Sarasota County Real Estate - By 2015, Villages Best Option

By 2015, villages could be best option
By DALE WHITE
dale.white@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA COUNTY -- For the first time, county planners are predicting that the demand for new homes during the next 10 years could exceed the availability of buildable lots.

They expect nearly 64,000 newcomers by 2015, more people than now live in the city of Sarasota.

The county's four municipalities, especially Venice and North Port, may absorb much of that housing demand.

Yet county planners still think that more than 43,000 people will want new homes in the unincorporated area.In terms of building permits, that population projection translates into roughly 23,300 new homes.

According to one analysis done by county planners, the unincorporated area already zoned for urban and suburban housing can accommodate 20,175 of those new homes -- 86.5 percent of the forecasted demand.

With this prediction, the ongoing tug of war among builders, conservationists and politicians about whether the county's growth boundary should be moved is taking on new intensity.

For more than 30 years, that line -- which generally follows Interstate 75 -- has kept dense development from encroaching on the countryside. Yet builders contend it has caused urban sprawl by contributing to soaring land prices in the urban county and sparking a lower-priced housing boom in North Port.

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