FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  July 15, 2005

Secretary of State, Other Leaders Speak Out on Community Needs, Growth Impacts & Policy

Monticello/Tallahassee – Secretary of State Glenda Hood will speak to a statewide audience on the subject of “quality communities” in a live teleseminar scheduled for Wednesday, July 20. Her talk will be part of a forum on growth, development and the future of Florida communities. Local elected officials and specialists in growth concerns will also be featured as part of the program. 

The topic is one of special regard to Secretary Hood who was widely known for her leadership on such matters when she served as Mayor of Orlando, just prior to accepting her current appointment. She has also held the positions of President of the National League of Cities, Florida League of Cities and Florida Chamber of Commerce, among other distinctions.

A panel of other notable speakers will also share information and perspectives on the seminar theme, including:

Bob Apgar --  Land use attorney; former Executive Director of Florida ELMS II Committee on state land use policy

Honorable Cliff Thaell – Immediate Past President, Florida Association of Counties; Leon County Commission Chair

Honorable Pegeen Hanrahan -- Mayor, City of Gainesville ; environmental engineer

Dee Layne -- Executive Director, Coalition 4 Responsible Growth; community leader

Neil Skene -- Editor, Tallahassee Bureau, Florida Trend Magazine; growth management writer; attorney

Dave Burr -- Executive Director, South West Florida Regional Planning Council

Scheduled from 10:00 – 11:30 AM on the 20^th, the Florida Public Interest Foundation is sponsoring the event as part of an eight week teleseminar series on Growth In Florida. The program is open to civic leaders, community officials and members of the public-at-large from throughout Florida . Registration is $25 and groups can listen in by speaker phone at that same price. Proceeds will help the organization offer more such programs to nonprofits, communities and the public.

According to Marcia Elder, Foundation Director, “participation is easy; you simply call in and listen by phone.” She adds that, “it’s an opportunity for people who care about their communities to get informed and get involved.”

Further information about the program is available at www.blueradish.biz . Registration can also be done on-line at that site. Remaining sessions in the series will address Housing and Redevelopment (July 27) and Rural Florida (August 3). Arrangements for a follow-on series are also underway to provide technical assistance to those involved in implementing expansive new growth policy requirements approved by Florida lawmakers in May.

The Florida Public Interest Foundation is sponsoring the teleseminars through it’s Education For Florida’s Future Initiative. In so doing, the Foundation has created a one-of-a-kind learning opportunity to inform Floridians about the subject and facilitate solutions for the future. The Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Questions may be directed to the Foundation by email at forthepublic@earthlink.net or training@thenonprofitinstitute.com , or by calling 850-251-0760. Information about the sponsoring organization is available at www.forthepublic.net .

Residents strive to slow the creep of development

Homeowners near a proposed development know they can't stop progress but they want to control it.

DADE CITY - The view from LeHeup Hill along Fort King Road is impressive any day, with the green valley, citrus groveland and Buddy Lake down below.

On an exceptionally clear day, neighbors who live near the crest of LeHeup (elevation 225 feet above sea level) say, they can see downtown Tampa - if they stand up on the roof and squint.

Those same hilltop landowners can peer across the valley and see urbanization and development marching northward and eastward. They fear it's coming their way.

Many of the homeowners are protesting a proposal to develop 965 acres of groveland east of Handcart Road and a bit west of Fort King Road.

"We don't want to be unrealistic; we know it's going to be developed eventually," said Jonathan Blake, who grew up in a home on LeHeup Hill. "But we want to see that whatever comes makes sense for the area.

"What they're proposing doesn't make sense for the area," Blake said.

Today, the county's Development Review Committee will consider several proposed amendments to Pasco's Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the document that determines what kind of development is appropriate in areas of the county. Among them is a proposal by Evans Properties Inc. to change the land use plan to allow more than 3,500 homes, or up to three homes per acre, along Handcart Road. The land is zoned agricultural, allowing one home per 10 acres.

County staff members are recommending denial, contending that area roads, utilities and schools couldn't handle the load.

The nature of the debate over the Evans property is one of the biggest challenges facing Pasco County as development creeps into what had been sleepy rural communities.

"Landowners are trying to maximize their investment," said Sam Steffey, Pasco's growth management administrator. "Then you have people who say, "We want to protect our lifestyle' and "We don't want it to look like west Pasco County.' We have to weigh all that."

The fact is, large swaths of rural Pasco land that had been valuable to citrus farmers and ranchers are now worth a lot more to developers. Much of the land lies between highly developed areas such as Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel and traditional rural areas outside Gowers Corner, San Antonio and Dade City.

The Evans property off Handcart Road fits that description. It lies between the fast-developing Curley Road corridor and still-quiet northeast Pasco. The once fertile citrus trees on the property are ailing. Development is inevitable.

"It is an unprofitable business to be in," said Craig Linton, vice president of Evans Properties, speaking of the citrus industry. "If disease doesn't get the trees, and if the world markets don't get you, development probably will."

The Evans family, Linton said, have been good neighbors for going on half a century and will continue to be. In fact, Linton said, Evans Properties is planning to scale back its development plans to 1.7 homes per acre, not the three homes per acre detailed in their request.

The property was owned by J. Emmett Evans of Dade City, the unpretentious citrus magnate who once was one of America's richest men. Evans died in 1996 and his old citrus grove land is controlled by Evans Properties.

The development would include two parcels, one on either side of Handcart Road. The easternmost portion would utterly transform the view from Frank and Patty Richter's home along Fort King Road.

From the table under the shade tree in their side yard, the Richters can look down on rolling hills, a lake and a valley. LeHeup Hill is one of Pasco's highest points. It is no Mount Everest - which stands roughly 28,810 feet taller - but it offers a rare topographical vista for flat Pasco County.

