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Are condos just around the bend?
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET, Times Staff Writer HOMOSASSA -- Anyone who has visited the Halls River Retreat Web site has seen what the four-story, 54-unit condominium complex would look like on the banks of the Halls River. Now, for sake of discussion, imagine nearly 2,000 condominiums at the neighboring Nature's Resort Campground. A far-fetched idea? Yes and no. Like the Halls River Retreat property, the 97-acre campground is zoned for mixed use, a dense category that allows up to 20 residential units per acre. Like the Tradewinds Marina and Mobile Home Park down the river, its value as waterfront property could someday make it ripe for redevelopment. If and when that day comes, however, county officials plan to have much stricter standards in place. Last fall county planners drafted a proposal to curb the kinds of development allowed on the 843 acres of mixed-use property scattered throughout the county. Planners said the mixed-use zoning was created in 1990 to classify hodgepodge properties, such as mobile home parks with marinas, not open the county's shores to high-rise development. The proposal would limit vacant mixed-use properties west of U.S. 19 to light commercial uses or one home per 40 acres, the density allowed by the Comprehensive Plan in that area. Under the measure, mixed-use properties that already have mobile home/recreational vehicle parks could be redeveloped, but not with any more units than they currently have. For example, a park with 30 mobile homes could be redeveloped with up to 30 condos or site-built homes, not the 20 units per acre allowed now. "We're facing a lot of questions about (mixed-use properties) right now, and one of the reasons this ordinance is proposed is to clarify what can and can't be built in these areas," said Chuck Dixon, the county's director of Community Development. The Planning and Development Review Board unanimously backed the proposal last month, and the County Commission will hold public hearings on the measure April 9 and April 23. Even if the commission approves the proposal, however, will it snuff out the problems with mixed-use properties? The affected property owners might not think so. A vacant, 37-acre mixed-use property on Halls River Road, behind the Publix in Homosassa, is under contract to an Atlanta-area developer. Real estate agent Rusty Baker said the developer, Southern States Capital Corp., is exploring the possibility of building about 200 apartments there, less than a third of the 740 units that could be allowed under the current 20-units-per-acre rule. Because Southern States does not have an application pending with the county, however, the property would fall under the new rule for mixed-use properties (assuming the commission approves it). That would mean just one home or some "neighborhood commercial" development, such as a restaurant, health club or strip mall less than 12,800 square feet. "I don't see how they can just change that. That's not going to work," Baker said. "You're going to have an unhappy seller for one thing, I mean big time. They paid more than what they're selling it for." And state law could force the county to pay the difference. When a local government decision deprives a property owner of his existing or vested rights on a piece of land, the Bert Harris Act allows the owner to seek compensation for the property's loss in market value. County officials, however, doubt the Bert Harris Act applies to the proposed changes to mixed use. "If we were adopting these regulations to stop a specific project in the works, I think a Bert Harris case could be made," said Gary Maidhof, the county's director of development services. "But we're amending the Land Development Code based on public input to fix an inequity involving mixed use. That's what a local government has the authority to do during the public hearing process." As for the mixed-use properties that are already developed, nothing would prevent developers from replacing the mobile homes and RVs with waterfront condos, as long as there was no net gain in units. And what about Nature's Resort Campground? It has about 300 campsites, and it is unclear whether those would count as vested units if the property was ever developed into condominiums. "An argument could be made that they are comparable uses," said Dixon, the county's community development director. "But I wouldn't want to say for sure that we would view it that way until we could view a proposal." -- Bridget Hall Grumet can be reached at 860-7303 or bhall@sptimes.com.
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