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Why won't 'downtown Lutz' grow up?

An insistence on wells and septic tanks along U.S. 41 may have warded off the name restaurants, bookstores and coffee shops that many residents now crave.

By BILL COATS
Published January 20, 2006

	[Times photos: Mike Pease]
	DOWNTOWN LUTZ: This branch bank in Lutz closed a decade ago after losing much of its property to the widening of U.S. 41. The landowners proposed a small shopping center more than a year ago. But authorities say the septic tank would be unacceptable because of nearby swamps and wells. No sewer system is available.

LUTZ - After decades of resisting development, people in Lutz are looking at U.S. 41 and coming to a realization.

It's dull. It's deadly dull.

In the commercial core that passes for a downtown, you can get Chinese food, a burger or the fare from two upscale cafes. After that your options are limited.

No big bookstore is breaking ground. This might be the last corner on earth without a Starbucks.

Civic leaders, fearing the spread of Carrollwood-type sprawl, have kept development to a minimum by insisting that the area use wells for water and septic tanks for waste.

Now they're having regrets. U.S. 41 is six lanes wide, with a daily stampede of Pasco commuters roaring through. But few things have sprouted beside the road to catch their attention. A Publix, a couple of gasoline stations and a million weeds.

Hillsborough County has offered Lutz water and sewer systems several times, but Lutz has always refused. "That turns into a carte blanche justification for all kinds of development," said Steve Polzin, president of the Lutz Civic Association. The association studies every significant rezoning proposed in Lutz and gets involved in many. Polzin said the water and sewer question arises whenever something's considered on U.S. 41.

The latest is a proposal by Lakeshore Villas, the 377-bed nursing home on Nebraska Avenue, just north of Interstate 275. Lakeshore's owners would like to buy and raze a bus repair yard immediately across Hayes Road from Lakeshore, then build an upscale, 19-acre retirement center there.

But county water and sewer connections, which Lakeshore has, are taboo across the street. Like most of Lutz, that's in the county's Rural Services Area, where development is more limited and water and sewer don't reach.

Lakeshore may have a solution. County rules allow water and sewer in rural areas if public health is threatened. Lakeshore reps think the land may be polluted from the buses, and orange grove spraying before that. They are considering seeking a rezoning.

At U.S. 41 and Sunset Lane, an empty branch bank has decayed for a decade on the northeast corner after the highway widening swallowed much of its parking lot. A year ago, a Pinellas Park developer proposed a small shopping center, perhaps with a restaurant.

But the rezoning has been repeatedly postponed because of the ill mixture of close wetlands and a commercial-scale septic tank that would be needed. Lutz is checkered with lakes and swamps, all meriting special protection from pollution. Because most of Lutz also drains toward public well fields, extra restrictions apply.

"You just don't want a drain field and a septic tank in close proximity to a wetlands area," said Michael Horner, a Carrollwood development consultant.

Last year, Horner won approval for 56 townhouses at the southwest corner of U.S. 41 and Crenshaw Lake Road. The land is inside a corner of the Urban Services Area and within reach of the utility pipes that serve Avila. Workers are preparing to clear the site.

Horner estimates that the 15 acres without water and sewer would have accommodated only houses instead of townhouses, and only 10 houses.

If a single development issue on U.S. 41 has perturbed the Civic Association the most, it's a 14-acre field northwest of the Sunset and U.S. 41 intersection. Civic leaders worked with the property owner six years ago in a rezoning for a five-building country village that would contain two restaurants. But the field sits empty, except for a few forlorn orange trees.

Developer Dara Khoyi approached Applebee's and other restaurant chains about the land, but none would bite. Khoyi thinks Lutz needs water and sewer, but says restaurant chains need more than that.

"The issue has to do with demographics and what the people in Lutz are willing to support," Khoyi said. "Lutz doesn't have national tenant interest."

Most restaurants along 41 in Lutz are near Sunset Lane. There are two upscale cafes, a breakfast nook, a storefront Chinese spot and a sports bar.

Khoyi contends there aren't more because most Lutz residents think of Dale Mabry Highway, not U.S. 41, when they want to eat out. Likewise for other chain stores.

"Everybody wants a bookstore," Khoyi added, but "a good bookstore won't come here."

Denise Layne, the civic association's former president, disagrees. "I'm telling you, the last two years, that market has changed in Lutz," she said.

She said that the new Cafe on the Avenue is doing well. But it and the others are on the south corners of Sunset and 41, served by small-scale water and sewer facilities. Lacking those, the north corners are empty.

She traces the lack of commerce directly to the lack of utilities.

"We absolutely succeeded in keeping them out," she said. "And now it's working against us."

Jim Jeffers heads the planning team for Hillsborough County's water department. He remembers visiting Lutz in the late 1980s to propose a water system there. The people were politely hostile.

"It was not a real cordial welcome, you know?"

Then the road was widened in the mid 1990s.

"If we were going to do it, then doing it with the road was going to be the time to do it," said Jeffers, who now lives in Lutz.

Carolyn Meeker, Lutz's most enduring advocate of growth controls, almost always led the opposition. She argued that Lutz couldn't trust politicians to protect its rural nature, especially because their campaigns were partly bankrolled by developers. Lack of infrastructure was a more reliable shield.

Jan Smith, another Lutz activist who led the county's Planning Commission in the 1990s, initially sided with Meeker. But Smith changed her mind after her Crenshaw Lakes neighborhood began to suffer from aging, flooded septic tanks.

Meeker died of cancer 21/2 years ago. Layne, Meeker's best friend, soon led the community to name a future park after her.

But she differs on utilities. And she is easily the community's most visible presence with county government.

"Environmentally, water and sewer all over the county is the way to go," Layne said.

It wouldn't happen quickly, Jeffers said.

The county would have to amend its long-range growth plans and begin roughly five years of engineering and funding. It wouldn't require anybody to hook up. The county, though, likely would buy the private utility systems in the area and extend the new lines to them.

Jeffers said county officials considered laying large empty pipes as "sleeves" under U.S. 41 during the highway's widening, so water and sewer lines could be installed there someday without tearing up pavement.

"We said, "Let's put in sleeves so it's easy in the future,' " Jeffers said. "But for some reason it didn't get in."

What remains is a town with some 21st century appetites but an infrastructure frozen in time. Mary Figg, who represented Lutz in the Florida Legislature in the 1980s, summed it up with this punchline:

"Lutz is one of the few places where you can discuss the color of your toilet water at dinner parties."

[Last modified January 19, 2006, 08:43:07]