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Wary of water plant? Say so

The county Board of Adjustment will hold a hearing about a proposed water-blending plant in Brooker Creek Preserve.

By THERESA BLACKWELL
Published July 22, 2006

North Pinellas residents leery of a proposed $75-million water-blending plant in Brooker Creek Preserve will soon get a chance to raise at least some of their concerns to a third party.

The Pinellas County Board of Adjustment will hold a public hearing Aug. 3 on a request by Pinellas County Utilities officials to build several buildings taller than the site's zoning allows.

Utilities officials want to build three structures more than 45 feet tall on the property, which is zoned for agricultural estate uses.

One is a high-service pump building. The other two are for storing and feeding chemicals into the water as the plant blends and treats water from various sources for use by Pinellas residents.

All three would be 54 feet tall - 9 feet taller than the county's zoning code allows.

Officials said the added height would allow them to use a more cost-effective peaked roof. It also would make it easier to service the equipment enclosed in the buildings, providing more clearance for cranes needed to lift heavy equipment.

Two other 60-foot-tall water tanks planned for the property are allowed under the code, county zoning officials said. That's because the code specifically allows water towers as tall as 65 feet.

County utilities director Pick Talley met with a vocal group of Crescent Oaks subdivision homeowners in April to explain the water-blending project and answer questions.

Residents were alarmed when they read in March that Pinellas County had cleared 46 acres of the preserve nearby for the plant. It was the first they had heard of it.

That night in April, Bob Loos, chairman of the subdivision's governmental relations committee, brought up the 45-foot height limitation for construction in agricultural estate zoning. Officials later applied for the variance.

Loos said later that the county should have notified Crescent Oaks residents of the project in the first place.

"If they were going to follow the spirit of the law," he said, "they should have held a public hearing and given proper written notice to all of the area residents."

That was not required because the water-blending plant is a capital improvement project approved by the County Commission, said Paul Cassel, county director of development review services.

But because the utilities department now needs a variance, it has to post signs about the request and send notices to its neighbors in Pinellas County.

As of midday Friday, Crescent Oaks subdivision had received notices of the Aug. 3 public hearing.

But notices were not sent to any of the Pasco County residents of Trinity Oaks across Trinity Boulevard from the project or to Fox Hollow residents, whose homes are closest to the project, to the northeast of the building site.

Yellow signs were not in evidence to announce the variance hearing to Pasco County residents, though Cassel had been told they were. Several would be up later Friday, Cassel promised.

Residents have nothing to fear, Talley said.

"No one is going to see it off site," he said.

The county engineer on the project, Mike Engelmann, said parts of some buildings might be visible from the entrance, but for the most part, a landscaped berm above the eye level of cars on Trinity Boulevard would screen the project.

Talley has also said that generators to be tested about four hours a month would produce sound approaching that of a semitrailer truck on Trinity Boulevard. But if that became objectionable, he said, sound-attenuating measures would be possible.

And if they don't get the variance to build higher than 45 feet?

"If we have to put a flat roof on it," Talley said, "we will."

[Last modified July 21, 2006, 22:23:06]