Sarasota Livin'

Mortons market in Southside village has tried several times to expand their parking lot by rezoning two homes to the west of the current parking lot. It was not approved "again" so that is not really blog worthy .... but I was impressed by the comments made by several of the planning board members.

I think Robert Lindsay said it first .... neighborhood business districts are for neighborhood scale businesses... There is no right for the business to expand into residentially zoned land ... they can move to a location that is better sized for the "new" business or purchase adjoining commercially zoned land for expansion.

I enjoy all of the businesses in the Southside Business District and don't want to see any of them move. But the district needs to stay inside its current boundaries.

The new mixed use zones created by the downtown plan rezoning will have much more business adjacent to single / multi family homes. There needs to be some respect for the uses designated in the comprehensive plan.

I love the new mixed use growth allowed in the downtown area but it needs to be controlled.

Two big city plan amendments were postponed to Feb 1st...
redevelopment / rezone of the "ringling shopping center" and the land east of payne park best known as "the old scottys"

So what should an "old strip mall" and a run down warehouse district become? What about if it is across the street from what will soon become an awesone new city park... I would like to live there.