Protecting Sarasota's Waters

Help Protect Our Waters
Follow the Sarasota County Fertilizer Regulations Now

Fertilizer ordinance information:

On August 27th the Sarasota County Commission took a huge step to protect our waters by passing the strongest ordinance in the state to control the use of fertilizer. The Training related part of the ordinance does not take effect until 180 days after it is filed with the state.

We urge that homeowners and lawn care professionals begin today to follow the other new regulations now.

Here is what you should do now:

• Do not apply fertilizer with Nitrogen and Phosphorus to your lawns during the summer rainy months of June through September.
• Do not apply any fertilizer within 10 feet of any body of water. If you live on the bay or the gulf, we suggest you use a larger setback: 25 to 50 feet.
• When you do apply fertilizer in spring or fall, use a blend that has at least 50% timed or slow release and apply no more than 2 lbs nitrogen and 1/4 lb phosphorus (if needed) per 1000 sq. feet per application. Four pounds nitrogen and 1/2 pound phosphorus are the maximum allowed per year.

Here is what you can do for future:

• Remove as much sod as possible in favor of beds of Florida Native plants or Perennial Peanut or Sunshine Mimosa (they need no fertilizer or watering once established), mulched with Melaluca (an invasive plant) mulch (do not use Cypress mulch as wetland trees are cut down and ground up to make it).
• If you live near a pond or other water element, plant aquatic plants at the edges. Some decorative types are: Pickerelweed, Duck Potato, Canna Lily and Water Lily. Grants are available from Sarasota County, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and Southwest Florida Water Management District.

These things will help to jump-start restoration of our waters, bays and gulf.

Note: Melaluca Mulch may be purchased at Troy’s Tropics, Albritton’s Nursery, Florida Native Plant Nursery and others. Florikan makes the fertilizer blend.

For more information contact:

Healthy Gulf Coalition Ph: 906-8176;

Sierra Club Ph: 951-6084;

Sarasota County NEST program Ph: 861-0929;

Beautiful Ponds, Inc Ph: 488-1942;

Sarasota Bay Estuary Program Ph: 955-8085

The Hazzard Fountain

This fountain is located in front of the Municipal Auditorium. In a city brochure describing the Municipal Auditorium, the fountain is described as follows.

In 1940, Maine shoe manufacturer R. P. Hazzard gifted the city of Sarasota with a lighted fountain designed by Frank Martin (son

of Auditorium architect, Thomas Reed Martin).

Built by renowned artisan Louis Larsen, the fountain was the auditorium's "crown jewel."

Widening of US 41 (Tamiami Trail) eventually

forced the fountain's removal. After years in storage, it graced the Ringling Museum entrance until changes there banished it to storeroom obscurity once again.

The only Art Deco-style fountain of its kind in public ownership in the U. S. today, the Hazzard Fountain was rescued by the city, restored and returned to its original site in front of the Auditorium in 1995.

Smart Growth and Living in the Suburbs

There is an interesting series of articles concerning smart growth in recent issues of the LA Weekly. This issue spotlights the neighborhoods where some of the most well known smart growth planners live. Not quite smart growth areas:

Do As We Say, Not As We Do
Smart growth’s biggest boosters still love suburban living
By DAVID ZAHNISER

If any one principle provides the underpinning for smart growth, it’s density — putting multistory homes around rail stations, on bus corridors and at the heart of urbanized areas.So why are so many smart-growth advocates avoiding density in their own lives?

Take Henry Cisneros, a board member with Smart Growth America. The onetime head of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development came to Los Angeles a decade ago to work for the Spanish-language channel Univision — and immediately found a home in the plush, gated community of Bel Air Crest.

Cisneros, who now runs a company that builds entry-level housing, says that when his family moved, it was thinking heavily about crime — the 1997 North Hollywood bank shootout and the slaying of Ennis Cosby, the son of actor Bill Cosby. He also insists that he was not the driving force behind the decision on where to live.

