The latest effort by mega-developer D.R. Horton to build a housing community near the Celery Fields bird sanctuary has once again been rebuffed by Sarasota County, but the long and winding process through local bureaucracy is not over yet.

D.R. Horton, which bills itself as “America's Largest Homebuilder,” had planned to buy the Smith Farm, which runs right up against the Celery Fields across from Raymond Road, and redevelop it into a 126-home subdivision. To buy the land, it needed the county to rezone the property from “Open Use Rural” to “Residential Single Family.” That application was shot down by the County Commission in February.

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