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LETITIA STEINResidents are tired of developers digging up their rural neighborhoods and carting the dirt away to construction sites.
SEFFNER - Imagine digging a hole more than 30 feet deep in your back yard.
It's a crater that would swallow almost 40 acres and cake your neighborhood in dust for five years. And it wouldn't be the first. In a mile, you count eight ditches and landfills.
Can you see it? That's the view in a working-class neighborhood behind Interstate 4 in Seffner.
For two years, residents have been battling a proposal to excavate yet another property in their back yards. Developers want the sandy soil. Neighbors are saying enough is enough. So are school officials, who worry that trucks hauling away dirt will create hazards at bus stops for three schools.
But the county's land use rules, designed to hand out permits, do not clearly state when a neighborhood deserves a break for taking more than its share of dirty places. In Seffner, residents can't match the resources of the company trying to dig here. Yet they must live with a decision made by appointed officials.
Is this the best way to approve Hillsborough's least desired land uses?
The morning sun has yet to burn the dew off the grass behind Jerry Lewis' six-sided house across from McDonald Elementary. But already, he can see a yellow crane gulping up the earth behind a fringe of orange trees.
Recently, digging began at what is called the Cone and Graham land excavation site off Taylor Road, approved for 54 acres and 1 million cubic yards of material. Lewis was dumbstruck when crews worked on a recent Sunday.
"My grandson can throw a baseball into that one over there," said Lewis, a 22-year resident, pointing to the Cone and Graham excavation. "And that one over there."
From his back yard, Lewis also can see an adjacent 39-acre property that Lorton Industries wants to dig up. Construction noises permeate this rural pocket across Interstate 4, off Kingsway Road.
Beep. Beep. Clank. At the Cone and Graham borrow pit, trucks are waiting in line. A crane fills their hulking beds with dirt. Trucks thunder down two-lane Taylor Road, turning onto equally narrow Pruett Road.
"See that?" Lewis watches a truck exhale a plume of black exhaust. "That's what they want to condemn me to."
He mentions that it rained last night. The moisture is keeping down the dust, for now.
Members of the Sierra Club in Tampa Bay say they regularly see the environment degraded in neighborhoods without political clout.
"It's the poor people who get stuck with it," said Lynn McGarvey, the club's former conservation chairwoman.
Lorton Industries is invested in this fight.
Lorton wants to excavate 700,000 cubic yards - enough to fill at least 31 trucks per day for five years, according to county planners. This spring, a land use hearing officer approved Lorton's request, but an appeal is pending. The fill material increasingly is a hot commodity in a hot development market. The sand or dirt has multiple uses in construction.
Lorton has scaled back its request by 250,000 cubic yards and agreed to finish digging a year earlier since its initial application for a special use permit to excavate more than two years ago.
The first time around, a land use hearing officer denied Lorton the permit, based on the "cumulative effect" of excavation sites in the community.
Lorton appealed unsuccessfully to a review board. Then it sued Hillsborough County.
"This is not a popularity contest," said Vincent Marchetti, the attorney for Lorton Industries. "We either met the code, or we didn't meet the code."
Last September, a Circuit Court judge ruled that the county had relied upon "subjective criteria" to deny the borrow pit. The judge sent the matter back for another hearing.
Hillsborough County devotes one section to excavations in the document that spells out its land development rules.
The rules state where borrow pits are allowed. Factors to consider include: Would a land excavation fit with the community? What is the cumulative impact of all permitted excavations within a mile?
Here's the scenario in Seffner:
Dry excavations, like Lorton proposes, are permitted in rural areas. The site is zoned for agricultural use.
The immediate neighborhood isn't home to a major subdivision. The borrow pit site is not slated to receive county sewer and water services. Current zoning would allow one house per 5 acres.
Still, planners envision allowing one house per 21/2 acres in the future. They fear the community won't realize its agricultural, residential or commercial potential if another borrow pit goes in.
