This May Be Long, But It's The Most Important Message You Will Read This Fall

The Classical Academy’s (TCA) school year has started, and our fight continues with the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) and anyone who believes they can rewrite or ignore the rules regarding land use and development in our area.

Would you consider joining our fight to protect our neighborhood with a donation?

This is where we are headed this year with your support

·         Challenge BCCs April 2024 decision to allow modular classrooms before the 12th Circuit Court in Sarasota.

·         Challenge the 12th Circuit Court’s denial of our appeal of the original Special Exception at the 2nd District Court in St. Petersburg.

·         Challenge the BCCs refusal to hear SEERDs petition for a "stay" and the 12th Circuit Court’s probable denial of relief for the BCC modular classroom decision at the 2nd District Court in St. Petersburg.

·         Legal assistance for greater transparency and access to information from County departments involved with planning, building, permitting and code enforcement. This is intended to allow residents to monitor current and future site development to ensure consistency with County Code and effective measures to mitigate impacts of the school under its Special Exception.

·         Traffic engineering assistance to review solutions to mitigate congestion and safety concerns for both completed (including recently added traffic lanes) and needed future traffic improvements.

·         Civil, Structural and Environmental engineering assistance to monitor safety of temporary and permanent structures, future building and site development including athletic facilities on the TCA Bee Ridge campus.

Development of the TCA Campus as it stands threatens our well-being

Many of our residents are painfully aware that The Classical Academy, located in the heart of our neighborhood at 8000 Bee Ridge Road, started the new school year last month. SEERD made its best efforts to challenge TCAs Special Exception, issued in July 2023, and to question its substantially modified Binding Development Site Plan featuring modular classrooms in April 2024. While the fight continues, TCA's recent increase in students has set off land use conflicts and fueled public safety concerns that a school of that size, operating at that location, is likely to create. We predicted some of what has happened, but TCA and its County enablers did this in ways that even those of us from SEERD watching this train wreck from the beginning had not fully anticipated.

TCA continues to violate the County’s lawful land use and development ordinances

Beginning this school year, TCA moved students and teachers from grades 5-7, previously housed at their Fruitville Road campus, to Bee Ridge, thus consolidating them with the upper grades that had been in place since the 2023-2024 school year. To accommodate more students, TCA added more square footage of interior space using controversial modular classrooms. These are the same modulars that a County Special Magistrate had found in February 2024 not to conform with County zoning and building codes.  By adding to the site's existing structures and approaching the 300- student threshold set for the 1st of its 2-phase Binding Development Site Plan, TCA created more traffic, storm water management, and environmental concerns, some with potentially serious public safety consequences that we believe do not comply with established standards.

Were that not enough, its apparent that buffers required throughout the Bee Ridge neighborhood are insufficient at the school site to shield the intensity of land use from the street or along its property line to its south. We find it unacceptable that our residents are confronted with the unsightly appearance of the daily parade of traffic and parked vehicles at the school when traveling along Bee Ridge Road. Similarly, the resumption of outdoor afterschool activities at the south side of the school property where noise was recorded at and above the 65db limit, together with light impacts on our neighbors, turning night into day are unacceptable and not what anyone would expect from a good neighbor.

Our view then and now is that the original County approval lacked sufficient safeguards to mitigate detrimental impacts on surrounding land uses and the neighborhood. When school opened this August, it was evident that they had not fully complied with even these minimal safeguards. Sarasota County Code Enforcement issued a Notice of Violation a year ago in September 2023 to TCA eventually resulting in a fine of over $20,000 for non-compliance with a Special Magistrate's Order to remove or get permits for the 52 modular classrooms parked on its Bee Ridge campus since August 2023. To its credit, Code Enforcement issued another Notice of Violation this August requiring TCA, using state and county roadway standards, to complete work on two traffic improvement lanes on Bee Ridge Road, enabling safe turns into and out of its campus without impeding traffic flow. As other violations come to light, we expect more County oversight to demand compliance and curb the nuisance that the school is becoming.

TCA site development is and will continue to cause serious traffic safety problems

Because these road improvements were hastily constructed, we believe that they will need to be rebuilt. The new painted line is visibly wavy and crooked instead of straight on the bypass lane added to the north side of Bee Ridge, makes it difficult to maintain vehicle control at posted speed limits, posing a safety concern. Images obtained also show backups onto Bee Ridge Road, indicating that the length of the deceleration lane for traffic heading east on Bee Ridge and wishing to turn right into the TCA campus is too short. This caused a twice daily slow down and backup of through traffic headed east on Bee Ridge Road. As predicted by SEERDs consultants, large numbers of drivers leaving the TCA campus, prevented from turning left and driving west on Bee Ridge by a new concrete curb, now use the private entrance to the Hammocks community to make a dangerous U turn, instead of driving further east and turning at the now congested segment up to the roundabout at Bee Ridge-Lorraine roads where they could change direction.

Current safety problems will worsen

SEERD will continue using our resident observers, consulting engineers, planners, and attorneys to monitor these impacts and insist on compliance with County Codes and stipulations. Be aware that conditions are expected to deteriorate further when the school moves its K-4 grade students from Fruitville Road (and its legendary traffic problems) to Bee Ridge when hundreds more students and staff take to our already burdened local road network. Traffic flow and safety will deteriorate further when our winter seasonal residents return and mix with the additional TCA traffic dropping off and picking up their children.

But traffic is not the only threat to our neighborhood. Matters related to the safety of the structures, both permanent and temporary, on the TCA campus cry out for attention. We have reason to be concerned because of likely wind, flooding, fire, and interior air quality problems. They demand greater transparency and accountability because they were not designed and constructed for the intended purposes.  As we experienced with hurricane Debby, compliance is essential with existing building standards. Our experts strongly suspect that adequate maintenance and upkeep of foundations, anchor ties, drainage, erosion, electrical and plumbing, fire suppression systems and escape exists will need to be reviewed by County officials, because in their present state, we believe that they already pose a great danger for both students and teachers at TCA.

SEERD is the sole watchdog over this land use travesty-we need your support

Because of our role as watchdog and monitor on behalf of Bee Ridge neighborhood residents, the developer, the school and Sarasota County have had substantially more work to do than any of them had anticipated. 

And as you can see above, we are not done yet.

We need your further help to continue our work

This is where we ask again for your financial support. Although you have been unflagging in your support for SEERD, we are at a crossroads. At the very least we need to do our best to ensure that traffic is unimpeded and does not negatively impact First Responders in our neighborhood. Furthermore, since TCA has radically changed their building plans (modular classrooms instead of the planned brick and mortar classrooms) there is evidence to suggest that TCA is financially unable to deliver on its planned development. Previous experience shows that future site development will once again involve cost-cutting that will not be in compliance with County codes.

We need your help, and we need it now. We need you to donate freely, and we need you to donate generously. Some of our residents have stepped up, donating $1000 at a time, some $500 multiple times. We are not asking that amount from any of you. We know that retirees live on fixed incomes. We know that families have everyday responsibilities, and the financial burdens are greater than when you moved here. We are asking you to donate what you can to ensure that your lives and those of your family are not harmed by reckless and irresponsible development. 

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Thanks for your continuing interest and support to protect our neighborhood.

Miles Toder Ph.D.

President, Sarasota East Enders for Responsible Development