“It’s the place my wife found,” he says. “We didn’t know the community very well. It’s what she chose, and given that I traveled a lot, and we did not know L.A., I felt it was the right thing to do by the family at the time.”



Cisneros now splits his time between L.A. and San Antonio, leaving his daughter and son-in-law as the main occupants.

Many other high-density housing advocates have also avoided the multistory lifestyle they say Los Angeles so desperately needs.

Take developer Nick Patsaouras, a onetime board member with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who heads the firm Polis — Greek for “city.” Patsaouras, who designs apartment buildings around rail stations, lives in a single-family neighborhood in Tarzana and would need to walk one and four-fifths miles from his hillside home to find the nearest bus.

Then there’s Los Angeles Planning Commissioner Mike Woo, founder of the Smart Growth China Institute, which urges the largest nation in the world to embrace “sustainable transportation and urban planning alternatives instead of duplicating the mistakes of the developed world.”

Woo lives on a hillside in Silver Lake where every home is zoned R-1 — a planning designation meant to keep apartments and condos far away. “This is one of the best neighborhoods in L.A. — other than [its lack of] bus access,” he says.

Consider also Pasadena architect Stefanos Polyzoides, a guru of new urbanism, who has designed transit-oriented housing developments around the Metro Gold Line. Polyzoides lives in a leafy section of Pasadena less than a block from San Marino — which prohibits all construction of apartments. His street has not only restrictive single-family zoning but also signs that bar anyone from parking without a permit.

Polyzoides, who has not only a house but also an 83-year-old Caltech observatory on his land, gives a pithy explanation for his low-density lifestyle choice: “I can afford it,” he says. “And (b), I think I’m doing a tremendous favor to my city by adopting a historic building that I am taking care of.”

More on this story can be found here.

Another story in the series is titled:

Peddling Smart Growth
Call your project “smart” — even when it isn't — and get millions in public funds.

It, too, is a good read.

Sarasota County Urban Forestry Program Receives Recognition

From Sarasota County News:

Sarasota County Named Outstanding Urban Forestry Program

For the second consecutive year, the Sarasota County Urban Forestry program has received a top statewide award. Today, it was named Outstanding Urban Forestry Program at the statewide Trees Florida conference in Palm Harbor.

Last year, the county received the Tree City of the Year Award at the annual conference. Both awards were presented to Urban Forestry Manager Demetra McBride by Trees Florida, a coalition of representatives from the Florida Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, the Florida Urban Forestry Council, the Florida Division of Forestry and the University of Florida Extension.

The Trees Florida 2007 awards are presented for outstanding efforts to plan, plant and protect urban and community forests throughout Florida. The Urban Forestry division of Public Works was particularly recognized for its outstanding people, projects, techniques, education and outreach and management of natural resources with special regard for Floridas urban forests.

In presenting the award at todays luncheon, Trees Florida Chairman Michael Conner said that Sarasota Countys green infrastructure programs focusing on the use of the urban forest as a bio-utility was the decisive factor in selecting the county program for the statewide honor.

"In 2005, the Sarasota County Commission directed the Urban Forestry Program to expand its management plan beyond mere aesthetic use of the community's forest," McBride noted. "The Forestry Program employs a small, committed group of skilled and talented arborists, who have distinguished this program since 1988. This award recognizes the vision of the county's leadership, and our hard work and ingenuity, to promote and manage the urban forest as a utility and as an essential element of sustainable growth."

Previous, recent Outstanding Urban Forestry Program award recipients included the cities of Plantation, Hollywood and Marco Island.

The Sarasota County Urban Forestry division is the steward for the countys urban forest, representing trees found in the wild, in parks, on beaches, in the county rights of way, medians and thoroughfares, and along waterways and canopy roads. The division manages about 54,000 trees throughout the county, including more than 113 street tree and neighborhood street tree projects and 64 certified canopy roads.

