Manatee County restricts future development

EAST COUNTY — Manatee County officials have spent the last two years studying concepts for future growth in Manatee County — but growth, in general, may be on hold.

A public records request submitted by the East County Observer revealed Manatee County officials are encouraging employees in the building department to slow down the review, permitting and other process for development applications.

“We still need to figure out who we are, as a county, before we let any of this construction progress,” reads a memo from Gus Facelift, the county image coordinator for the marketing department. “It’s like the child who wants to be a movie star and a television star when they grow up. You can’t be both.”

The memo does not say the county is implementing a building moratorium, but it does encourage employees to make the construction process as time-consuming as possible, as to deter development or drastically slow it down.

It says employees should require at least 20 revisions each time they review a plan and that they should take at least a week to respond to each inquiry, for example.

In the memo, officials stress the importance of Manatee County’s need to realize its identity before moving forward with growth plans. It cites the conversion of the Manatee Civic Center to the Braden Area Convention Center, as another example of Manatee’s identity crisis.

“Manatee County needs to be its own recognizable name — Lakewood Ranch has a Bradenton address. University Park has a Sarasota address,” Facelift said. “It’s all messed up. We need to help sort out the issues.”

For the last decade, Manatee County officials have shied away from high-density projects in unincorporated areas, enacting a “low rise — low density” development philosophy.

But a countywide study, called “How Will We Grow,” exploring future growth concepts has offered alternative growth strategies — including ones focused on developing the county’s southwest sector, on creating activity centers through on the county and “staying the course” by not making any changes to development patterns.

The county had been considering amending its Land Development Code — and even held public workshops on the topic.

According to the emails obtained by the East County Observer, the county also has indefinitely suspended a planned neighborhood grant program, in which county staff would meet with homeowners from a specific community and listen to their wishes for their community.

“If we public officials don’t know what Manatee County is, our citizens surely don’t,” Facelift said.

The memo suggests creating whoarewe.com so Manatee County residents can fill out surveys about how they perceive the community currently.

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected]

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