Revisiting Model Behavior

From a recent posting at Sarasota Voices:

Subject: Re: COS: "giving away four stories of public space"

I would like to respond because I was the one that was quoted out of context by Bob Ardren in the Pelican Press. Ardren sat in a CRA Advisory Board meeting where we were discussing the role of one of the members in regard to design review. Because this is a financial and investment based board, as outlined in their resolution, I was discussing the difficulties in requiring those types of graphics at what is a very preliminary design review stage. We have always required detailed plans and drawings for projects but requiring models and engineered plans before DRC review is not without problems.

I agree with Save Our Sarasota regarding models but I believe it should be at the time of formal plan review and in fact I was the first person to request and receive this during the original 5 Points review in 1999. I felt I needed to correct this because I do not think it is right to sit in a public meeting,pick a sentence out that someone says, and use it in a different context, in what is an editorial passing itself off as news.

Karin Murphy [City of Sarasota Planning Dept.]

Save Our Sarasota would like to commend Karin for setting the record straight. We also appreciate the fact that we are thinking along the same lines with regard to models. With the major changes taking place in our downtown it is very difficult, if not impossible to visualize what is proposed until after the fact (construction is significantly underway).

Models can help visualize the proposed changes. We would like to see two types of models:

• The first type would show the proposed new building embedded within the adjacent buildings. This would allow showing some architectural detail.
• The second type would show how the proposed structure fits into the the entire downtown - that area covered by the downtown code. This would be a large model and each new proposal would show how it would contributes to the downtown area.

Only with models, can we easily grasp the size and context of the proposal. Models would cut through the "pretty picture" renderings that are so often the only thing we see. We also agree that models should be available at the plan review stage.