For more information about the Urban Forestry division, contact the Sarasota County Call Center at 941-861-5000 or visit www.scgov.net/forestry.

Sarasota County's urban forestry program is also mentioned prominently in the latest issue of the National League of Cities publication "Nation Cities Weekly".

Changing Face of Ringling

Two buildings that harken back to the days of John Ringling still survive on the street that carries his name 80 years later.

The building at 1727 Ringling (La Casa Apartments) was built in 1925 and remains an apartment building today.

Next to it is Hotel Ranola. Originally an apartment building, it is now a boutique hotel. It was built in 1926.

Towering over these buildings is the condo portion of the Rivo on Ringling - an 18 story mixed use project.

Do Planners Become NIMBYs?

A story in the Tuscon Citizen begins:

My Tucson: I love infill - just not in my backyard

It's a dark day when an urban planner must admit to being a NIMBY.

Any Tucsonan recognizes the "Not in My Backyard" folks who object to development in proximity to them, or anywhere in town, for that matter.

During my years at the Pima County Planning Department, staff wagered on the winner of the "Newest NIMBY in Town" award.

At public meetings to garner local input on development, invariably someone would grab the microphone and accuse us of ruining this town.

The grand winner was a woman who had moved here from Michigan only seven days prior, outraged that we would plan additional residential development.

She made an impassioned plea for shutting the gates before her week-old small-town lifestyle was changed forever.

Should have done it.

The rest of the story can be found here.

World Monument Fund Tabs Riverview High as One of the World's 100 Most Endangered Sites

From a World Monument Fund press release today:

For Immediate Release—New York, NY, June 6, 2007 . . .

The 2008 World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites was announced today by Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund (WMF), the nonprofit organization that, for more than 40 years, has helped save hundreds of endangered architectural and cultural sites around the world. This year’s list highlights three critical man-made threats: political conflict, unchecked urban and industrial development, and, for the first time, global climate change.

Announced every two years, the WMF Watch List acts as a call to action, drawing international public attention to threatened cultural heritage sites across the globe. The Watch List is assembled by an international panel of experts in archaeology, architecture, art history, and preservation. For many historic sites, inclusion on the List is the best, and sometimes the only, hope for survival.

One of the sites listed is "Main Street Modern", a catchall phrase denoting mid-century modern architecture. A specific site pointed out is Paul Rudolph's Riverview High School in Sarasota:

Main Street Modern
Various Locations, United States, 1945 – 1975

SIGNIFICANCE
Most communities in the United States have at least one public building designed in the Modern idiom. Whether community centers, schools, libraries, or religious institutions, these buildings represent an important shift in the history of twentieth-century American architecture when Modernism was chosen over traditional styles in order to project a national image of progress. More than residential or commercial buildings, it is the civic architecture of Post-World War II America that retains the early Modernist agenda––as conceived in Europe during the interwar years––to democratize design and society.

For example, Modern design principles were used to create schools that reflected the ideal that all children should have equal access to quality education. European émigrés like Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe––all former Bauhaus leaders––as well as the architects they helped train, such as Paul Rudolph, I.M. Pei, and lesser-know designers, created many of the icons of Modern architecture, including the Whitney Museum of Art, Seagram Building, and Yale University Art and Architecture Building. They were also the architects responsible for many of the everyday Modern structures that are now integral parts of the American main street.

The work of these designers was united by certain core principles, including a departure from traditional forms, the integration of arts and design disciplines, and the use of industrial materials and innovative technologies. Physically embodying these core principles, the architecture of “Main Street Modern” is typically characterized by simple, geometric or abstract forms, machine-made components, and new expressions of space, such as the use of glass walls that remove the visual barrier between exterior and interior.

THREAT
The primary threats faced by Modern architecture are demolition or inappropriate renovations and the technical challenges of conserving the experimental materials and innovative building systems used in their construction. These two factors pose an immediate threat to many mid-twentieth-century buildings. However, the greatest threat is perhaps public apathy––a lack of consensus or confidence––that buildings of the recent past can be important enough to be preserved for the future. This could be because the public feels alienated from the theories and intellectual concepts that informed Modern architecture and because it will take additional time and research to understand how these buildings fit into the continuum of American architectural history.

