A Take On the Aug. 28 Hearing On Venice Hospital Rezoning

By Jim Bencivenga

I am on the CCMA ad hoc Hospital Committee.

I want to make it perfectly clear that the opinions and views expressed here are solely my own and not the Hospital Committee. Here's my take on the Aug. 28 county commission hearing on the proposed land use rezoning for Venice Regional Bayfront Hospital.

The full significance of a rezoning on Venice East is now clear. The commissioners stated they would not take this vote lightly. On a scale of 1-10 commissioners stated a change would be a 10. Chairwoman Nancy Detert made it clear to VRBH attorney Boone: don’t rush us on this rezoning. You are asking for something that strikes at the core of what the future of this community will be.

The commissioners acknowledged they are being asked to alter, and in the view of many present at the hearing, undermine a public pledge regarding the lifestyle and home environment of highest importance to residents. Those affected would also add without compensation.

The commissioners recognize selecting a different site for the hospital and building it on that different site would still provide the Venice community a second hospital. Commissioner Detert noted that the parent corporation of VRBH is the final decision maker for the hospital and not those representing it at the rezoning hearing. The parent company could even sell the whole project to another corporation or health provider.

Some questions that were asked:

1. Why this particular size and building plan for the hospital?

There are no state regulations mandating this site in this zip code and only this zip code.

Until the Aug. 28 meeting with the question posed by three commissioners, the parent corp. of VRBH, CHS, (a Tenn. based for profit corporation 25 percent owned by a billionaire Singapore businessman who made his fortune in the gambling industry) had left unstated the complete nature of the process by which the site, its size and location including an additional 65,000-square-foot medical complex attached to the hospital, was chosen.

The zip code choice was made by VRBH and no one else. The impression that Venice East was the only available plot, thus requiring a rezoning big enough for 50 acres, was moot. This removed the camouflage that the location was a state mandate, not a voluntary choice by VRBH. It is a business decision that maximizes a real estate deal that calls for more than a little trade-off with the public good.

The proposed hospital will have fewer beds than the existing VRBH hospital on the Isle. The existing hospital occupies 9 acres plus a parking garage on a four lane road with a fifth lane as a turn median. It is not on 50 acres with no parking garage on a two lane road with no shoulder and no dedicated road improvement funding likely for improving the two lane road and surrounding roads until the county transportation budget of 2024 where necessary funds may or may not be included.

The surrounding roads affect more than just the local neighbors. They affect, daily, anyone traveling on Jacaranda at the traffic circle and anyone travelling on River Rd. going to-or-from the I-75 entrance as well as turning on to Venice East.

2. Why do it now after not doing it 20 years ago when the need for a new hospital was just as obvious?

On the matter of urgency, Chairwoman Detert - without any tone of cynicism or irony - stated Venice needed a new hospital 20 years ago, therefore VRBH representatives and their attorney, please cool your jets as to rushing us to make a decision now. This point became even more relevant when it was brought out by VRBH that they intended to close on the property on Venice East by Sept. 5th.

In the view of many opposed to the rezone the request is an exploitation of public good will vis-a-vis the actual need for a rezone at this location for the hospital.

For those opposed to the rezone the initial steps and justification for the site chosen by VRBH afforded no community input until after the fait accompli of a rezone request on Venice East, and only Venice East, was presented

3. Why not find another site in another Venice zip code?

CHS is purchasing non-commercially zoned land and converting this land at a potentially significant profit if it is commercially zoned land and adding a 65,000 sq. ft. medical center.

One opponent spoke to the fact that the location was to protect VRBH's market share and to capture patients, physicians, and other medical practitioners who might migrate one exit away on I-75 to a new Sarasota Memorial Hospital on Laurel Rd. VRBH was nearly closed twice in the last five years due to sewage and rats inside its facility. The question asked was: Does VRBH deserve so draconian a land-use zone change.

4. Why alter an existing land use plan to the degree requested that would eviscerate the current land use plan and render many environmental concerns a mute issue?

Commissioners recognize and admit that altering the comprehensive land use plan from residential to commercial is not an isolated event. All future development on Venice East would likely be commercial. The economics of land zoned commercial would trump land zoned residential. Already a zone change request is in process for land at the corner of River Road and Venice East. The nature and character of the neighborhood would be changed forever.

The quip: "The operation was a success but the patient expired," conveys what would happen if a rezone were granted. The corporate parent of VRBH would succeed financially and the residents of Venice East and surrounding area would lose their lifestyle, home values, and a degree of safety while driving to and from their home.

The same travel danger would exist for all county residents driving to or from the hospital until significant infrastructure improvements are made between Jacaranda and River Road as well as the entire length of Venice East. By way of comparison: How many years have we been told that road improvements will happen on River Rd?

5. Why risk throwing children under the bus due to dangerous road conditions?

Further testimony and discussion brought to light the catastrophically inadequate infrastructure and planning for transportation extending out and beyond 2024. Build first and then let taxpayers at some years distant pay for and build needed roads while simultaneously coping with the danger, misery and daily traffic paralysis bequeathed for all county drivers, especially local residents in the interim.

The county’s transportation officials in repeated testimony were unclear and/or uninformed on cost as well as what will happen to traffic with the real safety concerns of increased traffic on Venice E., the Venice roundabout, and River Road. The software model described and used by the county Transportation department for planning purposes to predict traffic patterns came across as a Rubric’s Cube of bureaucratic speak.

(Just look at the video record of the Transportation Department report.)

A visibly exasperated Commissioner Maio set forth a list of questions he wanted answered on future road cost and development before any decision on rezone could be made.

The most anguished moment of the meeting was presented by a concerned mother. She pointed out that Florida’s adoption of year-round day-light savings means there are only three months a year when daylight happens before 6:30 a.m. The other nine months it is dark to pitch black depending on cloud cover.

It just so happens that 6:30 a.m. is the pickup time for school buses. It is also the witching hour when the work shift change for the 681 VRBH employees both come to work for the day shift and leave after a night shift, that is, between 6 and 7 a.m. week days.

Her child's school bus pickup is directly across the street from the hospital entrance as it is for all the residents of Blue Heron Pond.

Other mothers noted 17 daily school bus trips take place on Venice East. Per state law a school bus with flashing red lights picking up and/or discharging students has priority over not only all cars and trucks but ambulances and fire trucks as well. Ambulances and emergency vehicles must stop and honor the flashing red lights of a school bus - on a two lane road with no shoulder stretching from Jacaranda to River Rd.

In addition, the flashing red lights of a stopped school bus will back up all traffic going east or west on Venice East, especially those 681 employees coming or going from the proposed hospital.

All this on a two-lane country road with no shoulder and a three foot ditch often filled with water. The phrase, "Only in Florida," comes to mind. Anywhere else this would be a Monty Python skit.

Conclusion:

A few thousand people, mostly retirees and families, made a decision to move to the impacted area; made a decision to pay a higher price for their homes, especially in the case of retirees who worked a lifetime to save for just such a retirement and to live, specifically, in Venice based on already existing government land use decisions. The government, i.e., the Commissioners, hold in trust for the public those decisions.

A tectonic change in zoning after the fact must come with a high degree of public good to justify this rezone request, especially given other locations with smaller footprints are viable. The Commissioners can vote as developers for a rezone; or the Commissioners can vote as the custodians and protectors the citizens of Sarasota elected them to be.

The lives, homes and very faith Sarasota County citizens place in democratic government is in play.

To see a full replay of the meeting go to the 8/28 agenda item on the Sarasota County's website.

Image via Sarasota County Commission