Request to help road hits ruts

Ronald "R.B." Bell negotiates multimillion-dollar defense contracts for a living.

The job at Raytheon offers no room for error, Bell says, and it carries its share of stress. His home on 5 acres in hilly, wooded, rural southeastern Hernando County provides a respite from his bustling work environment in Largo.

He calls the Plateau subdivision, just off Myers Road and about a mile from the Pasco County line, "seclusion with horses."

Bell's neighbors, professionals with similarly long commutes, share his love of the fast-growing, 7-year-old community of three- and four-bedroom homes worth as much as $435,000. It's paradise, they say, far removed from urban congestion, where kids can be kids and everyone feels safe.

But there's a problem, they say. It's their road.

Virginia Lee Circle, which touches all but one of the Plateau's 56 5-acre lots, actually is a 2.95-mile private access tract which looks more like a narrow dirt driveway or, in parts, like tire ruts in the grass. School buses don't go down it, mail trucks don't either. When an ambulance recently made a call, a neighbor had to pull the ambulance out with a tractor.

Though they knew Virginia Lee was their responsibility when they bought into the neighborhood -- it says so right on the deed, as the county required when it approved the Class 1 subdivision -- the property owners say they did not know exactly what that entailed. Now that they have experienced dirt road maintenance after prodigious rainfalls, they want pavement.

And, here's the tricky part, they want the county government to help.

They reason that the commission, after all, approved the dirt road in 1995, knowing the area would have large lots with large homes that pay big taxes without the benefit of most services. So the least the county could do, they figured, is pay a portion of the road construction, as it has with other neighborhoods.

"Value for your dollar: That's the bottom line," said John Danker, a Florida Petroleum Corp. oil representative who owns four lots in the Plateau. "Last time I checked, I'm a voter too. As a matter of fact, there are four voters in my house."

The issue is not so simple for the county, though.

Hernando County has 121 miles of unpaved, private roads running through it, according to county engineers. It gets many requests to improve and maintain these roads.

"As a county, we can't afford to go in and do these roads," said Commissioner Betty Whitehouse, who has corresponded with Plateau residents, who live in her district.

People who bought into the Plateau got cheaper land prices because of the road condition, she said. The county must be fair to all residents, Whitehouse said, noting that the limerock roads it helps pay to pave are public roads.

"We don't do roads that are privately owned," Whitehouse said.

In fact, the Florida Constitution forbids a county from using its taxing authority to aid any private person or entity, said Kent Weissinger, senior assistant county attorney. The only exemption, Weissinger said, is if the county is fully reimbursed for all costs, and the project serves a public purpose.

Virginia Lee Circle does not touch any public road, though, so the public purpose of paving it is unclear. Weissinger has recommended seeking an attorney general's opinion to see if the county may create a municipal services benefit unit, or MSBU, for the Plateau if the neighbors want to move ahead with their request.

It might become a moot point, if the county's latest cost estimate is close to definitive.

Informed a year ago the paving would cost about $345,000, or $6,000 per lot, the residents learned last week the price tag would be closer to $831,000, or $15,134 per lot. It was difficult enough to get two-thirds of the owners to support the lower amount, said Scot Middleton, an owners association leader who works for the Tampa Tribune.

"We're willing to pay something to pave our roads," Middleton said, "but don't rape us."

"They have just made it cost-prohibitive," Danker said. "At the estimated initial cost, it would have cost me $30,000 for the four lots. I was willing to go for that. But I'm not willing to go to $60,000."

Bell, the second person to move into the Plateau, wondered why the county would not want to help with the cost. Communities like the Plateau should be showcases as professionals seek an escape from the cities where they work, he said.

"This will be the trend," he said. "You would think the county would jump in to improve things to show the way. They should be opening arms."

Commissioner Chris Kingsley has heard the argument, and said he's hard pressed to disagree. He noted the same road would not be permitted under today's subdivision rules.

"There were so many things that used to occur around here that I don't understand," Kingsley said. "I believe we have an obligation to help them overcome some things."

He suggested the Plateau might directly contact a contractor, which might pave the road more cheaply than the county, and then turn the road over to the county for future maintenance. Kingsley also supported the idea of the county's kicking in one-third of the cost, especially if the neighbors will hand over the right of way, easements and other things the county needs to maintain the road.

The county should "give them the level of service they deserve and that they're being taxed for," Kingsley said.

The neighbors understand their request could end up before commissioners, and they have talked about hiring a lobbyist to make their point, and possibly to join forces with other subdivisions that have similar wants. Commissioners need to figure out that serving Hernando County is not all about Spring Hill, they said.

Even if they don't prevail, the Plateau residents have no regrets about choosing their rural Hernando County lifestyle.

"If the roads are not done, I'm not leaving," Middleton said. "This is where I want to stay."

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