There are a number of significant “Main Street Modern” buildings threatened with demolition or degradation right now, including Paul Rudolph’s Riverview High School (1957) in Sarasota, Florida and Marcel Breuer’s Grosse Pointe Public Library (1953) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

The world continues to watch the threat of demolition of Rudolph's Riverview High School building.

Urban Forestry

An interesting letter to the editor from Sunday's SHT:

Article published Jun 3, 2007

Urban forests can offset development

Current trends indicate a doubling of Florida's population by 2060 (to 34 million), with 80 percent of that influx settling within 40 miles of a coastline. To prepare for the inevitable urbanization and coastal density, planners are looking to "new urbanist" models that will reduce consumption of resources and conserve them for future use. Among these principles, "green infrastructure" and the use of the urban forest as a "bio-utility" are now recognized as critical to the success of smart growth.

A well-designed, -managed and -maintained urban forest has the proven capability to:

1. Sequester carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

2. Intercept deadly particulate pollution.

3. Control and filtrate surface water, circulating fresh rainfall back into the natural hydrological system.

4. Prevent coastal erosion.5. Cool our external and internal environments, thus reducing our energy consumption.

A healthy urban forest with "green corridors" preserves urban and suburban habitat for wildlife. Species selection, together with a feasible mitigation plan for invasives, is essential. Tree benefits do carry some costs -- principally maintenance and impact on hardscape. But the net benefit is increased if we focus on the planting and preservation of native species, which over the ages have established themselves harmoniously with other ecosystems (estuaries) and the patterns and needs of local wildlife.

Nonnatives seriously disrupt our environment.With recent publicity concerning habitat restoration projects in our area, it is important to address this issue in the context of the science of urban forestry management rather than focusing on a single species.

See the following Web sites for more information:

www.fnps.org/pages/plants/invasives.php

www.fleppc.org/FLEPPC_

www.dep.state.fl.us/lands/invaspec/2ndlevpgs/pdfs/Circular21.pdf

www.treelink.org

www.planning.org/forestry



Tim Eiseler

The writer is a landscape architect, certified arborist and urban forester in Anna Maria.

Changing Sarasota

An interesting juxtaposition is seen with the new high rise buildings downtown appearing to loom over the older buildings along Fruitville.

While the shop pictured here sells antiques, some may view the building itself as an antique, being replaced by a modern scene. But the building hangs on, providing local character as well as business activity.

Florida Trust for Historic Preservation

From May 17 to 19, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation held their annual statewide preservation conference here in Sarasota. Workshops, tours and social events were held during the three day affair.

The theme for the conference was "Ringling to Rudolph", definitely a local flavor with a hint of today's issues.

With the headquarters for the event was at the Hyatt, a bit of irony was also present when the wrecking ball made its first plunge into the Quay buildings on May 18 - the midpoint of the conference.

Sarasota Election Results

Two new commissioners will be seated on Friday, March 13. Kelly Kirshner and Dick Clapp received more votes than the incumbents they are replacing.

News story about the latest election is here.

A Humane Metropolis

Neil Peirce wrote an very interesting column about "Keys to the Humane Metropolis".

An excerpt:

Now, another idea has surfaced. It's called "The Humane Metropolis."

A book with that title, edited by Rutherford Platt, was recently published by the University of Massachusetts Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. A conference on the topic was held a week ago in Pittsburgh.

So what is a "humane metropolis"? The key words seem to be green, healthy, sociable, civic and inclusive.

A metropolis (i.e., metro region or citistate) is considered green if it fosters humans' connections to the natural world -- an idea Anne Whiston Spirn promoted in her seminal 1984 book "The Granite Garden." Spirn rejected the idea -- easily absorbed if one watches too many "concrete jungle" films, or even televised nature documentaries -- that the natural world begins beyond the urban fringe.

