Year in review: 2004

Meteoric pace of county's growth won't stop

Developers are homing in on the market, but worried residents elect new county commissioners who ran on growth management platforms.

By DAN DeWITT
Published December 28, 2004

In fast-growing Hernando County, statements like the following were so common this year they began to sound like a mantra:

"This place is exploding. I know that some people don't like to see the growth, but there's no holding these people back," Walt Davis, sales director of Southern Hills Plantation in Brooksville, said last week.

The success of his development, which sold out its first phase almost instantly when the lots went on the market in June, is part of what continued to be a major story in 2004: the county's meteoric growth.

Hernando's population has been climbing rapidly since the completion of the Suncoast Parkway in 2001 and, according to county estimates, passed 150,000 late last month, up from 131,802 in 2000.

But two trends became clearer than ever this year: that well-funded, out-of-town developers were homing in on the Hernando market, and that residents were increasingly concerned about what many viewed as runaway development.

This message was heard just as often and just as insistently as the cheerleading sales forecasts of developers and real estate agents.

"Somehow this County Commission has to not just talk about controlling growth; we have to do something about the situation," Commissioner Diane Rowden said earlier this month.

By the end of the year, the commission was showing signs of doing just that.

Controlling development was one of the biggest issues in this year's local elections. All three of the newly elected commissioners - including Rowden, who was returned to office - ran on a strong growth management platform.

And at the commission's first land use meeting earlier this month, the newcomers helped vote down three proposals for residential developments in eastern Hernando County.

It has been just as obvious, though, that Davis is right: Neither the commissioners nor the newly energized activists will stand in the way of skyrocketing growth.

The county's rapid population increase in recent years has almost all come from residents building in old developments, especially 37-year-old Spring Hill. The rate of population growth seems certain to accelerate because a new generation of subdivisions has either recently begun to sell homes or is poised to do so.

Some of the largest of these new communities include:

-- Hernando Oaks, off U.S. 41, south of Brooksville. This 975-lot development was approved in 1999 and began selling lots in 2003. The pace of sales there has picked up rapidly after a slow start, said Nancy Thomas, the manager of Hernando Oaks' welcome center.

"We're almost through with phase one, and that's 192 homes," she said, adding that Hernando Oaks planned to open the next two phases in the spring.

-- Sterling Hill, on Elgin Boulevard. It's owner, Devco Development Corp. in Tampa, is so confident of consumer demand that it has offered all of the subdivision's 1,250 lots for sale immediately rather than in phases. This optimism seems justified, said Sheila Bagby, sales manager for one of the builders at Sterling Hill, Grant Homes. She said her company has sold 26 lots as of last week, even though its own model home is just being completed.

"It's going great," she said.

-- Southern Hills Plantation, in southern Brooksville. The development, by LandMar Group LLC in Jacksonville, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, made news when it signed contracts for 213 lots on its first day of sales; about 200 of these sales have since been closed, Davis said. Construction on the golf course, roads and sewer lines is well under way and residents should begin moving into the development this summer, he said.

-- Majestic Oaks, on Mondon Hill, east of downtown Brooksville. This project, approved for 650 houses by the county last year, recently annexed into the city of Brooksville and will be requesting final permission from City Council to expand to 999 houses in January. Construction will begin once the project receives its permit from the Southwest Florida Water Management District, said Tommy Bronson, one of the partners in the project.

-- Trillium, on County Line Road near the Suncoast Parkway, is the first venture in Hernando by Pulte Homes, which is by some measures the largest home builder in the country. Pulte, which received rezoning to allow more than 800 on the site late last year, has not yet begun to market the development.

Another industry giant, Levitt & Sons, which helped establish the postwar model of tract housing, is planning to build more than 900 homes on land it has bought from LandMar in southern Brooksville. That sale was finalized about two weeks ago, Davis said, after Cascade won final approval from the city to close a road through its property.

Other national developers have expressed interest in developing land in the 4,800-acre planned development district near State Road 50 and Interstate 75, county planners said last month.

Sierra Properties LLC, based in Tampa, is not a huge firm, but it is one of the area's most prestigious, having marketed the Avila, possibly the highest-priced subdivision in Hillsborough County.

Its plans for 1,600 houses and two golf courses on one of the largest and most pristine properties in the county, 2,800-acre Two River Ranch in Spring Lake, galvanized opposition to the spread of development into rural areas.

The proposal spurred the formation of the Hernando Alliance for Open Space Conservation, which emerged as one of the most visible groups to oppose uncontrolled growth in Hernando County.

One member, Jean White, summed up the group's aims when she spoke at a recent forum on growth management at the Spring Lake Community Center. The first of several such meetings being organized by new commissioner Jeff Stabins, this included an explanation of the county's comprehensive plan map, which shows future residential areas in yellow and rural areas as green.

White asked that the commissioners respect these designations.

"If it's yellow, it's yellow. If it's green, it's green," she said.

-- Dan DeWitt can be reached at 352 754-6116. Send e-mail to dewitt@sptimes.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Hernando Times this week is running a series of reports reviewing some of 2004's top stories in the county. The series will end Saturday with a page of our favorite pictures from the year.

[Last modified December 28, 2004, 16:58:44]