SARASOTA, Fla (WFLA) — The Sarasota Planning Commission voted against a proposal to build 170 single-family homes in an area that saw major flooding during Hurricane Debby. People living near this area said the fight may not be over yet.

During a planning commission meeting on Thursday, dozens of people volunteered to speak. Speakers are given three minutes each, and the commission chair noted there were about two hours’ worth of speaker cards submitted.

Before coming up to the podium, the crowd heard the presentation and listened to the questions from the commissioners to the developers.

“Would it be more prone or less prone to flood in any of these stormwater events in its current versus built state? Is the applicant going to make it better or worse?” T. Andrew Stultz asked.

“Well our code says he’s not allowed to make it worse,” a representative answered.

After hours of powerful public comment, the commission voted against it 4-3, but some said it doesn’t stop there.

“I don’t think that the war is over,” said Jim Martin. Martin attended the meeting and shared his thoughts on how the petition could still be approved.

“There were two members missing. If those two members were swayed by the developers to vote in favor of the petition, my concern is that they might overturn this recommendation to the county commission,” said Martin.”

Martin described a domino effect if this goes through, mentioning how a popular bird sanctuary could be wiped out or how the floodplain may need to be redrawn which could force people to buy flood insurance.

“Without the development over there a third of our backyard was under water,” said Martin.

He hopes whoever ends up making decisions on the proposal listens to the people who live there.

“I said to the planning commissioner, you guys are appointed, but you are appointed by the county commissioners who are elected. And the bottom line is all of you work for us,” said Martin.

The residents recommend just leaving the land alone. They said the area needs to be mitigating the risk of flooding, but said you can’t do that with concrete poured for a new development.

The next county commission meeting is set for December 17th but it’s unclear if this matter will be brought up then.