Ever since the Sarasota County Commission opened the process to revise Sarasota County 2050, the most hotly debated issue on the horizon has been fiscal neutrality. As the matter prepares for an airing in front of county commissioners again on Aug. 27, groups on both sides of the issue are rallying support.

The fiscal neutrality requirements in the 2050 plan as approved in 2007 require developers to show they are paying the necessary offsets for infrastructure improvements associated with new growth. Developers say phasing requirements have made it impossible to get financing for projects east of Interstate-75, while conservationists feel changes in the requirement will inevitably short more costs onto the shoulders of taxpayers.

Dan Lobeck, president of Control Growth Now, said changing the timing elements in fiscal neutrality will effectively open the east county up to overdevelopment. "The proposed changes would effectively do away with the fiscal neutrality requirement that the huge developments allowed under the Plan pay their own way," he said in a mass email encouraging supporters to attend the Aug. 27 meeting. "Now, the deal is off, with the developers getting everything and giving nothing." 

But business leaders said that was an exaggeration. Kevin Cooper, vice president for public policy and Sarasota Tomorrow initiatives at The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, said the impact of proposed changes is far less. "The misconceptions, misunderstandings, and disingenuous half-truths floating around out there about fiscal neutrality are staggering," he said, noting no organizations are pushing for elimination of neutrality, just a change in how it works. "What has adjusted is the acknowledgement of a long-standing fundamental business concept.  Specifically, as posited by staff, 'most developments are not uniformly fiscally neutral.'  In some instances of development, this might not happen before the end of the first phase.  So, requiring all 2050 development to demonstrate fiscal neutrality for each phase has, to a large degree, acted as a moratorium on village development."

Sarasota County's Planning Commission in July voted 5-0 in favor of those changes, recommending the county commission approve a change in language. The changes drafted by county planners would allow for development in its early phases now be neutral, and allow that future phases of development will compensate for early shortfalls. Staff said that change was in recognition that many developments take decades to complete. The changes also would establish monitoring procedures of actual revenue to detect any significant deviation from projected areas, something to make sure the process allows development to move forward but which does not, as critics fear, allow all burden to shift to the taxpayer.

“This is a journey we have to keep at,” said Planning Commissioner John Ask, but stressed the matter needs to carefully watched in the future.. “Nobody wants to pay more taxes because of this.”