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Developer asks city for a list of waivers
By DAN DeWITT BROOKSVILLE -- The developer of the Hampton Ridge subdivision has submitted a wish list to the city of Brooksville. And it is a long one. LandMar Group LLC of Jacksonville, which owns 1,600 acres south of the city, wants impact fee breaks to pay for any improvements it makes to roads or the water and sewer systems used to service this land. It wants broad exemptions from the city's landscaping law and a waiver of its tree ordinance. If the city ever passes a law protecting wildlife habitat, it doesn't want that to apply either. LandMar wants to be able to use part of its land for "recreational vehicle parking, utility substations, cellular or other communications towers, Internet or satellite installations, helipad . . . borrow pit excavations, temporary construction facilities . . . (and) temporary marketing facilities." It wants the city to agree in advance to annexing any adjacent land the company buys in the future, and to extend the terms of the agreement to these new purchases. This would include the Hernando County Fairgrounds, and the agreement seeks to enlist the city's help in acquiring this property. Though LandMar is in the process of having the property rezoned from agricultural to mixed use and residential, LandMar asks that the undeveloped parts of the property continue to qualify for a greenbelt exemption that gives property tax breaks to owners of productive farms. It would also like the city to take over maintenance of the main road it has agreed to build through the development, but it wants the "city to recognize that any such public roadways may contain private security gates." The requests were included in a draft of a development agreement prepared by Jake Varn, the Tallahassee development lawyer representing LandMar, and Coastal Engineering Associates Inc. of Brooksville, its engineer. Neither Varn nor Coastal president Cliff Manuel returned telephone calls about the agreement on Thursday. City Manager Richard Anderson said he has reviewed the document and is not alarmed by it. The process of reaching a development agreement is like buying a car, he said. The developers usually start by asking for the best possible deal and will settle for less. "It's not unusual for a developer to make a presentation similar to this one," Anderson said. He said city staffers, including City Attorney David La Croix and Community Development Director Bill Geiger, will meet with LandMar representatives in the next week or two. The final agreement will require several weeks before it is ready to present to the City Council. It is too early to identify all the items the city would oppose, he said, but it will probably not allow the terms of the agreement to extend beyond the development. LandMar has submitted plans to develop 799 houses, a golf course, a 125-room hotel and 40,000 square feet of commercial space on 830 acres of the property. The City Council has unanimously recommended a change in its comprehensive plan that would allow the construction of as many as 2,800 homes on its remaining land. The county has several objections to the development, most of which relate to its impacts on roads and other infrastructure. But Jerry Greif, the county's chief planner, said not all of LandMar's demands seemed out of line. For example, the county's impact fee ordinance allows developers some credits if they contribute to the cost of infrastructure. "That happens routinely with us," he said. "The ordinance defined what they are entitled to." LandMar has previously told city officials and the St. Petersburg Times it would pay for some improvements to the sewer plant and the lines to allow the reuse of wastewater for watering lawns and the golf course in the subdivision. Greif, like Anderson, said it is good policy to reject requests that lock the public into agreements for future developments. Also, he said, some of the requests are not typical. Many developers ask for exemptions from some parts of ordinances; they do not usually ask that whole ordinances be waived, as LandMar has. Because saving as many trees as possible is in the developer's interest, LandMar's proposed agreement states, "the city agrees to . . . allow the removal of specimen trees where and when necessary."
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