Neighbors navigate Crew development

Depending on where you stand — or how high up in this case — your views on Sarasota Crew’s new facility may vary.

Neighbors who live near the proposed rowing facility have mixed reactions to Sarasota Crew’s application to rezone portions of the 3.2-acre parcel,  located west of U.S. 41 and north of Bayview Lane in Osprey. Sarasota Crew filed the application in July after purchasing the property for $975,000.

Some rezone requests were designed to provide adequate room for the boat house, the centerpiece of the plan.

Tim Hazelwood, who lives on property adjacent to Sarasota Crew’s parcel, is ambivalent about the plans.

“This is the last little bit of old Sarasota we’ve got,” he said of the parcel that hasn’t changed much in decades.

But he pointed to derelict structures on the parcel that he said are a nuisance and the maintenance and industrial vehicles parked there.

“This (stuff)’s got to go,” he said.

Tim Cristello who, with his father, Jim, owns two parcels at the southern edge of the Sarasota Crew parcel, said he worried initially that traffic, noise and headlights at the proposed turnaround or drop-off area would disturb his tenants.

But he praised the Sarasota County staff who, he said, addressed all of those concerns in part by agreeing to build a wall along the southern edge that would buffer or block light and noise.

Sarasota Crew representatives had to submit a binding concept development plan to the county to have portions of the property rezoned from single-family, residential to multifamily residential. Higher densities allowed by the new zoning would allow the organization to build a dormitory facility to house athletes.

And that’s part of what worries Barb Kakosczka, who lives in Hidden Bay, a multistory condominium south of the parcel.

At a public hearing on the rezone petition, she asked what would happen if the project were to flounder and the property was sold to a hotelier.

In an email to the Sarasota Observer, planning staff wrote: “It could be developed by someone else for a facility for transient accommodations, but (the size of the parcel and zoning of 22 units maximum) ... may severely limit its practical use as a hotel or similar facility.”

But Kakosczka said she feels that Sarasota Crew wants to build a facility that’s too large and too close to the water, obstructing the views of the bay from many of her building’s units. She praised Sarasota Crew but said it doesn’t seem to care about her property value or her view.

“They’re going to do what they want to do, no matter what,” Kakosczka said.

Sarasota Crew is still designing its new home, which it will occupy in addition to its current Bay Preserve facility in Osprey, according to treasurer Roy Dupuis. He said some elements of the project, such as the size of buildings, will depend on funding.

Dupuis said the organization has raised some money, but declined to say how much and couldn’t say how much it would need.

Representatives of Sarasota Crew met recently with Laird Wreford, coastal resources manager for Sarasota County, to discuss funding strategies related to the West Coast Inland Navigation District in hopes of funding part of the facility with grants from that taxing district.

Cristello sees the project as a potential boon for the public and for the county and hopes the county will “piggyback” on what Sarasota Crew is doing at the site. He said he would be willing to sell his land under such a scenario.

“It could be a nice amenity for everyone,” Cristello said.