Mary Anne wants to know your views on the issues. Please e-mail her your thoughts by clicking on the CONTACT page, send an EMAIL, or send a letter to Mary Anne Servian for City Commission, P.O. Box 2121, Sarasota FL 34230-2121.
Here are Mary Anne’s thoughts on some of the most critical issues facing us:
Smart Downtown Growth
Following the advice of world renowned-planner Andreas Duany and with your input, in 2001 the City Commission adopted the Downtown Master Plan which reduces building height from 18 stories to 10 and the density from 200 units an acre to 50. Mary Anne supported this plan firmly because she felt that these restrictions will keep our downtown from overgrowth.
Unfortunately, the City faced two legal challenges which delayed the implementation, and as a result, several projects had the legal right to submit their plans under the old rules. That is the majority of what you see being built today. Once the transitional projects are completed, you will finally see the new, lower heights and densities.
Also, in response to your requests and Mary Anne’s leadership, permission for arcades to protrude into the public right of way has been eliminated. We need to devise and enforce better construction staging plans to ensure the safety and convenience of downtown visitors and merchants.
Mary Anne pledges that she will continue to monitor the growth of downtown and will be a consistent voice to prevent downtown creep into our neighborhoods.
Improved Traffic
The population of the City of Sarasota itself has grown at a very slow rate of 1.8%. For example, Census data shows that in 2000 we had 52,715, and at the end of 2005 we only had 53,711. The majority of traffic problems we suffer are the result of commuter traffic from the explosive growth east and north of the City, yet we have to cope with these problems because our citizens use the same streets.
Mary Anne strongly supports the development of alternative transportation strategies such as a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system which will allow for quicker, cleaner, more efficient movement throughout the city. She has urged the City Commission and staff to look at major traffic arteries and dedicate lanes for rapid transit. She supports exploring a downtown “people mover” that would connect to the BRT and allow our residents to leave their cars at home and cleanly and quickly move around the city. Another initiative that she led is installing more bicycle paths and multi-use trails.
She also believes we must find 21st Century solutions to monitor traffic flow and adjust capacity accordingly.
Housing For All Sarasotans
Mary Anne believes that Sarasotans must not be priced out of the city where they live. Under her urging, the City of Sarasota has allocated $25 million to be used for affordable housing. These monies may be used to build homes or purchase land, may be given to the Community Housing Trust, or any combination. Mary Anne strongly feels that this flexibility is important.
Together with Sarasota County, the City jointly manages the Office of Housing and Community Development. Through this agency many families have moved into affordable housing units and many more have received assistance of some sort to help reduce their housing burden.
Mary Anne has served as the liaison to Public Housing. Under her leadership, we can be proud that we have finally entered in the Development Agreement with the federal government to replace the deplorable stock of public housing with mixed income communities. This will serve both the current residents of public housing and the broader community by providing a variety of housing to City residents. With Mary Anne’s strong support, the City Commission is working with the Community Housing Trust to donate City-owned parcels to the trust, which it then will develop as long-term, sustainable, affordable housing. Mary Anne has also gotten the City staff to identify current stock of affordable housing in need of rehab and donate the property to the Trust so that people who must have immediate housing can be matched with a suitable property. By urging those plans, Mary Anne hopes that increasingly all Sarasotans will have a place to live without busting their budgets.
Mary Anne has been championing legislation to change the property tax laws to give an exemption to landlords who can document that they are renting safe, clean properties to people earning 60-120% of the Area Median Income. This will help ensure that affordable rentals units remain affordable.
Saving The Environment
We have a very sensitive eco-system here on the Gulf Coast that we need to protect. Our Bay has improved significantly, and we will continue to implement strategies for even further improvement. The City is moving to use only environmentally sensitive, time-released chemicals on our properties.
Mary Anne brought forward the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement which will ensure that the City of Sarasota meets or beats the Kyoto Protocol. Also, under Mary Anne’s leadership the City adopted the 2030 Proposition that demands all City-owned buildings drastically reduce the emission of carbon from older buildings and have zero emissions from new buildings.
