Program aimed at preserving historic structures approved by city

Owners of historic properties in the downtown area now have an incentive to help preserve their buildings while monetizing a portion of their redevelopment potential.

By unanimous vote at its Jan. 21 meeting, the Sarasota City Commission approved an ordinance that creates a voluntary transfer of development rights program for historic properties. Now, owners of buildings in sending zones may sell a portion of their by-right redevelopment density to those in receiving zones within the downtown zone districts and some surrounding neighborhoods.

The program then attaches a deed restriction to the owners of historic properties prohibiting redevelopment — buildings can be replaced but not enlarged in the event of fire, flood or other acts of God — and buyers can apply additional square footage and a limit of two stories in height to their development projects.

How much density may be transferred depends on the size of the sending structure and the zoning of the receiver.

By definition, an eligible sending property is one that could be redeveloped to its permitted zoning density. An eligible receiving property is one that may acquire that unused density to add to its base density when developed. Height cannot be acquired, but can include two additional stories beyond zoning code limits providing the additional density necessitates.

The program is the result of a privately initiated effort by the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation.

“Obviously there's a lot of development pressure here in the city, particularly in some instances with historic properties,” Planning Director Steven Cover told commissioners. “A lot of the historic property owners do recognize that in order to fix up their buildings and to make them viable again, it's a significant investment. Some can make that investment. Some cannot.”

Enter the historic preservation alliance about a year ago, Cover said, which approached staff about developing the TDR program, in part modeled after a similar program in St. Petersburg. 

“This has been a community-led project from the beginning, and in recognition that our historic preservation tool kit has been insufficient to prevent the loss of our historic buildings, the historic preservation transfer of development rights program is the realization of extensive research,” said Erin DiFazio, program director of the alliance. “Over the past year, (there was) collaboration between the alliance and planning staff to build out a data-driven, unifying and functional process that will invite strong community participation and hopefully protect our walkable, historic city.”

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How much the development rights are worth is a private transaction between the seller and the buyer. The owner of a sending property can sell all or part of its development rights to a single receiver, or even portions of it to multiple receivers. Those rights can also be re-sold by the receiver to the owner of another eligible property within a receiving zone.

Eligible properties for both ends of the transaction are identified in overlays for sending zones, receiving zones, and zones that are both sending and receiving, They cover all of the downtown zone districts and neighborhoods such as Park East, Gillespie Park, Laurel Park, Burns Court and others.

The program isn’t limited to historic-designated properties. It is also available to contributing structures, those of similar character and scale, within a historic district.

A receiving property is not granted additional height simply by the transfer of by-right dwelling unit density, said Senior Planner Brianna Dobbs.

“Additional height up to two stories is only available when transferring buildable square footage, and that's excluding the Downtown Bayfront properties as they cannot receive any additional height, only the additional density,” she said.

After unanimously endorsing the TDR program on Nov. 13, by a separate 3-2 vote the Planning Board recommended staff explore allowing up to four stories of additional height for receiving properties. 

“I think it's a price worth paying if it's going to save a large historic site,” Planning Board member Dan Clermont said at the time. “I really believe that once a building gets to a certain height, you really don't notice it as much.”

In its second of the two-part vote, the City Commission excluded that recommendation for now, with Jen Ahearn-Koch adding to her motion, “We could consider that later and gather input for that.”

Mayor Liz Alpert supported further investigation into the extra two stories, adding it could provide more flexibility to the program and “possibly that might make the difference between somebody being able to sell their development rights and somebody not.”