"Nature in the city," she wrote, "must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued."

That means renewed attention to welcoming urban parks, from entire "green necklace" systems within metro areas to the emerald-green sanctuary of small vest-pocket parks. Community gardens, green roofs, street trees and planted medians all count -- and today more than ever as antidotes to the "urban heat island" phenomenon and the spread of global warming-inducing greenhouse gases.

Something for us to think about in Sarasota.

Downtowns and Prosperity

From an article in The Economist:

San Jose has attempted to create a commercial heart by selling city-owned land or even giving it away to developers. The city offers tax breaks and uses a portion of the property tax to pay for improvement projects. Since the late 1970s the redevelopment agency has shelled out $2 billion, almost two-thirds of it on downtown. It has built museums and theatres to lure people to the centre. Trams have been supplied to entice them out of their cars.

Such largesse has indisputably made the middle of San Jose more appealing than it used to be. By any measure other than an historical one, though, the campaign has been a failure. The office vacancy rate in downtown stands at 21%—higher than it was four years ago, during the dotcom slump, and almost twice as high as the Silicon Valley average. The theatres, which were supposed to lift downtown, now depend on the council to bail them out of trouble. In a city of 912,000 people, just 30,000 passengers ride trams each day. All this in a wealthy metropolis that has higher house prices than anywhere else in America, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Despite its anaemic condition, most visitors to San Jose at least know where downtown is. That is not the case in Las Vegas. The historical centre, with its string of small casinos and its neon cowboy, once seemed glitzy. It is now a shadow of the Las Vegas Strip, which has grown dementedly since the late 1980s, building ever larger, more exuberant hotels. Despite offering better odds than their competitors, the downtown casinos took in $630m last year, compared with $6.7 billion on the Strip. And they are the brightest spots in the area. Beside them lie cheap motels, shuttered shops and bail bondsmen.

The article is titled "Where the lights aren't bright." It is worth reading.

A Major Tree Issue

Trees sacrificed for more roadway
By Jack Gurney-Pelican Press

Nobody knows for sure just how many trees Sarasota County has sacrificed so it can widen a 1.8-mile stretch of Bahia Vista Street to four lanes, but the current estimate exceeds 1,700 for a project that is costing taxpayers more than $27 million.

"This was a tough one on the trees," conceded David Godson, a county forester. "There were tons of them in the construction area and not much hope to preserve any in the right-of-way.

We looked after those that had the potential to be saved."

This is a disturbing issue that we face too many times in our city and county. We talk about the need to preserve the environment, global warming, storm water run-off and the nutrients that come with it and the negative effect on Sarasota Bay, yet development pressure takes hold and we remove precious tree canopy.

The full Pelican story can be accessed here.

A sad day for all of us.

Trees and North Port

North Port is in south Sarasota County - it is one of the fastest growing areas of Florida. The following story highlights one of the growth issues:

Article published Mar 8, 2007 in the Sarasota Herald Tribune
By HEATHER ALLEN:

NORTH PORT -- City hall insiders know it as the battle between "the tree people" and "the builders.

"The dispute is what you would expect: conserving vs. building. But this squabble isn't as simple as it sounds.

Not in a place where the transformation from a sleepy town into a booming community of big-box stores and $400,000 homes affects everyday life and where roads can't be built, repaired or widened fast enough.

Perhaps no issue better illustrates the friction between the people who think things are changing too fast and those who say development is the key to North Port's future than the yearlong effort to draft a tree ordinance.

Conservationists say they're trying to bring a responsible sense of environmental stewardship to the city.Builders and some city leaders view their efforts as unrealistic and a threat to North Port's economic engine.

And while some portray the conflict as environmentalists vs. builders, the city has not been on the sidelines. In 2002, it sent out mailers telling residents that a proposed tree protection law which assessed fees for protected trees removed during new development would weaken tree protection, not improve it.

