Originally Posted by Rick Barry, Pelican Press
Sarasota’s population seems to be falling. Utility figures indicate fewer people are here now than during last year. That’s never happened before. Blame – or credit – the economy.
At least 1,340 fewer Sarasota County households are receiving electric service from FPL than in 2007. That’s "households." Thus, if there are 2.1 people per household in the county as state demographers estimate, the population has dropped 2,814 people.
The Sarasota School District lost 1508 students in 2007 and 2008.
The city of Sarasota is losing residents. On one block of Bougainvillea Street, west of U.S. 41, three houses stand abandoned and a fourth has been torn down. Three were purchased by a speculator who couldn’t flip or redevelop them. A young couple walked away from the fourth when their home’s value dropped well below the balance of their mortgage loan.
Adjacent blocks have similarly abandoned properties.
The City of Sarasota also has 551 fewer utility accounts from last year. At 2.1 people per household, that's a total of 1157 fewer people in the City of Sarasota, so far.
The City of Venice reports that about 60 homes have gone into problematic foreclosure proceedings. At 2.1 people per household, that's 126 fewer people in the City of Venice.
"And North Port – the problem there is huge. They’re going through some really rough times."
In fact, the city of North Port this year, for the first time, is projected to have passed the county seat, Sarasota, in population. According to the University of Florida, North Port is larger than the City of Sarasota, with 56,316 residents. However, the North Port population-figure has been reported in the midst of the reported exodus of construction, restaurant, retail, government and other working class families from the city.
Actually, preliminary estimates show that the cities of Sarasota and Venice have lost population, but the unincorporated county has added 6,147 people. That puts the county population at 393,608.
Shrinking populations can mean a shrinking share of state revenues from sales taxes and other revenue sources.
North Port, which has been in an all-out expansion campaign for many years, has no good way to measure its loss of residents, officials say, although they concede people are leaving and that the number of vacant homes and partially built homes is a serious problem. Still, utility account totals don’t go down.
"The reason behind this is that we are currently at approximately 20 percent build-out and only a small portion of that 20 percent has centralized water/sewer services," said Marquett Clemmons, fiscal manager for the city of North Port.
Even affluent Longboat Key has been affected, slightly.
"For the first time, we’ve actually had foreclosures on the key," said Building Official Randy Fowler. "In the past two years, we’ve had some people just walk away. Their homes have gone into foreclosure and they’ve just left, and we’re getting weed problems, grass and maintenance problems at code enforcement.
