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Another mega development is advancing in Manatee County, this one proposing 7,200 homes in a rural area near Parrish outside the urban service boundary, presenting another test of whether a line meant to constrain growth – which Lakewood Ranch also wants moved – will stand.

The Manatee County Planning Commission this month recommended forging ahead with a proposed amendment to the county's long-range growth plan that would allow L3 Partnership LLC to proceed with the company's Gamble Creek Village development on 5,000 acres. The land is owned by the Lindsay family and is just south of State Road 62, about two miles east of an urban service boundary meant to rein in urban sprawl.

The development is being pitched as an agricultural neighborhood, or "agrihood." In addition to the 7,200 residential units, L3 Partnership wants to build 2 million square feet of commercial space and 1.8 million square feet of light industrial space surrounded by larger 80-acre tracts of agricultural land.

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Mark Barnebey, an attorney with Blalock Walters Attorneys at Law, presented the proposal to the Planning Commission on April 8. Despite concerns raised by county staff about urban sprawl if a development in that region is allowed to proceed, the planning board recommended sending the growth plan change to the state, something that must be approved by Manatee County commissioners at a future meeting.

"It is the largest, single, undeveloped tract remaining in Manatee County," Barnebey said during the Planning Commission meeting.

"There are approximately 60 agrihoods nationwide," he added. "The Urban Land Institute defines agrihoods as single-family, multifamily or mixed-use communities built with a working farm or community garden as a focus. We are going to have working farms surrounding our property, and community gardens as part of our focus within our neighborhoods."

Combined with an effort by Lakewood Ranch to expand by 7,000 more homes to the east, the Gamble Creek Village proposal represents a major push for development beyond the county's urban service boundary line, known as the Future Development Area Boundary.

The boundary delineates where the county will extend infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines.

"This is probably one of the most important aspects of land use that comes before us, because any time you speak about that urban service boundary, it's important," Manatee County Commission Chair Vanessa Baugh said during a recent hearing on the Lakewood Ranch expansion.

If both development proposals move forward, they would add more than 14,000 homes outside the current urban service boundary, greatly changing rural areas in eastern Manatee.

Sprawl or smart growth?

Although each development proposal has unique circumstances, county commissioners have to decide on the larger question at play – whether they should honor the existing urban service boundary.

The boundary is meant to direct urban development – sometimes called "urban sprawl" – west of the line, and foster agricultural lands and low density development to the east.

Development east of the urban service boundary currently is allowed, but density is capped at one household for every five acres. If the boundary line is moved to accommodate the projects, developers would be able to build up to three homes per acre.

At the planning board meeting, county staff expressed varying concern for the two proposed mega projects and whether they constituted "urban sprawl."

According to Florida's Community Planning Act, "urban sprawl" is a development pattern characterized by low density development that requires extension of public facilities and services inefficiently.

"There has been extensive planning with the comprehensive plan that we have in place today," Manatee County staff member Lisa Wenzel said. "Those policy directions are to place development within the urban service area to try to control growth and make it cost efficient for the county."

Because of this, Wenzel said she was less concerned about the Lakewood Ranch proposal because it is next to existing public utilities already serving the master-planned community. Lakewood Communities is proposing to pay for any necessary utility infrastructure with funding from a special-use district.

Caleb Grimes, a partner with the Grimes Galvano law firm representing Lakewood Communities, presented information about the proposal to the commission on April 15. Lakewood Communities is a subsidiary of Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch.

"One of the things that was said is that we don't want uncontrolled growth, and we don't want urban sprawl," Grimes told county commissioners on April 15. "I hope you all have seen that everything that we have proposed today is to assure it is the most controlled growth you will have."

"The real epitome of urban sprawl is when you do development without infrastructure, so that you have to push out infrastructure to it that is not available, and you do it at very low densities," he said. "We are trying to do something here where we have a development that is in place that has done all of this, and can just continue. It is the opposite of urban sprawl; it is good planning for something that has been very successful and has put a lot of money into this county to assure that the infrastructure is there."

County staff did not share the same outlook on the Gamble Creek Village proposal, because developers would need to "leap frog" about two miles of land that does not have existing utility infrastructure to build the project – making that community dependent on construction of private water and wastewater plants.

L3 Partnership offered plans to pay for utilities for the proposed development through creation of a special district.

The project also would require construction of about 22 miles of new roads offsite, and 10 miles onsite. Staff said that even if the developer were to pay for the onsite roads, the county has not allocated funding nor planned construction of the offsite roads.

"Even with the proposed private utility system (for the Gamble Creek Village project), there will still be inefficient use of the county's other infrastructures and services. There are very limited roadways to the site," Wenzel said at the meeting. "State Road 62 is the only access as a two-lane rural roadway. You still have the public safety, fire, EMS and public (works) that would be required to serve this area. In addition, you have the operational and maintenance costs of the roadways, schools, parks, transit and libraries."

Barnebey, however, said the Gamble Creek Village project should not be considered urban sprawl because it is a master-planned community designed to create a hybrid "agrihood" concept for the traditionally agricultural area.

"This is not urban sprawl. It is a village center with over seven units per acre," Barnebey said. "You want this project in an agricultural area; it is designed to be an agrihood."

Encroaching on Myakka

Residents of the Myakka area have voiced concerns about a large-scale development's impacts on the region, including traffic and environmental issues.

During the April 15 county meeting, more than a dozen residents spoke in opposition to the Lakewood Ranch expansion, drawing sympathy from some commissioners.

"This isn't just about moving a line, this is about protecting Myakka," County Commissioner George Kruse said.

"Communities are better when there is unique, distinct areas of a community," he said to his colleagues. "There are unique places in Manatee County, and if we are not going to protect this one even if it is not in your district, are we going to protect those ones in your district as well?"

Concerns over the development projects have led a group of Myakka and other county residents to organize a grassroots effort to oppose changes to the urban boundary line. The group calls itself Preserve our Wildlife Environment and Resources, or POWER, and is working to establish a nonprofit, said Meredith Barcomb, one of the group's organizers.

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More than 2,500 people also have signed an online petition created by another resident, Nichole Giannelli, to stop the proposed urban boundary line changes.

"The urban boundary line being moved is a huge issue for those of us out east," Barcomb said. "That is where the suburbs end and Myakka is supposed to begin. Myakka is predominantly a farming community; this is our farmland, this is our wildlife, this is our way of life."

"Not only does it open us up to 7,000 homes being developed, which means triple that easily in terms of people on our infrastructure, but it sets a standard for the tolerance of that boundary line being moved back little by little every year," she said, referring to the number of homes proposed by the Lakewood Ranch expansion.

Myakka resident Terrence Meneely is another founding member of POWER, and he said the organizing effort is meant to give local residents a unified voice.

"At what point are we not sticking to the plan, and at what point are the citizens not being spoken for?" Meneely said. "The citizens individually don't feel like they have a say. But collectively, we have a large voice, and it doesn't reside in the pockets of developers, it resides in the almost 80,000 people that live in Myakka."

"So herein lies the urban boundary line; why should it be moved?" Meneely added. "The only reason they have said it should be moved is because developers want it moved, not because it is a part of the comprehensive plan. There is legitimately absolutely and emphatically no reason for that line to move, at all."

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Source: https://www.southernkitchen.com/story/news/local/manatee/2021/04/26/gamble-creek-village-plan-would-bring-7-200-more-homes-parrish-area/7318543002/

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