At a land use hearing in April, the county staff recommended denying Lorton's revised request to excavate dirt. They also rejected the proposal two years ago.
This time, Hillsborough's school district also objects.
The route for trucks hauling away dirt runs from Kingsway Road to U.S. 92 to Interstate 4. Officials say the truck traffic is too close for comfort to bus stops for McDonald Elementary, Burnett Middle and Armwood High.
In response, Lorton has offered concessions:
- Lorton says it will not have trucks on the roads around Burnett Middle from 8:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and from 3:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. while school is in session.
- To control dust, Lorton proposes to spray water while digging. It also promises to rehabilitate the property as a nursery when finished.
- As a buffer, Lorton has agreed to plant two layers of trees and raise a 6-foot chain-link fence. Excavation would be restricted to daylight hours.
"I am not aware of any land excavation special use permit that has conditions this strict and this onerous," said Marchetti, Lorton's attorney. "The fact that we offered all the conditions up voluntarily should tell you something about my client."
He made this case during the second land use hearing in April. Neighbors and activists with the Taylor Road Civic Association and the Seffner Community Alliance spoke in opposition.
James Scarola, the land use hearing officer, heard the arguments, at Lorton's request, for a second time. Fifteen days later, his nine-page decision concluded: Approved.
"Ultimately, the consideration of complaints about "too many' is subjective and vague and could be used in a discriminating fashion to grant some special use permits and deny others," Scarola wrote.
Lorton's attorney said he believes the decision is fair. Opponents are appealing. A hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Aug. 5 at County Center, 601 E Kennedy Blvd., Tampa.
The problems of a rural community in Seffner seemingly don't have much to do with the rest of the county. At least, not at first glance.
Borrow pits are approved through the same processes that grant developers the right to raise cell phone towers and allow alcoholic beverages to be served across the county.
Since 1997, final say has rested with a board of seven private citizens appointed by county commissioners. The current group includes two attorneys, an engineer, an educator, a former manager in the county's conservation program and a pilot.
After they rule, commissioners can do little to revoke an approval, said Karen Matches, who manages the county office that works with the land use appeals board.
After the dirt is removed, the county can require whoever dug a borrow pit to slope the sides. But using the pit for another purpose could require entirely new zoning.
The neighborhood in Seffner knows all too well what can happen.
Closed borrow pits can become landfills. The Seffner neighborhood already is home to the David Joseph landfill, an active dump, and the Taylor Road landfills, where the federal government is monitoring the cleanup of pollutants that seeped into groundwater.
The 37-acre crater on Pruett Road, known as the Azzarelli excavation site, sometimes is used as an illegal dump.
Living in the heart of the community, Lewis said he can't understand why anyone could think that one more borrow pit here is acceptable.
"One person, one judge, is putting this on our community," said Lewis, who is vice president of the Taylor Road Civic Association. "That's like saying if a bank is robbed one more time, it doesn't matter. Sooner or later, there's no money left."
Letitia Stein can be reached at 661-2443 or lstein@sptimes.com
What is a borrow pit?
A hole in the ground from which dirt and sand are removed.
How deep is the hole?
Depth depends on the site. A typical range is anywhere from land surface to 50 feet. The high elevation in the Seffner area makes the region conducive to borrow pits.
What happens to the dirt and sand?
The fill material is used in construction, including new homes, shopping centers and roads.
What happens when excavation is complete at the borrow pit?
The county requires the excavating company to rehabilitate the site. Typically, this involves grading and sloping the hole. Reusing the site for a particular purpose often requires another zoning application or a special use permit.
To learn more: Opposition to the borrow pit is being organized by Terry Flott of the Seffner Community Alliance at 689-8490; Cam Oberting of the Taylor Road Civic Association at 246-5183; and Jerry Lewis of the Taylor Road Civic Association at 833-1525. The law firm Foley & Lardner is representing Lorton Industries and can be reached at 229-2300.