Prominent master-planned community town doubles solar capacity

Syd Kitson, the developer behind one of the most ambitious and biggest master-planned communities in Florida, Babcock Ranch, has often spoken about the importance of a sense of place in Florida housing developments. “Florida is full of gated and golf course communities, but we are different,” he says. “We are a town.”

Kitson, 15 years and more than $300 million in bonds and financing into Babcock Ranch, on the border of northeastern Lee and southeastern Charlotte counties, knows this firsthand. Speaking at the 14th annual Sustainable Communities Workshop on Nov. 14 in Sarasota, Kitson told the crowd about what he saw at the Babcock Ranch school one recent afternoon, driving by at dismissal time. “Every kid, all 130 kids, just hopped on their bikes and rode away,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Some of them had fishing poles coming out of their backpacks, some of them went to the park, and some of them went home. It was amazing.”