"There's a misconception that every builder clear-cuts every lot that they can," said Paul Morgan of the North Port Contractors Association. "I think you've got some people who are very passionate about their trees and I can understand it to a point -- because I love trees.

"The finger-pointing began last year when the city decided the best way to quell the feud was to appoint an equal number of tree people and builders on the Blue Ribbon Ad-Hoc Tree Committee.

The eight-member board was asked to craft an ordinance that would set steeper fines for illegally clearing land and propose other preservation standards.

But what was intended to be a collaborative effort quickly fell apart when the builders quit the committee.

Instead of scrapping the committee, additional tree enthusiasts were added to replace the departed builders. Then, last month, the city commission dissolved the committee and directed city staff to draft an ordinance, a decision that has some tree committee members claiming the city never took them seriously in the first place.

In the News - The Hits Keep On Coming

Time Magazine's on line version has a story about the demolition of Paul Rudolph buildings. Included is a reference to Riverview High School here in Sarasota:

And Riverview High School in Sarasota, Fla., the city where Rudolph started his career in the 1940 and '50s, is now in danger of being sacrificed for a parking lot.

Check the entire story at this link. There is also a reference to the NY Times article about the same issue a couple days ago.

Arts Tour

EXPERIENCE THE 36TH ANNUAL CREATORS & COLLECTORS TOUR

The Fine Arts Society of Sarasota offers the opportunity on March 16-17 to purchase artwork as you visit the home studios of photographer Steven Katzman, painters Olivia Braida and Julie Trigg, sculptor Frank Colson, potter Ann Darling and collector Carolyn Michel.

Also, a Galleria of nine local artists formerly featured on FASS tours:
Jack Dowd
Dee Winterhalter
Ki Woon Hu
Bill Buchman
Larry Forgard
John and Suzie Seerey-Lester
Adrianne Winer
Peppi Elona

will be presented in the Crossley Gallery at the Ringling School of Art as part of this self-guided tour between 10-4 each day.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the artist's homes or the following locations:

SARASOTA CENTRAL
Van Wezel Box Office
Ace Hardware - all stores
Davidson Drugs - all locations
Blue Line, 301 N.Central
BOX Furniture Boutique, 1417 1ST ST
Metro Coffee & Wine Café, 711 S. Osprey
State of the Art Gallery, 1525 State St
Gallery of Colleen Cassidy Berns, 4613 S. Tamiami
Piper Collectibles, Coral Cove Mall, 8419 S. Tamiami
Sarasota Enchanted Flowers,
Plaza at Palmer Ranch, 8419 S. Tamiami

LONGBOAT KEY, ST. ARMANDS KEY
Longboat Key Art Center, 6868 S.Longboat Dr.
Exit Art - all 3 locations

SIESTA KEY:
Davidson Drugs, all locations

LAKEWOOD RANCH
Kemery’s Hallmark, 8322 Market St

VENICE:
Paper Pad 213 W. Venice Ave
Venice Art Center 390 S. Nokomis Ave

Call 941-330-0680 for information.

Seagate Story

The Cincinnati Enquirer has an article about the Crosley Mansion - Seagate. Excerpts are below.

If you're heading to see the Reds spring training in Sarasota, Fla., plan a visit to the beautifully restored mansion of former Reds owner Powel Crosley Jr.

The Cincinnati industrialist, inventor, automaker and WLW-AM founder built the lavish 21-room Mediterranean-style home in 1929, five years before he purchased his hometown baseball team.

Called Seagate, it was nestled among pine trees on picturesque Sarasota Bay.

Today it's hidden by the new University of South Florida campus on former Crosley property along the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41). The Crosley mansion is easily overlooked by vacationers who instead flock to the estate of Crosley's friend and next-door neighbor, circus owner and art collector John Ringling.

