A satellite image of Rattlesnake Key shows its proximity to the Terra Ceia community. Islander Image: Courtesy 2025 Airbus
In the wake of the recent sale of Rattlesnake Key, some north Manatee County residents say they’ve received unsolicited phone calls asking them to rank large-scale development ideas for the Terra Ceia and Bishop Harbor area; surveys that offered no option to leave the shoreline untouched.
Palmetto Point resident Nancy Jones, who spoke to The Islander Dec. 10, said she received her call Nov. 23. After a few general questions about development in Manatee, the caller shifted to asking about Rattlesnake Key and land north of the northbound toll plaza for the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Jones said she was asked to rank a cruise port, a commercial marina, a luxury resort with deepwater dockage, a luxury residential community with deepwater dockage and a commercial tanker port.
When Jones responded that she did not want any of those uses, she said she was told she had to choose.
She said the caller told her she had to rank the options from the one she would prefer most to the one she would prefer least.
Gillette resident Bill Dole, whose family settled in Terra Ceia in the 1880s, received a similar call Nov. 14. The survey focused on deepwater access and the caller asked him to rank a commercial container port, a deepwater commercial port, a deepwater cruise ship port, a deepwater commercial marina and boat-repair facility with high-end homes, and a waterfront residential community.
Dole said he opposed any option requiring dredging, describing Terra Ceia Bay as extremely shallow and already strained by stormwater runoff and development.
“I would be against anything that entails dredging,” he said.
Jones and Dole said the questions brought to mind longstanding concerns about the Sunshine Skyway Bridge’s height limitations. The bridge provides about 180 feet of vertical clearance, sufficient for older cruise ships but not for many newer mega-class vessels, which can exceed 220 feet from waterline to mast.
A 2014 Florida Department of Transportation study examined how Tampa could accommodate larger cruise ships, outlining two possible solutions:
Rebuilding the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to increase its clearance;
Constructing a new cruise terminal outside the bridge span on the Gulf-facing side of Tampa Bay.
While these possible scenarios remain speculative, the survey questions echo real-world concerns in Terra Ceia, where residents say even the possibility of deeper dredging or larger vessel traffic could intensify environmental pressures in the shallow bay system.
Dole said the area islands remain important fishing and boating grounds and would be dramatically altered by deepwater uses.
“I would just hate to see it get developed,” he said. “It just needs to be left alone.”
Seeking to determine who may be conducting the polling, The Islander contacted Sandy Dee, spokesperson for Rattlesnake Key Preservation Company LLC, which purchased the Rattlesnake Key property in October for $18 million. Dee said the company had not conducted any surveys, did not know who might be responsible and reiterated that the company is committed to preservation of the land.
County Commission Chair Tal Siddique, R-District 3, told The Islander Dec. 11 that the county had no knowledge of any polling and emphasized the county has no development entitlements or applications on file for Rattlesnake Key.
He did say that historic dredging permissions for Rattlesnake Key originating at the state or federal level existed.
“As I understand it, prior reporting indicates there are, by virtue of a fluke in the 1950s with either DEP, EPA or Army Corps, they have some kind of dredge rights,” Siddique said. “But as far as the county is concerned, I know they have no development rights.”
More from The Islander: