existing facilities requiring permitting are identified, prioritized, selected and implemented. At the same time, the source of funding, its adequacy and the incidence or fairness of this non-ad velorum tax also merits watching. If we can affordably engineer our way out of the vast amounts of impervious surface that we have added in this rapidly growing county and avoid devastating floods, perhaps we can do the same with expansion of our system of roads, supply of fresh water and other essential public services and facilities.

6. DR Horton’s latest application for residential development adjacent to the Celery Fields. On October 21st at the County Commission meeting, DR Horton presented its revised application to build a residential community at the Smith Farm, adjacent to the Celery Fields. The applicant was turned down by the County Commission last year and the applicant has filed an appeal before a Special Magistrate requiring that the applicant and county engage in mediation. Now the applicant has reduced its plans from 170 to 85 residences and made some other site plan changes in the hope that the County Commission will reverse its rejection and approve its latest proposal. The Audubon Society presented the objections raised earlier which helped persuade the County Commissioners to reject the original proposal, updated to reflect the downsizing that the applicant has done with its application for rezoning. The County Commissioners also allowed other residents to present their views on this new application for rezoning and once again voted 5-0 thus, rejecting the applicant’s latest proposal.

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