But Seagate definitely is worth trying to find on Wednesdays, when free public tours are available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Inside, visitors will see the original pecky cypress ceiling beams and Italian tile floor in the living room where Powel and his wife, Gwendolyn, entertained guests for 10 years, until she died in 1939.

Upstairs they'll see Crosley's round wood-paneled nautical-themed office, with a ceiling wind-direction arrow connected to a rooftop weathervane.

Thanks to My Florida History for discovering this article. There is lots of interesting information at the My Florida History blog site.

Growth Control

Orlando Sentinel article.

Sierra Club backs push to let voters rule growth

The group's $35,000 gift boosts Florida Hometown Democracy, which business groups decry.

Kevin Spear Sentinel Staff Writer Posted March 1, 2007

Backers of a statewide proposal to give voters ultimate authority over new subdivisions, shopping centers and other future growth received a $35,000 contribution and vows of vigorous support from one of Florida's largest environmental groups Wednesday.

The Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club stepped firmly behind the Florida Hometown Democracy campaign, which aims to gather enough voter signatures to put a proposed constitutional amendment on next year's ballot. If passed, local politicians would have to win voter approval to change growth-planning guidelines.

"I think more and more people are becoming outraged by how we are growing," said John Hedrick, Sierra chairman for growth issues, who announced his group's support in Tallahassee. "I think people feel cut out of the planning process."

Hedrick said the Sierra Club in Florida has 18 local groups with a combined membership of more than 30,000. Each group has pledged to secure thousands of voter signatures.

Ross Burnaman, co-founder of the movement, said the proposal needs about 611,000 verified signatures by early next year. So far, Hometown Democracy has gathered 250,000 signatures, and about 110,000 have been approved by county elections supervisors, he said.

The proposal has drawn the ire of business associations and interest groups. Among them, the Florida Chamber of Commerce has launched a campaign that mocks the proposal as a "Hometown Democracy Scam."

"It would mean no new jobs and no new roads in Florida," said Adam Babington, coalition director at the chamber in Tallahassee. "It would turn every growth decision into a negative political campaign."

Florida Hometown backers said that kind of reaction stems from fears among development interests that the proposed amendment would make it harder to maximize profits.

"I think the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a little hysterical," said Lesley Blackner, the other co-founder of Hometown Democracy. "It's not a scam; it's about letting people vote. Maybe they don't want endless [population] density crammed down their throats."

Burnaman, of Tallahassee, and Blackner, of Palm Beach County, are land-use and environmental lawyers who joined together in 2003 to start Florida Hometown Democracy.

Voters can get ballot-petition forms online at florida hometowndemocracy.com or by calling toll-free 1-866-779-5513.

The initial effort to get on the 2006 ballot was struck down in 2005 by the state Supreme Court, which ruled that the proposed amendment's language did not meet legal requirements. The two lawyers regrouped later in 2005 with revised language that went on to win approval.

Another obstacle to the initiative emerged last year when Florida voters decided that future ballot questions must gain at least 60 percent support to be approved, rather than the simple majority that long had been the standard.

Still, observers say the proposal has a good chance of getting on the 2008 ballot and perhaps a better chance of winning approval.

"I think if it were on the ballot today it would pass easily," said University of South Florida political-science professor Susan MacManus, adding that resentment for growth is "strengthening day by day.

"If voters approve Florida Hometown Democracy, her worry is whether people would vote on complex growth issues.

"Local elections have low turnout, and I think you might have critical decisions being made by people with an agenda," MacManus said.

Tom Drage, lead attorney for Orange County government, said he is concerned about whether voters will want to inform themselves on many complicated issues.

In the past four years, Orange County has reviewed 262 applications for changes in growth plans and approved 125. Those vary from wording changes to reclassifications for intense development.

Tim Jackson, an Orlando planning consultant and vice president of the controlled-growth advocacy group 1000 Friends of Florida, said his organization is concerned Florida Hometown Democracy will turn local planning into popularity contests based on who has the most cash for marketing campaigns.

