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Rezoning clears planners
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer NEW PORT RICHEY -- A clock repairman took flak for wanting to build near King Lake in Land O'Lakes. So did a proposed group home for Alzheimer's disease patients that wants to open in Jasmine Lakes in Port Richey. Ditto for a liquor store trying to open in a Wesley Chapel shopping center. All three projects cleared the Pasco County Planning Commission on Wednesday, but not without a struggle to overcome opposition from neighbors. Theodore Diller's antique clock repair and auto shop, proposed for about an acre on the east side of U.S. 41, drew criticism from neighbors fearing the despoliation of King Lake. Diller won support for his rezoning request from residential to commercial by promising to keep the business at least 200 feet from the lake and forswearing any construction of a boat ramp. Also clearing the planning commission was Larry and Laura Jones' proposed assisted living facility for as many as 16 Alzheimer's patients on Jasmine Boulevard, about 400 feet west of Maricopa Avenue. The Joneses gathered supportive signatures from dozens of neighbors near the 4,000-square-foot house with six bedrooms and four bathrooms. The president of the Jasmine Lakes homeowners association complained in a letter that the home would violated deed restrictions banning businesses. But Jones successfully argued that the house, just beyond the edge of Jasmine Lakes, isn't bound by the deed restrictions. Later in the meeting, Jan's Wine & Boos, a liquor store proposed for next to a soon-to-open Publix at the Shoppes at New Tampa at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and State Road 56, heard from residents opposed to alcohol sales so close to home. "In effect this will be a bar in our back yard," Williamsburg community resident Mike Keller told the commission. Proprietor Jan Ingram convinced the commission that her liquor store was no more objectionable than the Publix, which will also sell beer and wine. All three cases now go to the County Commission for final consideration. In other business, the planning commission approved rezoning on acreage between the Summertree and Baywood Meadows neighborhoods southwest of State Road 52 and Moon Lake Road. Developer Gary Queen said he plans 200 lots on the 120 largely wooded acres. Schickedanz Brothers' Wyndtree project also cleared the commission with plans to build 266 more homes, for a total of 820, at Mitchell and Seven Springs boulevards near Trinity. Schickedanz attorney Jerry Figurski said that in exchange for the homes, his clients would give up the right to build more than 100,000 square feet of commercial buildings at the intersection.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
