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Heritage Pines residents want building moratorium

They ask commissioners to keep their developer from building until reclaimed water issues and other grievances are addressed.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published September 12, 2006

DADE CITY - They came in buses, but the nearly 200 residents of Heritage Pines left the County Commission on Monday with what they felt was only a small consolation.

County Administrator John Gallagher said he would report to the commission in two weeks to resolve a slew of grievances brought by this 1,268-home Hudson community.

Led by Camelia Brust, the residents want county officials to fix a range of infrastructural problems at their 660-acre development, including developer Lennar Communities' failures to deliver enough reclaimed water for their irrigation system there, and a long-overdue second entrance.

"They've had 10 months to solve this," said resident Richard Olufs. "I think two weeks is too long."

In a 20-minute address, Brust detailed nine months' worth of hard-won meetings with county officials that produced apparently no results.

"Until these departments can figure out how to handle their workload, follow up on your edicts and be more responsive to the taxpayers of this county and less to the developers, it is my belief that you should mandate a moratorium on all building now covered by development orders," Brust said, to sustained applause.

Monday was her birthday - she would not disclose her age - but celebrations were not on Brust's mind as she called for staff and policy changes in Pasco offices.

Heritage Pines' priority as a recipient of Pasco's reclaimed water emerged as a key issue.

Pasco utilities director Bruce Kennedy said Friday that the county has 10,000 paying customers for reclaimed water, and that Heritage Pines is not among them. He had made clear Pasco did not commit to providing a fixed supply to Heritage Pines.

But residents said Monday they paid $78,000 last year for the reclaimed water.

On Monday, Kennedy drew a distinction between residential customers, who pay a flat $11 a month regardless of usage, and bulk customers, who pay 61 cents for every 1,000 gallons they draw. Heritage Pines is a bulk customer, he said.

Asked if this meant Heritage Pines is a lower-priority customer, he told the St. Petersburg Times, "You could say that."

He said Heritage Pines residents are "indirect" customers, whose intermittent supply goes into a holding pond of inadequate size, and who are not directly hooked up to the county system the way residential customers are. A larger holding pond would provide storage for backup supplies of reclaimed water.

Commissioner Jack Mariano, whose district includes Heritage Pines, disagreed.

"My feeling is, whether they're getting it the usual way or not, they're still paying customers," he said.

Residents also said Pasco missed out on some $700,000 in reclaimed water revenues because of a broken meter in Heritage Pines that county officials have not repaired for seven years.

"I don't know any specifics about that," Kennedy said. "We are currently replacing meters up there."

Brust said she'll be happy when Heritage Pines gets 800,000 gallons a day of reclaimed water. The community currently gets an average of 329,000, with wide variations on different days.

On the issue of a second entrance, residents remain unhappy with officials' requests to move the entrance farther east than originally planned and to let Lennar have its Certificates of Occupancy for 99 homes delivered to Heritage Pines. "If they agree to have them move this exit, and let the developer have their COs, we've lost our bargaining chips," Brust said.

"When we see the approved plat plan and I can drive my car on (the road), then, yes, they can have their CO."

Mariano said a meeting is scheduled with state and county officials Friday to resolve the entrance issue.

[Last modified September 11, 2006, 22:45:18]