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Builder puts its cards on table

Sierra Properties' latest proposal offers a glimpse of what's to come if the county allows an upscale subdivision on Spring Hill ranch land.

By DAN DeWITT
Published December 11, 2005

TAMPA - Ken Crews repeated, once again, the job he held with the company that had built this subdivision and, in fact, the very gatehouse where the guard was stationed:

"Ken Crews," he said, "Chief operating officer, Sierra Properties."

"Do you have a card?" the guard said firmly. "I can't let you in without ID."

Crews, after digging into his wallet, said he didn't mind being treated like a delivery driver at his own subdivision. That is the way it should be at Avila, one of the first gated communities in Tampa and still one of the most exclusive.

"I can tell you I wouldn't be happy if I said, "Hey, I'm with Sierra,' and he let me in," Crews said.

Avila is or has been the neighborhood of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy and former player Warren Sapp, billionaire mall builder Eddie DeBartolo and former Tampa Bay Devil Rays owner Vince Naimoli. A house there recently sold for $10-million, Crews said, and vacant lots go for $500,000.

And soon, something very much like it may be coming to Hernando County, which is why Crews offered a tour of the subdivision to a Times reporter last year. The essence of Sierra Properties' plan is to reproduce the luxury golf, million-dollar homes and gated, guarded privacy of Avila on Robert Thomas' 2,800-acre ranch in Spring Lake.

This will also be at the heart of the company's presentation to the Hernando County Commission, possibly as soon as next month:

The 1,749 houses at the subdivision, Hickory Hill, would be so valuable and generate so much property tax revenue, that even after subtracting the costs of necessary public services, the county would be left with an annual surplus of $9.3-million.

"This is a residential project that will more than pay its way and will benefit the county fiscally," Crews said.

But beyond the question of whether Sierra Properties has fully accounted for the costs of serving a large subdivision in a rural area - and some county planners say it has not - is the more basic issue of whether any subdivision belongs among the woods and fields of Spring Lake, said Joe White of the Hernando Alliance for Open Land Conservation.

The ranch is designated as rural in the county's comprehensive plan, "and to request a change, they will have to show it's compatible with the surrounding area," said White, whose group opposes the development.

"All you have to do is drive up and down the roads to see that it's not compatible. It's cut-and-dried."

The decision on whether to allow Hickory Hill is shaping up as one of the most difficult in the county's recent history - pitting the expected financial benefits against the desire to preserve what is widely considered Hernando's most spectacular rural landscape.

The decision is also coming up quickly.

Last week Sierra Properties sent its latest proposal to change the county's comprehensive plan to allow the project, and asked for the County Commission to decide whether to forward the request to the state Department of Community Affairs in January.

Especially because the developer has set aside its legal claim to historic development rights on the property, that hearing may well determine the future of the project, said Paul Wieczorek of the county planning department.

"If we transmit (the request) to the state, we're probably going to adopt."

A large part of Sierra's new plan attempts to assure the county that Hickory Hill can, in fact, blend in with its rural surroundings.

Lots on the west side of the project, bordering the most rural area, would cover about an acre and be interspersed with golf holes to reduce the overall density, said Jake Varn, the Tallahassee lawyer representing Sierra.

The densest development will be on the east side, which is adjacent to area designated for future subdivisions and industrial use.

"The gradation of density from east to west is a very important aspect," said Charlie Gauthier, the DCA's former director of local planning, who helped draw up the new plans. "We've really focused on land-use issues and compatibility."

The developer proposes to irrigate three golf courses at the property with 2.1-million gallons per day of reclaimed water - an amount that will not be available until surrounding subdivisions are largely developed, said county Utility Director Kay Adams.

To try to limit the amount of fertilizers and pesticides seeping into the aquifer from these courses, the developer will follow the standards of Audubon International - a private, industry-funded group that establishes guidelines for building and maintaining golf courses.

Sierra will destroy "only 5 acres" of the 72 acres of wetland on the property, said Gauthier, who now directs the Tallahassee office of a private engineering and consulting firm, Morris-Depew Associates Inc.

