Officials OK controversial roads proposal for large east Sarasota County project

Sarasota County Commissioners vote 3-2 to move ahead with Hi Hat Ranch agreement.

By Eric Garwood
| 2:45 p.m. April 9, 2025
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Top white rectangle: Hi Hat is donating 10 to 17 acres of its property so the county can widen Fruitville Road. Bottom rectangle: Hi Hat has agreed to pay half the cost of widening Bee Ridge along the blue line; it will pay 100% of widening the green strip, as well as the road leading into Hi Hat Ranch.

Manatee-Sarasota

Sarasota County Commissioners on Wednesday agreed in a split vote to terms of a proposed agreement that would allow developer Hi Hat Ranch access through county-owned land to Bee Ridge Road in return for about $15 million in road improvements and more than $3 million in right-of-way elsewhere along Fruitville Road.

The agreement, for a project east of Interstate 75, in a commission workshop at the Sarasota County Administration Center was approved 3-2, with commissioners Tom Knight and Joe Neunder dissenting. (Commissioners Teresa Mast, Mark Smith and Ron Cutsinger approved the agreement.) Knight objected to the agreement earlier in 2025, setting off weeks of controversy and setting up Wednesday's meeting, according to an editorial in YourObserver.com, sister paper of the Business Observer.

The basics of the agreement are: