Commission challengers seize the divisive issue as bad governance; incumbents downplay it, saying others would have done the same thing.
By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published August 20, 2004
Halls River Retreat was a condominium project envisioned to shelter snowbirds on the sleepy bank of the Halls River. Instead, it became the most divisive issue the County Commission tackled over the past two years.
Like the Homosassa project, which never seems to fade from the public eye, the political fallout from the decisions commissioners made during its review is similarly lasting.
Commissioners Roger Batchelor and Josh Wooten, both incumbents, along with Jim Fowler, who is not up for re-election, voted for the project, though it was panned by hundreds of county residents and environmentalists and later killed by a circuit judge.
That decision, several opposing candidates said, was the impetus that spurred them to run for office and attempt to unseat Batchelor and Wooten, either during the upcoming Aug. 31 primary or the Nov. 2 general election.
Both commissioners, meanwhile, counter their opponents by labeling them opportunists trying to capitalize on the obvious. In hindsight, they said, the Halls River Retreat project did not fit Citrus' growth plan. But at the time, everything seemed legal, and they said they wonder how they - or anyone else - could have turned down the project.
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In a 3-2 vote, commissioners in February 2002 approved Halls River Retreat, a 54-unit condominium time-share project, despite the fact that the plans were rejected by the county's planning advisory board.
Environmentalists, who also strongly objected, sued, fearing the project and the boats Halls River Retreat would harbor would pollute the Halls River, a state-designated Outstanding Florida Waterway.
In November 2002, Circuit Judge Jack Springstead ruled that the project did not fit along the riverbank, according to the county's own comprehensive plan, which seeks to limit residential growth in coastal areas.
The broad ruling pointed out several problems with county zoning and led to Citrus' overhauling of many land-use categories over the past year. The ruling also highlighted Wooten, Batchelor and Fowler's decision, something political opponents pounced upon.
"It appears to this court that the three members of the (Board of County Commissioners) who voted to approve this project had predetermined their decision," Springstead wrote, and that they disregarded evidence and testimony from other county officials and the public, "which is a violation of due process."
The county appealed but lost and chose not to press litigation further.
F. Blake Longacre, Halls River Retreat's developer, however, sought to get his project approved another way. The judge had ruled that the zoning category, mixed-use, was illegal. That was the zoning classification for the Halls River site.
This year, Longacre asked commissioners to rezone the 9.5-acre property into a general commercial site, which gives developers the county's most broad development rights and may have allowed him to build his project, according to him.
But all five commissioners, including Wooten and Batchelor, rejected Longacre's request on July 27, leaving the developer to ponder his next move, which his attorney has said could be filing suit against the county - though critics say he has no case.
With Halls River Retreat's demise looking more certain, commission candidates are taking aim at Wooten and Batchelor for their roles in the saga.
They are using Halls River Retreat as a damning example of bad governance.
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When asked what he means when he says commissioners are ignoring environmental concerns and residents' well-being, District 1 commission candidate Jimmy Carr points to "that Halls River Road travesty."
He said Batchelor, a two-term Republican incumbent representing District 1, and Commission Chairman Wooten, a Democrat in District 5, were influenced by developers when they voted for Halls River Retreat.
"I don't believe they're taking the protection of the Nature Coast seriously," Carr said. "They're looking at special interests more than they are people interests."
"I look at Halls River, and I can't see anybody who'd think that's not overpolluting the Halls River," he added.
Joyce Valentino, a Republican candidate in Wooten's district, said she was urged by the Homosassa River Alliance to try and unseat the commission chairman after his vote. The nonprofit group's lawsuit led to the judge's overturning the commission's decision.
District 1 commission candidate Lenny Kaplan said the environmental concerns about Halls River Retreat were clear at the outset of the project.
"We're only here for a short time," he said, "and it's our children who will inherit this mess."
Frank Carter, a Republican candidate in District 1, said he couldn't understand why commissioners filed an appeal after Judge Springstead ruled the project was illegal. He wondered why the county would waste taxpayers' money on legal expenses to do so just to keep a developer's project alive.
Isn't that the developer's responsibility to appeal, he asked.
"What they did is represent one landowner at our expense," Carter said.
He found it disconcerting that Batchelor and Wooten could not even see that their decision violated the county's comprehensive plan.
"They have to get a judge to decipher their own plan, which I think is atrocious," Carter said.
Like the others, Sam Lyons, a Republican in the same district, said Batchelor, Wooten and Fowler's decision pushed him to run.
Lyons said it seemed like Batchelor had made up his mind before the public hearing on Halls River Retreat. He alleged that Batchelor seemed uninformed and "influenced."
"You judge a person on his actions," Lyons said.
Batchelor said he wouldn't change a thing. He said he was well-informed before he made his mind and asked the county's planning staff repeatedly:
"Does this fit the comp plan?"
They said yes.
The project had been zoned mixed-use, Batchelor said, which would have allowed for its construction. He said he could not see any reason to deny Longacre his property rights, though he did not want to go against the will of hundreds who attended the hearing in protest.
He said he did some "soul searching" before he voted.
But his job, he said, is to make "tough decisions."
"Now, if we had refused this individual," Batchelor said, "we would have gotten into a lawsuit that would have cost the county a whole lot of money."
He said he voted to appeal the judge's decision because the judge was challenging the county's entire planning system - not just commissioners' decision on Halls River Retreat.
Wooten, meanwhile, said voters should weigh his vote for the project along with other votes he made against it.
He voted against further appealing the judge's decision, he said. He voted not to grant Longacre more favorable zoning this year, he said. He voted to make some tough decisions and rezone many properties using the judge's ruling as a flashlight, he said.
But he acknowledges that his February 2002 vote for the project gave his political opponents ammunition and maybe even an opening that might not have been there otherwise, given the county has kept the property tax rate the same, built and widened miles of roads and even bought a new clinic for veterans in his tenure.
"Candidates are going to come pick out the most controversial thing," he said, and Halls River Retreat was the biggest issue in his four-year term.
Like Batchelor, he said, he agonized over the vote and consulted heavily with staff before hand. He said he made the developer shrink the project to reduce its impact on wetlands. He said he couldn't think of a legal reason to reject the project.
"If there were mistakes," he said of the staff's advice, "they were honest mistakes."
The biggest stigma attached to his vote, Wooten acknowledged, is that he's now seen by some as part of a voting bloc with Fowler and Batchelor. But he said his voting record proves otherwise.
"The record reflects that I am an independent thinker," Wooten said.
He said he hopes voters will "move on," as he has on the issue of Halls River Retreat. But he also has looked back in hindsight.
"Knowing what I know now," he said, "of course, I would have done things differently."
