Apartment plans rile Palmer Ranch residents

From traffic concerns to neighborhood feel, residents of the Wellington Chase neighborhood are concerned about a proposed luxury apartment complex near their neighborhood.

A.G. Spanos is under contract with Palmer Ranch Holdings to purchase a 20-acreparcel in the Palmer Ranch area; the contact is dependent on the success of a rezone petition with the county.

Located roughly at the corner of North Ridge Road and Sawyer Loop, the parcel is part of a corridor of zoning that was at one time a planned commercial district; the parcel is currently zoned light industrial. However, the area is slowly being developed into residential zoning — two other parcels have already been rezoned for residential.

Currently the land is wetlands and pastureland, with only a few cows as tenants. The wetlands will stay, but the rest will be developed into a six-building luxury apartment complex with a total of 260 units. The gated community is targeted at young professionals, families and retirees, with one-bedroom units costing a little under $1,000 per month.

About 70 residents voiced their concerns to county, consulting and developer representatives at a neighborhood workshop Tuesday. The less than 10-slide PowerPoint presented to the residents took a little under three hours due to the amount of questions.

“We don’t want residential because we have concerns — light pollution, traffic congestion, the school system,” said Kathy Peters, the president of the Wellington Chase Homeowners Association.

The proposed development would include three three-story buildings and three four-story buildings. The area is separated from the Wellington community by a narrow drainage lake, about 3.3 acres, but the height drew ire from homeowners who would be able to see the buildings from across the water.

“Privacy will be an issue,” said Rich Puckett.

It’s not so much that the land is being developed, Peters said, but that three- and four-story buildings are uncharacteristic of the area.

Justin Powell, the agent for Palmer Ranch Holdings, said in an interview with the Sarasota Observer that putting multi-family units in this location provides a density gradient for the area — developing down from industrial to multifamily and then to single family lessens the intensity.

“It’s a pattern of development,” he said.

Powell said there’s a high demand for rental units — Serenade on Palmer Ranch, another apartment complex in the area, had a six-month waiting list for interested renters last year.

Some residents were not only unhappy with the development — they were unhappy that they didn’t receive a notification of the proposed rezoning.

The county regulates that a proposed rezone and development must be advertised in the newspapers and notices must be sent to residents living in a 750-foot radius to the proposed area. Gillespie assured the 70-some crowd at the Tuesday night neighborhood workshop that his company had followed the rules — however, some of the Wellington residents live outside the radius.

Peters received a copy of the notice of the proposed project from another resident last week. She made copies, and with the help of some other association members, spent the weekend going door-to-door to inform residents who hadn’t been notified about the project and the meeting. There are about 220 residents in Wellington Chase.

“It seems like only a handful got it,” she said.

The developer agreed to make improvements on notifying the community, especially all the residents of Wellington Chase, before the project came before the Sarasota County Planning Commission or the County Commission.

“Eventually someone will buy this,” said Gillespie after the meeting. “I understand their concerns, but this is going to be developed at some point. We’re offering a better alternative.”

The development — which is currently unnamed — isn’t Spanos’ first in Sarasota County. The company, based out of California, also completed two other apartment complexes, Saratoga Place on Palmer Ranch and Serenade on Palmer Ranch.

Spanos will file the project application to the county in late December. After review, it will move to the Planning Commission.

Peters said she’s already contacted the developer again, the morning after the meeting, to make sure she will get future correspondence to the neighborhood about the project. She’s also planning to contact the County Commission.

“We’re going to be proactive about this,” Peters said. “We’re telling them our dissatisfaction.”