"We're not promoting it," Jackson said. "We are promoting people being engaged actively in their community."

The Central Florida think tank myregion.org, which has business and government backing, recently conducted a survey asking residents to pick from among alternative visions for managing a population that could double to more than 7 million residents by 2050.

Hedrick of the Sierra Club said the survey suggested that such growth in inevitable."That's poppycock," he said. "They are not asking the fundamental question of, 'Is that what the people of Florida want?' "

17TH ANNUAL SARASOTA HISTORIC HOMES TOUR

The Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation is proud to present the 17th Annual Historic Homes Tour on Sunday, March 4th from 11 AM to 5 PM.

This year’s tour will feature five delightful residences within their neighborhood context. Neighborhoods are an important part of Sarasota’s historical setting and help to define our city’s character, beauty and unique identity. Two homes are located in the Avondale Neighborhood, south of Hudson Bayou, and another three in the Grove Heights neighborhood.

“Teardown of historic homes has plagued the nation’s urban areas and affects us in Sarasota as well” states Alliance President, Christopher Wenzel on the decision to emphasize the neighborhood theme. “One by one, teardowns and larger scale replacements take an individual pearl from our string of pearls.”

1905 Alta Vista Street
The William and Bessie Pearsall House is a two story Mediterranean Style residence. Designed and built by local prominent architect Thomas Reed Martin in 1925, the home reflects the style and living standard of the time. It also embodies the history of economic expansion in the city of Sarasota. In 1928, the Pearsalls lost the home to foreclosure. The home was then sold to William and Emma Geiger and Bessie Pearsall transferred the furnishings of the house to the Geigers for $700.

1124 Brewer Place
This two story bungalow design features Moorish and Italianate influences – most notably the large square tower and parapet of the front façade. The building is thought to have been constructed for utility purposes, serving either as a pump house or fire station in the 1930’s and 40’s. An early plat map of the Avondale Subdivision shows the undersized lot between adjacent corner lots on the block adding to the theory it was not originally intended as a residence.

1828 Grove Street
The Edward H. Knight Residence is a one story wood frame bungalow with detached garage. Possibly moved to the property, the residence appears on the 1936 tax rolls when the property ownership was transferred from Ella Cobb to Edward Knight. Ella Cobb is thought to have been the wife of real estate developer, J. Paul Cobb, brother of the illustrious baseball player, Ty Cobb. An interesting feature of the home is beneath the trap door in the rear hallway. It leads to a small concrete room that was once a cistern for the collection of rainwater.

1936 Grove Street
This 1925 one story bungalow with detached garage, known as the Westmore Tenant house and Smith brewer Home, a Spanish eclectic style residence incorporates qualities of Spanish, Colonial, Byzantine, Moorish, Mission and Italianate styles. It represents the American democratic ideal of the emerging middle class, providing quality low-cost housing with excellent craftsmanship.

1919 Grove Street
The Ryan Garner Residence, a one story cross gabled Spanish bungalow, represents typical home construction during the Florida Land Boom. The home was purchased in 1926, following the October hurricane, by the family of Dan Ryan, a mortgage broker from Cleveland, Ohio. Other prominent local owners of the property include Frank Binz, Jr. of Binz and Lambert Construction and Edgar Allen Garner, who served as Chief of Police for the City of Sarasota from 1933 to 1949. Interior furnishings are exquisite and the home was recently featured in “Romantic Living” magazine.

The $20 tickets can be purchased in advance at Davidson Drugs, Main Books, Sarasota News and Books, The Sarasota County History Center, Sarasota Architectural Salvage and Historic Spanish Point. Tickets may also be purchased the day of the tour at any of the tour homes.

The mission of the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation is to preserve and enhance our historic places. We invite you to celebrate Sarasota’s rich architectural heritage and diversity by visiting these beautiful homes in their historic neighborhoods. For more information, call the Alliance at 941-953-8727.