Neighbors seek halt to trail's extension

One neighborhood's residents say the Pinellas Trail will bring crime and lower property values. Officials say experience shows that is unlikely.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 25, 2001

CLEARWATER -- Along the 21-mile future route of the Pinellas Trail in eastern Pinellas County, a sunny patch of suburbia has made a stand against the bike path.

Tropic Hills, a subdivision of 1960s-style Florida ranch houses nestled off U.S. 19, has petitioned the city, the county and Florida Power to reconsider running the proposed trail extension right by their front yards.

"The only thing I can think of right now is the crime, traffic and the litter," said resident Ray Matusak, 53. "And you're going to have kids hanging out there. So nobody here is real happy about the trail. As far as I know, we're the only subdivision it's cutting through."

County and city officials suggested last week that the neighborhood is late in raising such objections. The route of the trail in east Pinellas was decided more than a year ago: a swath of Florida Power land on which major power lines are draped on transformers across the county that runs right through Tropic Hills.

Pinellas is paying Florida Power a maximum of $15-million to build the trail extension from Palm Harbor to the old Gandy Bridge during the next five years.

Tropic Hills residents say they didn't know when the county was actually deciding on the route of the trail. So they decided to raise their concerns about how the trail will affect the privacy of their one-way-in, one-way-out subdivision after they received notices recently about a public meeting on the trail's design.

They believe the trail will make their property values go down and the crime rate rise. They won't feel safe anymore leaving garage doors open or taking evening walks. They'll have to fence off their properties. Strangers will park in front of their homes and go for a ride on the trail.

"Visualize just 40 feet away from your property that they're going to put this 15-foot wide trail in and you're going to have bikers and Roller Bladers going back and forth on it," said Robert Wilcox, 72, a retired Tropic Hills resident.

"If we have 10 cars a day go down our street, it's a lot," Wilcox said. "After people use the trail, they'll see they could just come in and park in front of our homes, and walk 15 feet and be on the trail."

Interim Clearwater City Manager Bill Horne replied to some of the neighborhood's objections in a recent letter.

The neighborhood had complained that the trail would cause wildlife that lives under Florida Power's nearby lines to disappear. "Ants may be the only species displaced," Horne wrote. "There will be no impact on water fowl, alligators, snakes, armadillos and fish."

Donnie Miller, the trail's project manager for Florida Power, said that the response from Tropic Hills has been the exception during recent public comments about the design of the new trail extension. Overall, he feels very good about the public's response to the project.

Some 4,500 letters were sent to property owners along the trail's proposed route recently, seeking comments. Last week, 75 letters and e-mails had been received, and only 15 of those were negative. One of the letters, Miller noted, did have 23 signatures on it objecting to the trail.

That was from Tropic Hills.

"They're the only neighborhood that's opposed the project to the point that they created a list, a petition, opposing the trail," Miller said.

Other neighborhoods in Countryside wanted to make sure to have access to the trail. Others had questions about landscaping or the trail's overall design, Miller said.

County planning director Brian Smith said he thinks the Pinellas Trail's long history in the county is one reason why there has been so little opposition to the extension of the trail.

Most of the concerns raised by Tropic Hills are actually unlikely to be problems, Smith said. People generally don't park in neighborhoods to use the trail. Crime on the trail is not a major issue, he said. An ongoing county study of land along the trail is also finding that on average property values along it increase by 3 percent as a result of its proximity.

"There are a number of examples where originally people had a concern," Smith said. "They might have put a fence up back, and then they'd wind up putting a gate in so they can get out on the trail."

About 70,000 people a month use the county's trail system, Smith said.

"I think the success of the trail has educated people," said Scott Daniels, the president of Pinellas Trails Inc., a group that promotes the use of the trail and has volunteers patrolling it. "It's just one more avenue for people in the neighborhood to be able to get out and recreate."

Daniels said that he would make no predictions about Tropic Hills residents' opinions, but in other communities some people who were once opposed to the Pinellas Trail have changed their minds. One example is in the East Lake area, where opposition to the trail was heavy in the early 1990s.

Two residents who once opposed the trail last week said they had changed their minds and now thought that the bike trail was a good idea.

"I would think there has been a shift," said George Gebhardt, an 81-year-old resident of the East Lake area, who would rather see bicyclists on the trail than try to share East Lake Road with cars.

"I think it has found a place and filled a notch," Gebhardt said of the trail "And it's alive, thriving and used. It's part of the landscape now."

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