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State says plan fails to prevent sprawl
By DAN DeWITT BROOKSVILLE -- The state Department of Community Affairs, like the Hernando County Commission before it, produced a long list of objections to Brooksville's plan to allow the Hampton Ridge subdivision. The City Council voted in May to change its comprehensive plan to allow the development. In response to this amendment, the state found the city failed to meet state requirements for preventing sprawl. It found the plan lacks provisions for protecting wetlands, groundwater, and endangered plants and animals. The city did not provide enough information about how much water the project will use and how it will be provided, according to DCA, and the project's roads do not fit in with the city's long-range transportation plans. Some of the objections might yield changes to the project. But they almost certainly will not result in the DCA stopping the development because the agency has seldom taken that approach in recent years, said Paul Wieczorek of the Hernando County Planning Department. "DCA's tactic seems to be: 'Let's try to fix things,' not 'let's try to end things,' " said Wieczorek, who helped prepare the county's response to the city's plan. That also found fault with the proposed amendment for many of the same reasons. "I think if you talked to DCA, they wouldn't say our intention is to deep-six this project." Wieczorek said. In many cases, the state is just asking for more information, said Bill Geiger, the city's community development director. He met with DCA planners Tuesday to discuss the objections. "It was a good meeting," he said. "I do believe that we can move forward and put a response together that will be found in compliance." In May, the council voted to change its plan as part of a routine -- though long overdue -- update, and included a change to accommodate the proposed annexation of 1,600 acres owned by Hampton Ridge's developers, LandMar Group LLC of Jacksonville. The city's amendment allows as many as 3,600 homes on the property, which is now designated rural by the county's comprehensive plan. Plans for Hampton Ridge, which covers 840 acres, call for 999 homes, a 175-room hotel, a golf course and shopping center. Part of the problem is the size of the project, especially because Brooksville is relatively small, said Ron Horlick, the DCA planner who reviewed the city's plan. "Being that it's 1,600 acres and the city is about 3,000 acres, of course that would warrant concern from the state," Horlick said. "As a result of generating a poorly planned conversion of rural land to other uses," his report said, the city's plan "fails to adequately protect and conserve natural resources, such as native vegetation, environmentally sensitive areas, natural groundwater recharge areas, and other significant natural systems." Among the reasons the project promotes sprawl, his report said, is failure to use existing public facilities and to protect nearby agricultural areas. It requests the city "revise the amendment to ensure that it discourages urban sprawl." Some of the objections seem more serious than they are, Geiger said. For example, the DCA raised concerns about endangered species because maps from other agencies showed they might be present nearby; however, the maps do not specify which species and whether the endangered species' habitat was actually on LandMar property. He also said Horlick was less concerned about sprawl when he told him the maximum number of homes on the property would probably be about 2,500 rather than 3,600.
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From today's Hernando Times Letters |
