Sample Letter to County Commissioners

Subject: 

1. Preserve and strengthen existing communities

2. Provide for a variety of land uses and lifestyles

3. Preserve rural character, including opportunities for agriculture

Dear Commissioner:

Please support Application CPA-2019-C filed by the Old Miakka Community Club. The  RH/E RMA more closely matches the existing land use pattern along the southern and eastern sides of the subject property to preserve and strengthen our community. It is the appropriate designation to maintain the rural character of the land and will better inspire a continuation of the variety of land uses and lifestyles we enjoy here (RMA Policy 1.1 ).  We are probably Sarasota’s oldest neighborhood. If you look back through historical records into the 1800s you will find that our values and ideals have been consistent through the generations. Our fight to preserve those values is not only for the current residents, but also for the more urban and suburban residents who value our county’s rural heritage, for the animals and landscapes it supports, and for our children’s children who may want to pursue this way of life.

Hamlets are like typical suburban subdivisions and the people attracted to that way of life have different values, expectations, and tolerances. We who live out here in the boonies left the conveniences of urban and suburban life because we value a country lifestyle, complete with crowing roosters, smoke from prescribed burns, dark skies, horse dung, cow bellows, flooded pastures, and lack of street lights and county services. Hamlets are supposed to be transitions between urban/suburban lands and the eastern rural agricultural lands. This parcel of land is in the extreme northeast corner of our county and so should never have received the hamlet future land use designation. Please remedy this mistake to protect our way of life.

Don't forget to sign your name.

If you are a registered voter in Sarasota County, include that information and your zipcode.