Planning board rejects Sarasota synagogue's plan to sell site

Banking its financial future on selling a portion of its land for an apartment development, the city of Sarasota Planning Board dealt at least a temporary blow to Temple Beth Sholom.

The synagogue, on prime real estate just south of downtown Sarasota, has partnered with Gilbane Development, which plans to build a four-story, 275-unit multifamily complex to include 20 attainable housing units on the southern six acres of its 10-acre site. The temple would remain on the northern four acres.

The property is at the northwest quadrant of the intersection of Tuttle Avenue and Bahia Vista Street, directly across from Bahia Vista apartments, which is currently under development. That amount of development intensity at an intersection that for years has been vacant at the two corners gave the Planning Board enough pause to recommend to the City Commission denial of a future land use map amendment, rezoning and site plan for the development.

In addition, Temple Beth Sh would need to secure approval by the city manager via provisional use permit for the religious institution to be located on property zoned residential multifamily.

At 100 years, the synagogue is the oldest in Sarasota, currently with 350 families and approximately 700 members. Temple Beth Sholom representatives told Planning Board members its numbers have declined over the past decade, and in order to remain in place it wished to sell the six acres. That includes two institutional buildings with leases that expire in 2026 and will require significant capital investment to maintain viability. 

The project would invoke the city’s affordable housing density bonus for residential developments along commercial corridors and centers, which in this case requires only seven units be priced attainable per the ordinance. Gilbane is offering to build 20, nearly three times the minimum.

Manager of Long Range Planning David Smith told board members staff recommends approval as it finds no aspect of the plan detrimental to the public benefit.

Plus, he said, the current zoning permits by right development of nearly the intensity of the Gilbane plan

“The land use classification of Community-Office-Institutional does allow the 250 dwelling units on site that could be developed as part of a mixed-use project,” Smith said. “This particular project is providing 25 units more than what could go on there today without the land use change.”

That, he said, dispels any argument that approving the application is precedent-setting, as was the concern for the Bahia Vista Apartments across the street, approved by the city commission in March 2023.

“They're both along roadways that are minor arterials meant for moving traffic,” Smith said. “From my standpoint, I don't believe there's really a precedent or an issue.”

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Yet the Planning Board had plenty of issues, not the least among them the number of attainable units the city would receive in exchange for granting the land use change. Another was allowing Gilbane to build to the density of a 10-acre site when the development would occupy only six acres, regardless of its code permit.

“We're following the rules and going above and beyond the rules with the additional affordable housing,” said project consultant Joel Freedman. 

The Comprehensive Plan Amendment to change the future land use category is based on the entire 10-acre site, explained Development Review Senior Planner Amy Bavin, which carries the higher base density units than only the six acres would permit. A joint use agreement would transfer that development density from the temple's four acres to Gilbane's six. 

“They would have to submit a boundary adjustment application in order to separate the parcels,” Bavin said. “When a boundary adjustment is requested, they have to demonstrate that each parcel complies with the zoning code, so that southern parcel would not comply unless they included a sort of transfer of development rights within the joint use agreement.”

With a greater density land use classification to the south — the Bahia Vista Apartments on the edge of the Arlington Park neighborhood — Smith told the Planning Board it could be argued the Gilbane/Temple Beth Sholom plan would not establish precedent as precedent already exists.

Establishing that precedent, however, was the argument Arlington Park residents made for nearly a decade as they fought — eventually unsuccessfully — to prevent the Bahia Vista Apartments from being built on the site of the former Doctors Hospital of Sarasota. That plan, too, was rejected by the Planning Board — as Arlington Park Neighborhood Association Second Vice President Flo Entler reminded the board — but approved by the City Commission.

“More traffic will be cutting through the neighborhoods, a negative impact on the neighborhoods. This is not a public benefit,” Entler said during the hearing. “There seems to be no development plan. A project approved over here, a project approved over here. Who is paying attention to the big picture?”

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.