New affordable housing project planned. Can this part of Ellenton handle the impact?
Developers won the first step toward approval for a new affordable housing project Thursday, but the the fight for final approval from the Board of County Commissioners is far from over.
Pearl Homes, a Sarasota-based affordable housing developer, is proposing to build out 160 acres of land at the southeast corner of Ellenton Gillette Road and 29th Street East in Ellenton. Representatives for the Our Lives project asked the board to consider a mixed use rezoning for the property, but the number of homes and the types of uses allowed in that category gave commissioners pause.
“I don’t want to make it difficult for your client to provide affordable housing, but I have a problem with mixed use, because it’s the most intensive use in our comprehensive plan,” Commissioner Betsy Benac said.
Darenda Marvin, a planner representing the applicant, told commissioners that the request was brought on by “a change in circumstances.”
Initially, Pearl Homes had proposed different development that would’ve brought 720 residential units to the same space. But the board’s approval of a 2 million-square-foot expansion of industrial development at the Florida International Tradeport that sits just east of the site, made that project incompatible.
At the time, Marshall Gobuty, president of Pearl Homes, wrote to the board, urging them to consider that his planned project that would be affected by the change next door. Commissioners approved it anyway, sending Gobuty back to the drawing board to tweak his development.
Those changes included revising his project to ask for a mixed use designation, as well, to serve as a “complementary use” to the Tradeport, which is slated to bring in 800 jobs. It also allows Our Lives to plan for support uses such as restaurants, day cares and offices to be positioned inside the site and not fronting along Ellenton Gillette or 29th Street.
The mixed use designation would also allow for industrial uses on 60 acres on the east side of the property, adjacent to the Tradeport. It would also allow up to 1,200 residential units, according to a county staff analysis. However, Marvin noted that the entire parcel would not be exclusively dedicated to housing.
“We’re trying to bring a plan that brings things internal and focuses on the employment center that this county voted for, and obviously we desperately need that,” Marvin said. “So we need to bring something that’s complementary to that.”
But those complements come at the risk of increased traffic on roads that can’t handle the capacity, and without the county having improvements scheduled for that area in the next five years, officials said it would be hard to support the project.
“It’s very hard to wrap my mind around it and say this is the best thing for this area. The transportation issues are huge and I don’t see this as an improvement,” said Commissioner Priscilla Whisenant Trace.
Marvin stressed that the law prevents her from sharing more detail about the upcoming development plan, but she offered to meet with commissioners to explain why Pearl Homes opted to ask for mixed use development. A meeting with concerned neighbors is planned for the future, as well.
Despite opposition to the density, board members voted 5-1 to transmit the Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment to state officials. Trace cast the dissenting vote and Commissioner Vanessa Baugh was absent from Thursday’s meeting.
The county will hold another public hearing for the project within six months of receiving comments back from the State Land Planning Agency. There will be at least four more public hearings before Our Lives earns final approval from the board.
