CON: Aqua by the Bay will destroy its very name

Developers are sometimes wont to market their projects based on the very things they’ve destroyed. Oak Village may be a subdivision that once featured oaks, but now nary an oak tree in sight. Sunny Farms might have built new homes on what was a farm but is no more.

Such is the concern of many Manatee County citizens with the Aqua by the Bay proposal. In this case, the focus is on the fate of the largest expanse of pristine mangrove shoreline along Sarasota Bay. Aqua by the Bay is a mix of mid- and high-rise residential buildings oriented along El Conquistador Parkway, totaling up to 2,894 units, some 76,000 square feet of commercial retail uses, retention ponds, open space, parking and paving.

However, to realize this development, the applicant wants to excavate a 2.5-mile segment of upland frontage using the dredged material to raise the site grade 12 feet out of the Coastal High Hazard Zone, to create a lagoon of up to 120 feet wide and to buttress the upland site with a wall (no, not that wall) thus segmenting the mangrove swamp from the upland area.

The developer calls the lagoon an Estuary Enhancement Area, although a consultant report commissioned by the county questioned why this mangrove swamp and sea grass area of Sarasota Bay needed to be enhanced. In fact, the consultant, CB&I, stated that the benefits were “unclear.”

What is clear is that segmenting mangroves from upland areas in the face of sea rise, more intense tidal surges and storms will threaten the health of this ecosystem — essential to protect young marine life, to support the fishing and tourist industry, to filter pollution and to mitigate the potential damage of storm surges.

Aqua by the Bay — no, not this way.

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 2:38 PM with the headline "CON: Aqua by the Bay will destroy its very name."