Manatee County will one day be home to a championship-style private golf course and housing development near Myakka City.
But not everybody is celebrating the news.
The private golf course, clubhouse, training facility and 95 homes will be built on a development called Myakka Village. It can move forward now that the Manatee County Commission has approved changing the zoning from agricultural to planned development residential.
Local resident and one-time county commission candidate Carol Ann Felts still has some concerns. Chief among them is transparency.
Felts said many locals were recovering from Hurricane Ian when the project was being discussed and found out about it through internet ad.
"Somebody sees that, oh, my gosh, they're selling golf memberships to this cow pasture across the street from me, that was 3 feet underwater last year," Felts said.
Felts is also not pleased with the approval process. She said the county should not feel obligated to change the agricultural zoning just because a developer bought the land.
"If you knew you bought a pig farm, it's a pig farm," Felts said. "If you want to change it to something else then you've got to look at why is it a pig farm ... because we have to eat."
Felts said the developer did hold meetings with residents to hear their concerns, which range from fertilizer runoff from the golf course to damage to area roads during construction.
