Residents: Controlled zoning of road is key

Planners ask the public for ideas and building limits for a stretch of Lithia-Pinecrest Road near State Road 60.

By JAY CRIDLIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 21, 2003

BRANDON -- Slowly but surely, Brandon residents are coming to an agreement on what to do with the stretch of Lithia-Pinecrest Road between State Road 60 and Lumsden Road.

Nearly 30 residents, property owners and county planners met in Brandon for more than two hours Tuesday night to discuss plans for rezoning that stretch of land.

At issue is how to keep commercial congestion to a minimum while allowing some professional businesses to set up shop.

"We don't want it to look like Highway 60," said Sandy Pike, who owns commercial property on Lithia-Pinecrest and lives three blocks from the road.

The area serviced by the road has exploded over the past decade. The population of the neighborhoods in that vicinity grew from 4,564 in 1990 to 7,561 in 2000, while planners say the road itself is handling 18,223 drivers a day -- nearly 2,400 more than its capacity.

The stretch of road runs diagonally between SR 60 and Lumsden for less than a mile, and is marked by heavy tree coverage and a few business facilities.

It is not zoned for industrial use and is only zoned for commercial use near its intersection with SR 60 -- and that's how residents want to keep it.

Under consideration are sign and foliage requirements; limits on what types of businesses can open along the road; and noise, lighting and building height restrictions.

Tuesday's meeting was the latest in a series of informal question-and-answer sessions with county planners, who view residents and property owners as the key to formulating a successful plan.

"We want as many people as possible to understand what we're trying to do here, because our worst enemy would be uninformed people," said Dave Borisenko, a senior county planner in charge of a study on the project.

Last fall, county planners asked residents to volunteer for a committee of residents and property owners that would offer suggestions and feedback on the drafting of a zoning overlay for the region.

"The more people that we educate to what we're trying to do, it will give us some kind of control over our neighborhood, and be able to plan it the way we want it," said Pike, a member of the committee.

With some residents attending a meeting for the first time, the discussions about what to do yielded several new ideas, to be incorporated into a draft Borisenko will present to the County Commission in April.

The study will continue through the summer, with commissioners set to vote on the overlay in October and November. The earliest that any plan could go into effect is next February.

Several residents expressed a desire to transform the road into an area similar to Tampa's Hyde Park, where many law and tax offices occupy older buildings that have been there for years.

"They see the handwriting on the wall that some things are going to change, and they want to control it," said Brenda Roundtree, who has lived on Lithia-Pinecrest for 10 years. "Everybody along there cares about the neighborhood."

-- Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com .