Development project near golf course wins approval

Scaled back by about half its original size, construction of the subdivision will include renovation of Brooksville Golf and Country Club.

BROOKSVILLE - The developers of Majestic Oaks, the proposed subdivision near Brooksville Golf and Country Club, have received approval for a plan to build 87 villas at the course.

Majestic Oaks developers, including Tommy Bronson and his son, Tom Bronson, had incorporated the club as part of its development in return for promising to renovate the course and pay off its debts of more than $1-million.

Sale of the villas - which will serve as both permanent residences and resort housing - will help pay for the course renovation, said Don Lacey of Coastal Engineering Associates, which presented the plan to the County Commission on Wednesday.

"He's a businessman, no doubt about it," Lacey said of Tommy Bronson. "He wants to help the community, but he doesn't want to take a bloodbath doing it."

The commission approved the proposal unanimously. No residents spoke either for or against it.

The units will be built in four clusters, most of them near the clubhouse. A separate parking lot will serve one of the groups of 30 villas.

Another 30 villas will be linked to the main parking lot by a 12-foot-wide golf cart path.

Those will mainly be rented to vacationing golfers, Lacey said, adding that similar arrangements have been successful at nearby developments, including the Lake Jovita Golf and Country Club near San Antonio in Pasco County.

"It's worked very well at Lake Jovita, which is why I feel comfortable recommending it here," Lacey said.

Bronson originally submitted a proposal that called for about twice as many units, including an assisted living facility.

County planners rejected that, saying development of that intensity would be incompatible with the rest of Dogwood Estates, the established subdivision that surrounds the course.

"The planning staff would not support multifamily development in the subject area, where access to Croom Road is through the Dogwood Estates residential subdivision," the staff report on the project said.

Tom Bronson, Tommy Bronson's son, who has been supervising the renovation of the golf course over the past several months, said construction had been delayed a few weeks by heavy rains this summer.

Still, he said, the course is nearly ready for opening. The holes have been shaped, and most of the landscaping has been planted. Mostly, he said, it is a matter of waiting for the grass to mature.

"We're down to the final phases of growing in," Tom Bronson said.

He also said he is confident the course has been improved enough to draw out-of-town golfers.

"Actually," Bronson said, "we're very pleased with it."

- Dan DeWitt can be reached at 754-6116. Send e-mail to dewitt@sptimes.com

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