By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published June 27, 2003
BRANDON: County commissioners want property owners and business representatives to weigh in on the future look of State Road 60 east of Interstate 75.
After applauding a consultant's $30,000 study of the potential for beautifying Brandon's main thoroughfare, commissioners told county staff members to gather community opinion and suggestions during a series of public workshops.
The meetings have not been scheduled. But ideas from them will help shape the recommendations county planners make to commissioners for improving the 5-mile stretch of SR 60 from Interstate 75 to Dover Road.
The road - once a two-lane boulevard divided by flower-filled medians - is now an eight-lane highway with little landscaping where heavy traffic whizzes by strip plazas, narrow sidewalks and a mishmash of signs.
Commissioners on Tuesday smiled at renderings of the road's possible future: wide, meandering sidewalks flanked by tall shade trees and colorful crape myrtles, covered bus shelters and attractive buildings that hug the road.
"If we do this well," said Commissioner Ronda Storms, who initiated the study, "we can take this and apply it to Hillsborough Avenue, to Dale Mabry Highway, to all the places where we keep getting black eyes for the way they look."
BRANDON: County commissioners Tuesday approved minor changes to a planned 71-acre development at the northwest corner of Gornto Lake Road and Bloomingdale Avenue. The current development proposal calls for up to 910 apartments and 272,500 square feet of commercial business. The developer, Tampa Eastshore Ltd., doesn't want to change the number of apartments or the amount of commercial space, but wants the flexibility to decide where the commercial businesses and apartments will be within the 71-acre site. Commissioners also okayed the developer's request to add an additional entrance to the development from Gornto Lake Road. Cars leaving the property will not be able to turn left onto Gornto Lake. Commissioner Kathy Castor abstained from the vote because she has previously worked with the applicant.
RUSKIN: Officials with the Riverside Club mobile home park submitted a proposal last week for a 107,580-square-foot mobile home and car sales center on more than 20 acres at the northeast corner of U.S. 41 and Stephens Road. According to the proposal by CAX Riverside LLC, the complex would include a 6,000-square-foot car sales lot and a 15,000-square-foot mobile home sales center. Another 76,580 square feet would be used for storage. A county transportation analysis estimates the project would generate 1,433 trips a day along U.S. 41, a four-lane road traveled by almost 35,000 vehicles a day. The land is zoned for mobile homes and single family homes, but CAX is asking the county to rezone it to a planned development.
GIBSONTON: Victor Abuoleim wants to build a "cozy single family waterfront community" of about 10 homes on 12.5 acres he owns west of U.S. 41 in Gibsonton. The land, south of Dug Creek and just a few miles from the upscale MiraBay community, is now zoned for agricultural rural use, which allows one home per 5 acres; Abuoleim is asking the county to rezone it to a planned development. "It's the waterfront, which people are looking for," he said. "It'll bring a lot of good things to the area, I think." Abuoleim is scheduled to go before a zoning hearing master Sept. 15.
When and where
Hearings of county zoning hearing masters and land use hearing officers, and land use meetings of the County Commission, are held on the second floor of the County Center, 601 E Kennedy Blvd. All hearings before a zoning hearing master begin at 6 p.m. on Mondays or Tuesdays; commission meetings begin at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. Both are televised on government access channels. Land use hearing officer hearings, which are not televised, begin at 9 a.m. every third Friday. Basic information about each petition is available online at http://was.hillsboroughcounty.org/pgm_zoning/home.cfm
