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Letter to the editor

Guest Column

Poor planning hurts Citrus Park

By LINDA GADBAW
Published January 11, 2008

Recent articles about the 20-acre development north of Publix and continuing up to Hall Road by Post Properties, while informative and well-written, can hardly cover the bigger issue. The poorly planned, highly impacting and destructive developments are continually allowed for the powerful, always at the expense of our environment and communities. That includes our wells and wetlands, trees, wildlife, and open spaces, affected by traffic, noise, air pollution and increased crime!

Appeals against Post's permits for the Hall Road site were hastily dismissed. We were told we were in no position to question their authority.

Mind you, our appeal was based on their rules and regulations. Yet they have ignored them all in favor of a corporation's supposed financial hardship; their hardships being that unless they pave over every inch of the 20 acres at 45 feet or higher, they can't make a profit.

Post Properties knew exactly what they were getting into when they put together that deal years back.

Why is their "financial hardship," which is a need to line their pockets with profit, of higher importance than the protection of an almost 100-year-old community? A place that is home to families, two-legged to 100-legged, and no-legged, winged, feathered and scaled among others, and is still rural in form and function?

They got everything from outrageously high densities that started at six units an acre, and are now 18-20 an acre, to what was originally supposed to be mixed-use, now more than 300 strictly rentals.

Add their latest insult to dump their cut-through traffic into the heart of our four-school zone on their way to jump on the Veterans Expressway. This shows how little concern or respect anyone outside of Citrus Park actually has for our community.

As to the county's "connectivity" into Publix for Post to save "trips" on Gunn Highway for shoppers: Let's get real, and connect them the same way our Town of Citrus Park got connectivity to shop at Publix. We have a pedestrian-only dirt path at the end of a dead-end road that connects to a wood bridge that spans the ugly, stagnant retention ponds that replaced a once beautiful pond and wetlands area. It's not unlike the so-called cattle pond that will soon be filled in on Post's 20 acres.

A number of people I have worked with on this issue have undeservedly lost their jobs. A local preacher has threatened me. And had it pointed out to me by Mr. Everett with Post, how they have the money, the power, etc. to take care of pests like us, and their warm relationship with TECO.

Why don't companies like that use their power and privilege to make their profits in ways that work for the common good all around? That's real community planning.

And why aren't all the agencies with the authority and power to protect our communities behaving as if it's their neighborhood, their environment and their future? That, too, would be real community planning.

I love Florida and I really love Citrus Park. The 242 rural acres of our little town deserve better than we have gotten so far. Every agency that had a hand in permitting the Post development in Citrus Park has made a terrible error in judgment. And I don't believe it is ever too late to right a wrong. The sooner the mistake is acknowledged, the sooner it can be rectified.

The spring-fed pond is as yet not filled in and many grand trees still stand. Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Linda Gadbaw, Citrus Park

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 00:04:52]