Nobleton embraces status quo

Longtime residents resist attempts to rezone land to commercial and bring new businesses to the community.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 16, 2000

NOBLETON -- The community of Nobleton is a dot on the map and easy to miss on the road. And that's exactly the way many of its residents want to keep it.

Two efforts to bring new businesses to Nobleton are facing fierce opposition by longtime residents who want to avoid any growing pains in their small spot along the Withlacoochee River.

After a two-year struggle, Deborah Dickinson and her husband, Ray, won a small victory after the Hernando County Planning and Zoning Commission approved a compromise with the community last week on the rezoning of the couple's 2 acres off Oak Lane and Lake Lindsey Road. Instead of commercial zoning, the Dickinsons were granted office and professional uses for a seamstress shop.

"I was dumbfounded at (the outcry), and that's why I was willing to compromise so much on what I was willing to do there," Deborah Dickinson said.

The Dickinsons have been trying to rezone the property from residential to commercial so they can run a business. Their efforts to build a restaurant and a plant nursery operation failed, but Deborah Dickinson now plans to open a seamstress shop in a small building in the center of the property.

Nobleton residents submitted a petition with 69 signatures to planning and zoning commissioners and spoke against commercializing the property. In response, the commission voted to rezone the property to allow only office and professional uses -- not full commercial use. Only businesses such as day cares, churches and seamstresses and doctors offices could locate on the property; restaurants and other businesses that would bring more traffic would be prohibited.

The County Commission will make the final decision on the zoning issue in August.

Across the street from the Dickinson property, Bob Meers, who runs Nobleton Canoe and Boat Rental, faces a similar struggle.

Meers wanted to rezone 2 acres adjacent to the canoe operation so he could build and rent storage warehouses. Nobleton residents fought his efforts, prompting the Planning and Zoning Commission to deny his wishes earlier this year.

When the issue came before the County Commission recently, Meers agreed to change his rezoning application. Instead of commercial, he said he would seek recreational zoning so he would be able to store his own canoes but not rent warehouse spaces. The adjacent property is currently zoned residential. He has 30 days to change his request and resubmit it to the county.

With all of the other business activity in town, Meers says he does not understand the fuss.

"Nobleton has a restaurant and a bar; they got a post office and a barbershop and a feed store and a hardware and a machine shop," he said. "Does that sound residential to you?"

Dickinson said she and her husband would like to move into the house on their Nobleton property from their current home in Istachatta if they get approval to run a seamstress operation there. If anything, she and her husband believe they have improved, not sullied, the neighborhood by painting and repairing the house.

"We pay $1,400 in taxes (a year) on that property," she said. "I have a big chunk of property, and we made it look better. . . . Unfortunately, our selections (of businesses) have been something they didn't want. I'm hoping this time everyone can be happy."

But her past attempts at putting a restaurant and plant nursery operation on the property have caused neighbors not to trust Dickinson.

At the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, they said they feared she was trying to commercialize the property any way she could.

Reached at her home, 80-year-old Pauline Gideons said she and the neighbors signed the petition against Dickinson because they are suspicious of what she will do with the property.

"I don't think Nobleton is a place for any kind of a business," she said. "If you know anything about this area, no one's going to bring their sewing here. It's a little place in the woods."

Gideons predicted that Dickinson will convert the business into something else once she gets the zoning in place. She thinks the same of Meers and his property.

"It's like getting your foot in the door," she said.

Dickinson said she already has customers from her earlier days sewing custom-made beauty pageant dresses and evening gowns in Leesburg. She said she could even pick up and drop off material at her customers' homes, cutting down on traffic at the Nobleton site.

Meers said there is little chance of his property changing uses, even after he dies.

"We can't say what's going to happen, but chances are, when I'm gone, my son is going to continue just as we are now," he said.

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