Manatee commissioners deny York rezoning after residents warn Rye Road can’t absorb 733 homes

The Manatee County Board of County Commissioners on April 23 denied a rezoning and preliminary site plan that would have allowed a 733-lot subdivision known as the York project, after residents and public-safety officials raised sustained objections about traffic on Rye Road, stormwater and evacuation risks.

The project would have rezoned roughly 31 acres (part of a larger ~464-acre portfolio) and approved a preliminary plan for single-family lots with 58% preserved open space. The applicant also proposed an impact-fee credit agreement to accelerate construction of the Mulholland Road extension to Twin Rivers and to dedicate right-of-way for the future widening of Rye Road. Developers said those commitments would add roughly $10–11 million in near-term resources to corridor improvements by combining county CIP funds and privately financed construction.

Residents countered that the existing corridor is already strained: multiple speakers described long queues, slow emergency-response travel times and recurring flooding in the broader Rye Road/State Road 64 corridor. “It’s an absolute nightmare,” said John Spicer, a longtime Rye Road commuter, summarizing the tone of public testimony about day-to-day congestion. Neighbors pressed the board to require completed regional road projects and confirmed stormwater measures before permitting a large new subdivision.

County staff and the applicant’s consultants presented an advanced stormwater model using Atlas 14 rainfall and a design intended to reduce post-development flow rates; engineers said the plan would lower some modeled flood elevations adjacent to Twin Rivers by up to a couple of inches and conserve more upland habitat than required. Traffic consultants argued that intersection improvements and staged investments could extend Rye Road’s capacity out a decade or more, and that the credit agreement would fund parts of Mulholland Road sooner than the county CIP alone would allow.

Board members focused their deliberations on timing and scale: several commissioners acknowledged the applicant’s environmental commitments and the extent of preserved open space but said the county has not yet secured the near-term funding, right-of-way and built improvements needed to keep Rye Road functioning safely as the area grows. One commissioner who voted for denial said the scale of new traffic would outpace available corridor capacity and noted the project introduced a substantially higher number of dwellings than earlier, expired approvals for the same overall area.

The motion to deny the rezoning and preliminary site plan passed unanimously. The companion impact-fee credit agreement was not advanced after the denial; the board recorded no vote to authorize the credit arrangement. The county clerk recorded the denial on the meeting minutes and the application will need a substantially different package of mitigation or a different timetable to be considered again.

What’s next: The developer may choose to revise the application to address the board’s concerns, or to pursue smaller, phased approvals. County staff said they will continue coordinating corridor improvements and will present details about CIP timing as part of the next budget cycle. Residents urged the board to prioritize intersection work, emergency-response access and stormwater resilience before returning to any large-scale rezoning in the Rye Road corridor.

(Reporting from the hearing; full transcript and votes are available in county records.)