Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Rural homes may come before new rules

Rules limiting rural development might not take effect until after a hearing on the Hickory Hill subdivision.

By DAN DeWITT
Published December 15, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - The biggest change in the updated comprehensive plan sent to the state in August was a new, stronger set of rules discouraging the development of agricultural land in Hernando County.

But when the County Commission hears a proposal to build the Hickory Hill subdivision on a 2,800-acre ranch in Spring Lake - the largest development for a rural area of Hernando in at least 20 years - the plan might not be in place.

"I think there's a very good chance" of that, said Jake Varn, a Tallahassee lawyer who represents Hickory Hill.

That is not because the state found significant problems with the county's plan, considered the blueprint for future growth in Hernando. The agency that reviews the documents - the Department of Community Affairs - offered few comments, and the County Commission voted to give it final approval on Wednesday after about a half-hour of discussion.

Instead, the delays are written into the cumbersome process of revising local governments' comprehensive plans, which the state requires every seven years.

In Hernando's case, the revision began with public hearings in 2002. Most of the big decisions were made in a series of contentious meetings this summer before the county sent the plan on to the state.

But even with commission's vote Wednesday, the county has 10 days to send the plan back to DCA, which has 45 days to review it; then comes another 21-day period when any interested party may ask for a state administrative hearing to contest the plan.

That means if the county planners do not race to send the plan back to the state, it will be languishing in Tallahassee on the date of the first major hearing on another proposed comprehensive plan change. That is the request to amend the rural designation now in place for the Hickory Hill ranch area, which the county is tentatively scheduled to hear Feb. 28.

"We've got a lot of things going on at one time, and we are straining at the seams," said Jim King, the county planner most responsible for rewriting the plan.

"But we will get it done."

No matter how desperately they scramble, however, the county's revised plan will not be in place if Hickory Hill representatives decide to challenge it, which is possible, said Varn, who represents both the Thomas family, which owns the Hickory Hill property, and the developer, Sierra Properties LLC of Tampa.

"There is a very high probability that somebody will file a petition, including my guys," he said.

The proposed plan makes two big changes that could affect the upscale subdivision, which would have three golf courses and 1,749 houses, some expected to cost more than $1-million.

One change is new language that discourages development in rural areas "unless (existing residential) areas are predominantly developed and occupied (and) population projections indicate a need for additional urban development areas."

The rewrite also removed the Southeast Overlay Zone, which covered large areas of Spring Lake, including the ranch land.

That may be grounds for Hickory Hill to challenge the new plan, Varn said.

He said the zone was meant as a transitional area between the dense development in a 4,400-acre planned development district near Interstate 75 and the rural land near Spring Lake Highway.

The county decided to remove the zone without "any data and analysis to support" the action, Varn said.

King said that the only data needed was that the county currently has plenty of land designated as residential - enough for 150,000 new houses, he has said previously - to accommodate the predicted population increase in the county.

And nowhere in the existing plan, King said, was there any information that demonstrated why the overlay zone was necessary.

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

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 00:32:19]