The concerns of Manatee County are on the record.
In a May 17 letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, environmental review section manager Joel Christian outlines how Carlos Beruff’s plans for a mitigation bank skirt county and state rules.
Aug. 11, Christian said his concerns still exist and whether the county will send a similar letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — now considering a federal wetlands permit— is up to the county attorney.
He said the county doesn’t normally participate in other agencies’ processes — “but felt it necessary for the state permit.”
Christian heads the county division reviewing Aqua by the Bay, a large-scale, mixed-use development proposed by Beruff companies, Cargor VIII and Long Bar Pointe LLLP.
The proposed development runs landward next to Beruff’s mitigation bank, about 2 miles south of the village of Cortez.
Formerly called Long Bar Pointe, it was reincarnated as Aqua after county commissioners turned down a proposed Beruff development at an August 2013 meeting attended by more than 1,000 people — many concerned with the hotel, marina and channel dredging proposed by Beruff.
One of Christian’s concerns is Beruff’s failure to include a 50-foot buffer between the development and wetlands contiguous to Sarasota Bay as required by the Manatee County Comprehensive Plan.
Despite the mitigation bank and intersecting federal and state rules, Christian said the developer is not exempt from county rules.
“Beruff may not like all of the county’s rules. But he still has to follow them.”
His other concerns include:
Beruff applied for a 529-acre, mixed-use development plan and included the bank’s 263 acres to calculate the number of permissible homes. The bank site is not reviewed or regulated by the county.
In the allocation of mitigation credits, the DEP should consider how the proposed construction of a 2-mile lagoon, running between the bank and the development “may negatively affect the wetlands.”
A 120-foot gap in the bank leaves the coastal environment unprotected from future development.
Proposed mangrove trimming and five drainage easements fail to protect intact ecosystems.
The DEP lacks justification for issuing mitigation credits for sea grass impacts.
Since purchasing the property from SBC Development in 2012, Beruff received one final site plan approval in September 2014 for 69.02 acres at the site in the southeast corner of the subdivision bounded by Sarasota Bay and El Conquistador on the east and Legends Bay.
Beruff has filed three suits since purchasing the property.
In a case Beruff’s taken to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, his companies sued the county calling its coastal protection policies under the comp plan unconstitutional — and lost in 12th Circuit Court in January. Through his attorney, Beruff paid $2,644.97 in court-ordered costs in May.
Another suit against the county settled in April. The county and Beruff called a truce over El Conquistador Parkway, which developers built and sought repayment. The suit claimed the county illegally conditioned development upon easement dedications, impact-fee credit waivers and $2.3 million in road construction reimbursements. The county attorney recommended the settlement where parties walked away without exchanging any money and left Beruff to navigate current rules of development.
In another case that appears to have stagnated since March, the developer sued Florida Power and Light, claiming trespass and ejectment because of its transmission and distribution line running in the bay, across its property.
FPL responded with an answer that claims Beruff or his predecessor knew of the facilities, which are part of a 50-year-old electric power grid used to bring electric to Beruff’s property as well as Longboat Key.
