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Voices raised against increased traffic
By BILL COATS © St. Petersburg Times, published May 18, 2001 LUTZ -- Traffic received a relentless denunciation this week. One after another, 30 people spoke Monday night against plans for a medical complex next to Calusa Trace, and nearly every one blasted the specter of traffic zooming past Schwarzkopf Elementary School. One night later, 15 people spoke against a pricey, rural-style subdivision proposed on Newberger Road. A third of those criticized the traffic that the 129 homes could add to the curving Newberger. Another third protested allowing an alternative route, onto Pasco County's Sonoma Lane. Sonoma Lane, said Steve Hayman, who lives there, "simply is incapable of handling through traffic." People who live along Newberger "can't comprehend hundreds of cars being added to Newberger Road," said one of them, Michael Landis. The previous night, Jim McKay of Calusa Trace asked, "How could a hospital, whose mission is public health, put a hospital on a road where children's safety is at risk?" Officials of St. Joseph's Baptist Health Care seemed more intent on putting outpatient clinics on their property at Van Dyke Road and Calusa Trace Boulevard. In March, the hospital sought building permits for 15,000 square feet of clinics, "urgent care" facilities and offices. It outlined four phases of offices and health centers and a final, fifth phase with a hospital. The request is pending. St. Joseph's doesn't have the state-required certificate of need to establish overnight beds. To accommodate later phases, the hospital seeks to triple the intensity of its zoning. That would allow a 240,000-square-feet medical center and a 120,000-square-foot nursing home. The plan provoked a 21/2-hour debate before a zoning hearing master Monday. The 38-acre site has been zoned for a 100,000-square-foot hospital for 15 years, with provisions for an extra 32,500 square feet of offices and clinics. "The nature of our business, the health-care business, has changed significantly over the years that we've owned that property," St. Joseph's president, Isaac Mallah, said in Monday's hearing. Yet Van Dyke Road also has changed significantly. County staff decided the road can accommodate St. Joseph's first phase, but planners predicted later phases would fill Van Dyke beyond capacity. They recommended that traffic be dispersed via entrances onto Calusa Trace Boulevard and onto a drive built for the Hollywood 20 theater next door. Calusa Trace residents railed against exits into Calusa Trace. Tim Powell, a planner representing St. Joseph's, didn't argue with them. "If some type of compromise is suggested, so be it," he said. In the Newberger Road project, the likeliest compromise may be elimination of the connection to Sonoma. Planners advocate "connectivity" among adjacent subdivisions so all traffic isn't routed onto main roads. But among more than 25 speakers Tuesday night, nobody defended the Sonoma proposal. Denise Layne, president of the Lutz Civic Association, said the connectivity endorsed in Lutz planning regulations envisioned connections within Lutz, not across the Pasco County line. The subdivision's rural features -- winding roads, varied setbacks, and lack of street lights and sidewalks -- drew no criticism. Officers of the civic association, who had helped formulate some of those ideas, praised all that, but blasted a late addition of electric gates. Supporters of the project were outnumbered by people who criticized its impact on narrow Newberger Road. "Why do we need 125-129 homes?" asked Michael Berger, president of the Lake Kell Crossings Property Association, who previously survived a head-on collision on Newberger. "I realize it's very profitable. But that's not all that's at stake here." John Crislip, the zoning hearing master, must submit his recommendations to the Hillsborough County Commission in three weeks. - Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469.
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From the Times |
