The Sarasota 2050 RMA review process has been characterized by opponents as being driven by developer-funded interests intent on unleashing unbridled, taxpayer-funded growth east of Interstate-75.  On numerous occasions, in print and in public comment, changes to the plan are implied to undermine what was a seemingly grand compromise based on years of extensive public input.  Specifically, opponents of the process contend that the plan is being “gutted.”

The Sarasota 2050 plan was indeed the result of years of public input.  However, calling the plan a compromise somewhat dilutes the definition.  While a compromise requires concessions, presumably it reaches an agreement that is acceptable to the parties involved.  However, the 2050 plan was pressed into litigation and bitterly contested by some environmentalists and special interest groups who claimed that the plan would allow too much development and dismissed by some landowners and homebuilders who insisted it was too rigid and inflexible.  If we can consider the 2050 plan a compromise, perhaps one Commissioner described it best as an “uneasy compromise.” 

Two months after the Florida Department of Community Affairs approved the Sarasota 2050 plan, a legal challenge was filed against both Sarasota County and the DCA.  The challenge would effectively halt the adoption of Sarasota 2050. 

The petitioners, a group of self-proclaimed environmentalists and public interest groups, claimed that the plan was not in compliance due to issues so numerous that they took nearly 70 pages to outline their argument.  The legal challenge, a nearly 18-month long process, cost taxpayers a reported, and presumably at minimum, $200,000.  An administrative law judge found that the petitioners failed to establish that the plan was not in compliance and would note in some instances that there was overwhelming evidence disputing the claims.

Interestingly, some of those same groups and individuals now fight to protect the 2050 plan they so vehemently opposed 12 years ago.  In doing so, those opposed to the 2050 review process make an apparent attempt to incite the public by implying that any change to the plan would undermine the compromise that was made.  Apparently lost in the annals of history is the attempt by these same groups to do then what they now decry – gut the 2050 plan. 

Inexplicably, the legal challenge to 2050 included a claim that the County failed to provide adequate opportunities for public participation.  Yet, at the same time, 12 years later, those opportunities were apparently adequate enough for an unassailable compromise.

In 2002, it was asserted that the 2050 plan would allow unbridled, taxpayer-funded, growth in the areas east of I-75.  In 2014, it’s been asserted that changes to the 2050 plan would allow unbridled, taxpayer-funded growth in the areas east of I-75.

It seems curious that a plan once so despised for its apparent sweeping elimination of environmental and taxpayer protections would become so revered for its ability to protect the environment and the taxpayer. 

That is, of course, until one realizes that, for those determined to be in opposition, 2050 works because it doesn’t work. 

SRQ Daily columnist Kevin Cooper is Vice President of Public Policy and Sarasota Tomorrow Initiatives for The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce