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Flooding or not, new subdivision will rise

Neighbors say they're not trying to stop the development, just the flooding. Developers, however, say they are being harassed by people who don't want to see change.

By DAN DeWITT
Published June 27, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Lenora O'Berry's back yard east of town is a plain of sandy soil surrounded by makeshift levies of earth, concrete blocks and logs.

She and her husband had to import the soil - 20 truckloads and counting - and build the berms because of illegal clearing in the woods south of her property. The open area funneled rainwater into their yard, she said, carrying away soil and recently undermining a mature sweet gum tree.

O'Berry has been disappointed for the past year that the landowner was never cited for the clearing, which she said was illegal. She was then stunned, in April, to learn that a development was planned for the property.

"I thought, wait a minute, nobody has even come to ask me about my property and they were going to go ahead and do the development," said O'Berry, 57, who moved to the house on Valley Spring Drive in 1986.

She and her neighbors are worried that two planned developments, Cedar Woods and Cedar Trails, will worsen an already bad drainage problem; partly because of their renewed complaints, the county in May issued a citation for illegal clearing.

One of the developers, Mark Maconi of Palm Harbor, said he and his fellow investors are being unjustly harassed because O'Berry and other residents want to stop his project.

"It's clearly political pressure from neighbors who don't want any changes in the property," Maconi said. "Obviously, I've been made a villain."

Plans for the two subdivisions call for building a total of 127 houses on 187 acres on the west side of Cedar Lane, between State Road 50 and Powell Road. The developers sought approval for one of the projects, Cedar Trails, from the county Planning and Zoning Commission in May.

The commission decided to postpone action in order to seek more information about drainage and traffic. Both projects are now expected to come before the commission in August; the developers do not need to request a zoning change because the property was previously approved for 1-acre residential lots.

Maconi and two other investors bought the land more than a year ago. The tree-cutting operation, in March 2004, was not intended to prepare the property for development, he said, but to harvest the trees.

Roadways were cut only to allow heavy equipment to enter the property, he said.

"It's not a big story," Maconi said. "They (his partners) were going to clear all the trees, and they cleared the pathways to get the trucks up there."

Once a county landscape inspector came to inspect the cutting, which was also the first time Maconi saw the property, he said, they all decided to stop the cutting, which has since been reseeded with grass and should have little effect on drainage patterns.

"It's hard to imagine the little bit of clearing that was done could cause additional runoff," he said.

A county inspector who toured the property last year accepted the explanation that the owners were harvesting timber, said Vic Heisler, a county zoning and landscaping inspector.

Then, in May, after Maconi submitted plans for the property, and after the county received calls from neighbors, Heisler toured the tract. That is when he noticed the earlier clearings matched the proposed path of roads in the subdivision.

He cited Cedar Woods LLC, which is partly owned by Maconi, for illegal clearing and burning within 1,000 feet of a residential area. According to county property records, Maconi recently sold the land to DAL U.S.A. LLC of Tampa, while retaining ownership of Cedar Trails.

A county special master, a lawyer appointed to act as a judge in such noncriminal cases, will decide on a penalty for the infractions at a hearing on July 6.

The problems will not stop the development. O'Berry said that's not what she is trying to do, though she acknowledges she would rather see the land remain in its natural state. All she wants, she said, is to stop the flood of water that has undermined a toolshed and risen more than a foot against the back wall of her house.

County engineer Charles Mixson said he has already reviewed plans for the site and requested larger retention ponds, including one near the edge of O'Berry's property. But he said state rules on drainage retention do not require developers to solve all drainage problems, only to keep them from getting any worse.

That's bad news for O'Berry.

The first heavy rains of the summer brought down the sweet gum tree, she said.

"If it can do that much damage," she said, "I can't imagine what the hurricane season is going to be like."

--Dan DeWitt can be reached at 352 754-6116 or dewitt@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 01:05:15]