Residents feared a planned neighborhood would disrupt their quiet lifestyle. They got together to change it.
By JAMES THORNER
Published June 20, 2003
LAND O'LAKES - A bunch of Land O'Lakes neighbors didn't just win concessions from a housing developer they feared would ruin their community.
They actually redesigned the developer's project at their own expense and got the company to agree to the scaled-down version.
Last August, Beazer Homes of Tampa pitched the 471-acre Dupree Gardens project, which called for 1,151 houses, townhomes and condominium units between Hale Road and Ehren Cutoff.
Fearing excess traffic and disruptions to their semirural lifestyle, neighbors, some with expansive estates on Hale Road, splurged on their own planner and attorney. Their handiwork, a plan for a 743-home Dupree Gardens - won Beazer's support.
As the Pasco County Development Review Committee heard Beazer's rezoning request on Thursday, Beazer attorney Ben Harrill said such neighborhood input was unprecedented in his 24-year legal career.
Reducing home totals wasn't the only change. At neighbors' request, Beazer also agreed to eliminate plans for homes on lots as narrow as 40 feet. Fifty-five feet is the smallest allowed now.
Nor will Dupree Gardens build its planned entrance on Hale Road. Cars will spill onto Ehren Cutoff and a future northward extension of Collier Parkway.
Beazer even agreed to change the name of the project after neighbors insisted the name was taken by an older community called Dupree Gardens Estates. The development would sit on land that once belonged to a 1940s amusement park of the same name.
Beazer hasn't come up with a new name.
The rezoning request is scheduled to go to the county commissioners for a final vote in July.
In other business Thursday, the development review committee bent the county's recently approved sign ordinance to grant Publix permission to enlarge signs at a new supermarket at State Road 54 and Collier Parkway.
The ordinance caps wall signage on one side of a store at 150 square feet. But Publix representatives, noting that the store sits 750 feet from SR 54, said smaller signs would be lost on such a broad expanse of store front.
A majority of the committee agreed to boost Publix signs to more than 200 square feet. The store is scheduled to open the second week of July.
Developers of Collier Commons, the shopping center anchored by the Publix, already had failed twice to boost the size of stand-alone signs on their property.
If committee member Doug Bramlett had his way, Collier Commons wouldn't have succeeded with the wall signs either.
"Anyone within 20 miles of that area knows a Publix is going in there," Bramlett said before voting against the sign enlargement request.
