Planning Board sides with The Strand residents against apartment project

A developer proposes 58 apartments between North Tamiami Trail and condos in a matter to be settled by the City Commission.


The proposed apartments along North Tamiami Trail at 16th and 17th streets are outlined in red. The Strand condominiums are located to the left of the site along Whitaker Bayou.
The proposed apartments along North Tamiami Trail at 16th and 17th streets are outlined in red. The Strand condominiums are located to the left of the site along Whitaker Bayou.
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During a Planning Board meeting briefly interrupted by an emotional outburst by an audience member ended with a recommendation to deny an apartment development between North Tamiami Trail and The Strand condominiums that stand along Whitaker Bayou. 

Central to the controversy in comments made to the Planning Board at its May 14 meeting by residents of The Strand was the 15 days’ notice they had about the hearing to amend a 2022 rezoning to permit residential rather than commercial on the 1.78-acre site comprised of two parcels. Owned by Illinois-based Tammy II LLC, the developer is seeking to build 58 apartments over two buildings and using a driveway to be shared with residents of The Strand, the latter which was part of the original approved plan from 2015.

Although some residents cited matters not relevant to the hearing — flooding problems they are already experiencing chief among them — most objected to the fact the required community workshop on changing the parcel from commercial to residential held before completion of The Strand in 2022 and, as new owners, had no chance to participate. 

The project faced delays for multiple reasons, chiefly the illness and death of the original project engineer and abandoning plans to use the lift station on site and instead tie into the city sewer system. 

As affected parties, residents of The Strand received their notifications of the hearing — which came as a surprise. With the developer, through its consulting team, declining to accept a continuation of the petition to provide more time to work with the residents, the Planning Board voted 3-1 to recommend against approval to the City Commission, which has final say in the matter. The vote did not include Chairman Dan DeLeo, who left the meeting prior to the matter being discussed. 

Original developer Jim Bridges had intended the entire site as mixed-use, but when it became apparent commercial was not viable at that time in that location, sold the property to the current owner. One of the commercial tenants was intended to be Starbucks, which instead built on a location north of the site.

“At the time residential along the North Trail wasn't even considered as viable,” said project consultant Joel Freedman. “Now, residential along the trail is very viable and that's why when the applicant purchased the property and decided they were going to capitalize on that trend of having residential along the Trail rather than commercial.”

Even though some residents argued 58 apartments would bring more traffic to the neighborhood than would 16,500 square feet of previously approved commercial, Development Review Chief Planner Tom Sacharski said residential traffic generates far fewer vehicle trips than would a commercial use.”

“There's always this impression that 50 apartments and 50 condos are going to be just incredible traffic. That is not my experience,” said Chris Gallagher of Hoyt Architects, whose firm has been retained to design the project. “It's just not that much traffic. The removal of the commercial actually lowers the intensity of the site, because traffic counts for commercial is much higher than residential. It essentially is a lower overall intensity with less trip generation than what the commercial would be.”

Gallagher went on to explain the delay in bringing the project forward and the surprise experienced by The Strand residents was not a matter of “dropping the ball.”

“Some unfortunate things happened,” Gallagher said. “It was actually kind of tough starting all over work that basically was almost done when we had to bring in a new engineer.”

Gallagher’s statements elicited a brief profanity-laced tirade from the audience by a resident of The Strand, in the process calling Gallagher a “(expletive) liar,” and on his way out the door shouted, “I am going to sue your (expletive)!”

Planning Board members were sympathetic to the element of surprise endured by residents of The Strand and encouraged a continuation of the hearing set against the likelihood of a negative vote. 

“If I had to thread a needle, I would probably lean toward a continuation of the hearing,” said board member Douglas Christy. “But if that's not going to be an option, my personal perspective is it's going to be (commission) approved. They’re presumably making use of property rights they have. They're not building to the max. They've exceeded the parking and they check the boxes.”

Manager of Development Services Allison Christie said while a 3-year gap between a community meeting and a hearing is out of the ordinary, the project is in compliance with the code and with the North Trail Overlay District, and it conforms to the standards for parking, density and land use requirements. 

Caught in a quandary between project compliance and The Strand residents’ inability to participate in the process — and without a continuation on the table — the Planning Board backed the opposition and passed the matter to a higher authority.

 

author

Andrew Warfield

Andrew Warfield is the Sarasota Observer city reporter. He is a four-decade veteran of print media. A Florida native, he has spent most of his career in the Carolinas as a writer and editor, nearly a decade as co-founder and editor of a community newspaper in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

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