The developer will also preserve 70 acres of forest just east of Interstate 75. And though the area looks rural now, the report says, it is a 2-mile drive from the interestate on State Road 50 and borders a 4,400-acre planned development district that may one day be home to 25,000 residents.

And then there is the matter of money. At Avila, Crews drove past homes of the famous and infamous, including Paul Bilzerian, who has managed to hold on to his 30,000-square-foot home despite being convicted of securities fraud.

Crews pointed out the wide variety of architectural styles, wrought-iron fences, flower-covered earthen berms and planted oaks thick enough to look as though they had been rooted in Avila for decades.

Hickory Hill will look somewhat different, Crews said. Its landscaping will rely less on artificial berms because of the naturally hilly terrain. Sierra will not have to plant as many trees there because it intends to preserve those already growing on the ranch.

And the average house in Hickory Hill will be somewhat less expensive than in Avila because of its distance from Tampa and because, at least initially, it will lack Avila's reputation as the home of stars.

But the company estimates - conservatively, Crews said - home prices ranging from $375,000 to $1.5-million. That will add up to $1.2-billion in taxable property when all the lots are filled, which might not be for another 20 years. The development will also generate about $16-million in impact fees, the proposal said. But what the report lacks, said Dennis Dix, the county's transportation planning coordinator, is a true accounting of the true costs of building a large subdivision in a rural area.

Sierra's financial figures are based on serving the average county resident, not a rural one, according to the consultant that prepared them. Building a subdivision in a rural area is almost always more expensive than building in existing urban areas, planners said, which is one reason the state growth laws discourage it.

It requires longer trips for school buses and sheriff's deputies. It sometimes requires new schools, fire stations and, almost always, new sewer lines and roads.

Sierra's proposal says Hickory Hill will add little to the county's total transportation costs because it plans to maintain its own network of private roads. Therefore, the only outside transportation improvements it plans to complete are the upgrading of two nearby intersections.

In a document sent to regional planners to address the special requirements of large subdivisions - called developments of regional impact - the company pointedly refused to improve the unpaved roads in the surrounding area.

"It's amazing what the tools of the profession can come up with," Dix said.

"Seventeen hundred homes in a rural area and all you're going to do is improve two intersections? Does that seem appropriate? I don't think so."

And even the large sums of public revenue created by Hickory Hill could be quickly consumed by the rapidly rising cost of right-of-way acquisition and road construction.

For example, Hickory Hill is expected to bring in a total of $6.3-million in transportation impact fees. That's enough to pay for between 1 and 2 miles of a two-lane highway, Dix said.

The rising price of school construction will also be a factor, said Ken Pritz, the district's executive director of facility and support operations.

Sierra's proposal said the money the project generates - $7.5-million in school impact fees and nearly $10-million in annual school taxes - will easily pay for the needs of the 595 students Hickory Hill would bring to the county.

It has also said that number of students will actually be lower because many of the houses will be occupied only part time or by retirees.

All that is probably true, Pritz said.

"But the problem is, their development may take 25 years to build out, and we need that money now," he said. "We need to build schools now and that's what we're trying to work out with them."

Sindra Ridge, another member of the open land alliance, said she is skeptical about the expected financial benefit of Hickory Hill.

She also said the commissioners should consider more than just the money.

The comprehensive plan was recently changed to allow development of rural areas only if the county is running out of space for home construction in designated residential areas.

"Developers have to prove there is a need for this development," she said.

The county, which has eighteen 18-hole golf courses, certainly doesn't need three more of them, said Gene Kelly, a planning activist and a newly appointed member of the county's growth management advisory committee.

Audubon International is not to be confused with the Audubon Society, he said, and its standards will not prevent the fertilizer used on the courses - not to mention on the manicured yards in the subdivision - from adding to the rising nitrate levels of the county's groundwater.

"It's still a very intense, unnatural landscape that uses a lot of chemicals," Kelly said.

Nor does the county need more housing tracts, even upscale ones, he said. At least, it doesn't need them as much as it needs its dwindling agricultural areas.

"What's going to happen to Hernando County's rural character?" he asked.

"It's just going to be replaced by more soulless, suburban sprawl."

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:15:36]