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Neighborhood report

Cordoba Ranch is focus of hearing

At issue is how much open space must be set aside in the development.

By BILL COATS
Published December 30, 2005

LUTZ - With nearly 300 houses, Cordoba Ranch will be the largest development in Lutz since Heritage Harbor, and the biggest in more than a decade on the community's older east side.

But this year, it has amounted to a volley of paperwork and procedure, which has grown a little testy.

Consequently, arguments over how much open space must be set aside in the equestrian community are scheduled to go before a Hillsborough County land use hearing officer on Jan. 13.

The land flanks 2 miles of Interstate 275 east of Livingston Avenue and changed hands on Nov. 7. Cordoba Ranch Development of Northdale paid $11.28-million for 1,059 acres, of which 645 are swamp. The company signed an $18-million mortgage with Bank of America.

A week later, the developers received a stunner in the mail. The Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission, charged with protecting wetlands, said Cordoba wasn't justified in building some of the roads it planned through the swamps.

Of the 305 lots Cordoba had mapped, the EPC proposed to delete 64 that were plotted on outlying islands of dry land.

In recent weeks, Cordoba salvaged 51 of those lots by convincing the EPC the project wouldn't be viable without them, said Danny Alberdi, general manager of the EPC's wetlands staff.

The EPC's concession is tentative, he said. It wants Cordoba to return with enhanced plans to preserve the environment elsewhere in the project.

The Jan. 13 confrontation concerns the county's planning department and its calculation of open space requirements.

Cordoba designated Cordoba Ranch as a "conservation subdivision" under county law, allowing it to design half-acre lots instead of the one-acre lots required in the land's zoning. In exchange, an extra 10 percent of the site must be set aside as open space.

Paula Harvey, the county's zoning administrator, allowed Cordoba to fulfill the open space rule by designating retention ponds and buffer strips that already had to be created under other regulations.

In September, the EPC required an explanation in writing from Harvey. She complied. In November, a group of north Hillsborough's most vocal environmentalists appealed Harvey's interpretation, triggering the Jan. 13 hearing.

"We need to show Paula what meaningful open space is," said Denise Layne, representing the Lutz Civic Association and the Sierra Club of Tampa Bay.

Lance Ponton, Cordoba's president, said he was sympathetic to Layne's views, but "she doesn't know the intricacies of all these regulations."

"We've probably taken a year extra on this project to make sure everything is in place," Ponton said.

- Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 08:40:09]