Agrarian utopia planned for rural Manatee County

Utopia, right? (It's evidently a trend.)

The challenge: Gamble Creek Village would be two miles outside of Manatee County's future urban development line, the Bradenton Herald reports.

• Attorney Mark Barnebey recently asked planning commissioners for zoning changes that would allow the innovative project to move forward.

"Anything in the eastern part of the county, they're just very hesitant about," Barnebey told Axios. "But the nature of this project requires it to be out in an agricultural area ... This is conceptually like a modern day Mayberry type of proposal."

The big picture: The project requires two public hearings, then goes to the state for approval.

• Barnebey told Axios that he expects that to happen by late summer or early fall. He said the backers are getting serious about developing a village master plan.

How long to ground breaking, if all goes as planned?

• "Probably, at best, three or four years," Barnebey told us.

Reading file: Gable Creek Village, if it comes to be, wouldn't be the first utopia planned for the area. Ruskin was founded as an experimental community based on the philosophy of Victorian sage John Ruskin.

• Read Matthew Sherrill's story on Ruskin in the Oxford American.