A heavily contested Take 5 Oil Change in Osprey is off the table following denial by the Sarasota County Commission.
The commission voted 3-2 to reject a proposal from Cougar Investment Management LLC and 8Square LLC to rezone 1.4 acres at the corner of Tamiami Trail and Habitat Boulevard to allow for a 3,600-square-foot office building and a 1,430-square-foot service center to be built. The decision, which saw Commissioners Neil Rainford and Mark Smith in dissent, followed a discussion regarding the development’s potential traffic issues, environmental concerns and compatibility with surrounding residences and businesses.
The denial also followed a split 3-3 Sarasota County Planning Commission vote on the item, which resulted in a recommendation that the county commission deny the rezone. The commission was originally scheduled to vote on the rezoning in July, but the developer revised its initial site plan and submitted a new version to the commission.
The development has faced continual backlash from Preserve Osprey , a citizen advocacy group comprised of residents in the Willowbend subdivision and surrounding communities like Rivendell and Seaside Springs. Around 40 members of the group attended the meeting and voiced their opposition, maintaining that an oil change facility is incompatible with the area and would bring undue impacts to wildlife, stormwater management and local noise and light pollution. A petition protesting the development has garnered more than 700 signatures from residents.
The parcel is a grassy plot covered with Brazilian pepper flowering plants on one side and dotted with cabbage palms and slash pines, according to a habitat study included in the application material. The study asserted that no natural habitats or grand trees were found on the property and little animal activity was spotted, though residents have reported wildlife like scrub jays, Sandhill cranes, gopher tortoises and other animals nearby.
As a “Florida-friendly” neighborhood a quarter of a mile from Oscar Scherer State Park, Willowbend requires its residents to follow strict light, noise and activity guidelines to protect the surrounding nature. Sharon Stebbing, a Willowbend resident, said Take 5’s operations would disrupt the regulated tranquility of the area.
“Colors, lights, noise,” Stebbing said. “It doesn’t fit.”
Take 5 maintained its practices are eco-friendly and would not bring undue pollution into the surrounding neighborhoods. But residents were concerned with possible runoff contaminated with chemicals, especially given the recent spotlight on county flood management in the adtermath of Tropical Storm Debby.
Much of the compatibility debate stemmed from a latent development concept plan that the county approved for the area in the early 1990s. The parcels just outside the Willowbend community were intended for shopping center development, and though other plots along Tamiami Trail have since seen construction, the site of the prospective Take 5 has since remained empty.
Residents argued the commercial shopping center zoning distinction — which permits daycares, retirement homes, office spaces and other developments of similar intensity — appropriately caps the allowable uses for the area. But Steve Rees, the attorney representing the developers, said the original zoning mislabeled the area and created unnecessary roadblocks to a development that would otherwise be approved with little issue.
“Had it not been for that binding development concept plan under CSC, we likely wouldn’t be here,” Rees said.
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The parcel was also bound by restrictive use covenants that Lee Wetherington, the original owner, placed on it to align with the neighborhood’s activity standards. Though Wetherington released the plot from these covenants in 2016, Willowbend residents argued the release is non-binding because Wetherington no longer owned the parcel.
The debate has since escalated into a lawsuit, with the Willowbend Community Association suing the developers for an alleged violation of the covenants it claims are still intact. It’s unclear whether the community association will drop the suit following the county commission’s denial of the rezoning.
Legalities aside, residents still took issue with the potential Take 5 because they deemed it unnecessary. Though the developers maintained that the oil change would add value to the area as a business, residents said it posed too many traffic, pollution and safety threats to yield any benefit. They argued that almost 50 existing oil change facilities within a 10-mile radius of the site — not including car dealerships — would mean the Take 5 would bring little patronage.
The facility’s proposed entrances and exits onto Habitat Boulevard are just outside the Willowbend entrance. Opponents also worried that the increase in activity would exacerbate congestion and traffic accidents that are already substantial given the road’s proximity to Tamiami Trail.
Jane Graham, the attorney who represented the Willowbend community at the commission meeting (though not in the community association’s lawsuit against the developers), said Cougar Investments and 8Square made a mistake purchasing the parcel, and the fallout of that choice shouldn’t affect the residents.
“It’s clear that this was simply a bad real estate decision,” Graham said, “Residents of Willowbend should not bear the brunt of their bad business decision.”
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The commission narrowly agreed, with Commission Chair Mike Moran, Vice Chair Joe Neunder and Commissioner Ron Cutsinger voting to deny the rezone. The votes won out over Rainford and Smith, who argued that the development proposal was within legal bounds and out of the commission’s purview to deny.
Commercial shopping center zoning has long fallen under the same guidelines as commercial general, and because of this, Smith reasoned the oil change was an acceptable use for the area. Arguments on the lack of a need for another oil change facility were inconsequential in whether the developer could build it, Smith said, and the pending lawsuit would dictate the legality.
“We’re not in the business of determining if that business is successful,” Smith said. “I don’t think you want your government to tell you what can be done with your property as far as use.”
Rainford echoed Smith. Though he agreed the parcel wasn’t an appropriate spot for the new facility, he said a denial wasn’t within the commission’s jurisdiction.
But Cutsinger, Neunder and Moran felt the facility’s incompatibility with the area was enough to deny the rezone.
“I am just not even close to comfortable on the proposed use of this parcel,” Moran said. “The proposed change, I do believe, will adversely influence living conditions in the neighborhood.”
Contact Herald-Tribune Growth and Development Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@gannett.com . Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Contested Take 5 Oil Change in Osprey off the table following Sarasota County denial
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