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Farm owner offers big, rare opportunity
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN SEMINOLE -- Cattle graze on an open pasture with a red-roofed barn, a bale of hay and a small pond. A farm in the country? Quite the contrary. It's a farm in Seminole, an area once dotted with orange groves and pine trees and now filled with sprawling suburbs and strip shopping centers. The 22-acre spread is east of Seminole Boulevard at the end of 68th Avenue and abuts Long Bayou. It's more than twice the size of Seminole City Park, about the same size as Ridgecrest Park in Largo and North Shore Park in St. Petersburg. It's one of a handful of large tracts of privately owned undeveloped land that remains in south Pinellas. "There are fewer and fewer of them left, that's for sure," said Dave Healey, executive director of the Pinellas Planning Council. The city has eyed the land for a couple of years. Officials want to preserve the property as a nature park. Edwina Hutchison, who owns the land and has lived on it since 1948, shares the city's vision: "I would really be happy if it would go that way." Mrs. Hutchison, 86, has kept developers at bay for years. The land is zoned for 15 units per acre, which means the dozen Black Angus could be replaced with up to 330 waterfront condominiums. For two years the city has pursued a state grant to help buy the land, but both attempts have failed. The Florida Forever program provides funding to local governments and nonprofit environmental organizations to acquire land for conservation, open space and outdoor recreation. Mrs. Hutchison said she is willing to wait for the city, but she can't guarantee that her heirs will. Which leaves City Council members with a tough decision: Apply for another grant this year and risk another rejection, or borrow up to $2-million to buy the property now. "As long as we can do it without increasing taxes," Mayor Dottie Reeder said during a workshop last week. City Manager Frank Edmunds said he can't promise that. "It has a potential," he said. City administrators will meet with Mrs. Hutchison and her attorney to agree on a price. Mrs. Hutchison said she would sell her property to the city for $1.8-million but would consider taking less. Staffers will quickly explore how the city could finance the purchase, such as issuing a bond, said Mitch Bobowski, Seminole's general services director. Other grant options will be researched, and a professional appraisal of the property will be done. "It's a very unique piece of property," Bobowski said. "We've been very appreciative that she's been patient with us while we work out the mechanics of buying it." The property is divided into two parcels. For tax purposes, the Pinellas County Property Appraiser's Office valued the large parcel at $1.13-million in 2002. The small lot, where Mrs. Hutchison's home sits, was valued at $125,600. Assessed values are generally about 85 percent of market value. "I haven't seen another spot like that around here," Don Wagner, 76, a retiree who escapes the cold winters in Buffalo, N.Y., and spends the season at Gulf Crest Mobile Home Park, next to the property. "If we could afford it, I'd like to see us buy it." The plan for the city to acquire land was hatched by the City Council in 2001, when member Patricia Hartstein suggested buying some undeveloped land to preserve what little green space is left in Seminole. The other council members agreed, and her idea was adopted as a city goal. Bobowski later visited Mrs. Hutchison and asked her if she would sell her property. She liked the idea. So do Henry and Marilyn Stricker, who live in Edgewater Pines, another resident-owned mobile home park bordering the land. They grew up on farms and enjoy watching cattle graze behind their back yard. But they don't know how long they'll have that view. "They're closing in," Henry Stricker, 61, said of developers. The Hutchison spread very well could be the last chunk of privately owned open space in the city. Thurston Groves, an upscale neighborhood sprouting at 102nd Avenue N and Old Ridge Road, was the most recent large tract (37 acres) to fall to developers. The property was once home to one of the county's largest citrus groves.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
