Our View: Fast-track zoning change

The new Sarasota City Commission is making real attempts to be more business- and development-friendly, to change the city’s “no” perception. But its own Planning Board is working against that objective, consistently, and that is a problem.

The commission has already eliminated sewer and water-impact fees. Most recently, the commission voted to “fast track” the cumbersome amendment process to change part of the city zoning code.

Right now, any conflict within the zoning code requires the city to take the most restrictive provision. The amendment, which Commissioner Paul Caraguilo proposed in August, would allow the city to take a lesser provision and was moved on to staff for review 5-0.

“It’s not a license to do whatever you want,” Caraguilo said. “If (the code) says you can, you do.” City Manager Bob Bartolotta said the amendment “would give us much more flexibility.”

But the Planning Board, which has a majority of anti-development members and no developers, voted 4-1 recently to recommend that commissioners scrap fast-tracking the amendment and go the normal, protracted method for zoning amendments. Given the discussion during the Planning Board meeting, it is unlikely that board will recommend in favor of the amendment — which is in line with the Planning Board’s history of recommending against many major developments in recent years.

Caraguilo, part of a family of restaurant entrepreneurs, explains the board’s opposition to fast-tracking the change this way: “They don’t want anything expedited, because they don’t have anything pending.”

The city should move forward with expediting the amendment. And then it needs to reconsider the makeup of the Planning Board, changing city rules to require at least two developer seats. It makes sense to have some balance on that board, and there is none now.

+ Bus fare indifference
Bus fares throughout Sarasota County will rise Oct. 3. But the response at several public hearings throughout the county has been one big yawn.

Even in Newtown, which has one of the highest SCAT riderships, eight people showed up at a public hearing and not one spoke against the fare increase. They complained about service and bus shelters.
The fares will increase from 75 cents to $1.25 for a single ticket and $40 to $50 for a monthly pass. A one-day pass for unlimited rides will increase from $3 to $4.

Sarasota County had one of the lowest public bus-fare schedules in the state and nation and had been subsidizing the service with millions in general tax money for years. The rate increases will put the county in the same range as other counties its size in Florida and about the same as Manatee County.

It is the right and necessary choice.