The Richters fear the proposed development would leave them with a view of thousands of rooftops.

"We moved here to live in the country," said Patty Richter. "We're not against growth. We know it's coming. It just needs to be controlled."

The Richters, the Blakes and other neighbors plan to attend today's meeting to attempt to limit or control the development. They are unimpressed by the prospect that the march of development into their community will boost their property values.

"If we were just interested in making money off our property," said Wilbur Dew, who was born and raised in a house on LeHeup Hill, "we wouldn't still be here."

Jul 15, 2005

County Officials Approve King Ranch Development

The Development Review Committee approved King Ranch owners' request to change the long-range use of the land from medium-density residential to a combination of retail, office and residential uses and conservation. The decision overruled county planners, who urged the landowners to do more economic review of the project's feasibility.

King Ranch sits directly south of the proposed Cypress Creek Town Center. Cypress Creek, an Outstanding Florida Water, forms the ranch's northern boundary. The 326- acre ranch is also bounded by Cypress Creek Road, County Line Road and Interstate 75.

Ranch officials presented the county with plans for their property that called for preserving the site's wetlands while developing the rest of the land as commercial and retail space. A business park would fill the southwest corner where Cypress Creek and County Line roads meet.

King Ranch will be tied to Cypress Creek Town Center by an extension of County Road 54 that will cross both properties, tying County Line Road to State Road 54.

The proposal met no opposition Thursday. Some neighbors along Cypress Creek Road came out to support the plan.

Environmentalist Jennifer Seney of Wesley Chapel, director of PascoWildlife Inc., urged county officials to be sure King Ranch developers avoid harming the wetlands supporting Cypress Creek. King Ranch should have to abide by the same conditions that applied to the mall, she said.

``My major issue with this is that this is in the Cypress Creek watershed,'' Seney said.

King Ranch's designer, King Helie of Hudson, assured Development Review Committee members the project won't destroy wetlands. Any stormwater the project produces will drain south, away from the neighboring creek, Helie said.

Also Thursday, review committee members:

* Approved a retail-office- residential designation of 20.89 acres owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg off the southwest corner of S.R. 54 and U.S. 41 in Land O' Lakes. The property will be developed as a combination of retail and office space on the 7 acres that aren't wetlands, said Dara Khoyi, the developer's representative.

* Approved changes for Bella Verde near San Antonio, Caliente Resort in Land O' Lakes and the Links at Valley Oaks south of Dade City.

The Development Review Committee will meet at 9 a.m. today to consider 10 more land-use change requests. The meeting will be at the West Pasco Government Center, 7530 Little Road, New Port Richey.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

Jul 15, 2005

Don't Clip Airport's Wings

Indeed, the safety of residents who would live there is paramount, as county officials stress. Staff and commissioners have a responsibility to deny projects that could put residents in harm's way, even considering the overall impressive safety record of Tampa North, which was built long before many area homes and businesses.

Allowing homes across from the end of the airport runway would be too risky, and not just for future residents. The safety of pilots and their ability to operate aircraft even during ideal conditions deserve equal consideration.

As Tribune staff writer Kevin Wiatrowski reported, the flight path's height ranges from 50 feet at the rear of the 36- acre site to nine feet near C.R. 54. These dimensions also could make commercial development problematic.

Allowing building on land under an airport flight path is a far cry from allowing a subdivision along a busy road or interstate highway. Land- and air-related factors must be considered, including objects, buildings or lighting that could impede or distract pilots.

But safety is not the only reason to reject Premier Design Homes' proposal.

Plans for homes or commercial uses would only invite complaints about noise, fear and inconvenience from residents who, despite the clear visibility of the airport, may not fully understand what life or work would be like on this property. Why invite trouble?

Residents near the airport have complained about noise and expansion plans. A crash in the area last year added to tensions. These conflicts can be avoided during planning by ensuring that neighboring future development does not conflict with an airport's operations.

For years, state Department of Transportation officials regulating aviation have stressed the importance of avoiding incompatible land uses that generate ``significant public pressure'' to limit airport functions and even close facilities. Pasco officials should heed this message.

Aviation is a major part of Florida's transportation network. It should not be impeded. The state's aviation system, which includes Tampa North and other airports of the like, must be preserved for the good of transportation and the economy.

Send letters to the editor to Pasco Editor of Editorials William Yelverton wyelverton@tampatrib.com

Jul 15, 2005

Housing Edging Out Of Reach

Some of the most powerful fuel helping to sustain the five- year housing boom has been the onslaught of creative mortgage products - from interest-only loans to adjustable- rate mortgages carrying starter rates as low as 1 percent. They have allowed buyers to keep initial payments down even as home prices have soared.

As a result, the average initial monthly mortgage payment largely has declined since 2002, according to an analysis by Bear Stearns Cos.

But in a significant shift, those numbers reversed direction in the first quarter of this year. The average initial mortgage payment for home buyers climbed to $2,338 in the first quarter from $2,060 in the fourth quarter of 2004, according to the investment bank. The Bear Stearns analysis looked at jumbo mortgages, which are loans above $359,650.

That suggests many home buyers are likely to have an increasingly difficult time offsetting higher home prices by taking advantage of low interest rates and new mortgage products designed to lower their monthly payments. If this trend continues, some home buyers may have to stretch more or set their sights lower. Declining affordability also could help slow the torrid home-price appreciation in the nation's hottest home markets.

The decline in affordability in some markets is supported by other recent data. In 41 out of 325 metro areas nationwide, home prices were so high during the first quarter that someone earning the median income couldn't afford a median-priced home based on traditional lending standards, according to an analysis prepared for The Wall Street Journal by consulting firm Economy.com. In the fourth quarter, 29 metro areas were considered ``unaffordable.'' Among the additions: Stockton, Calif., and Worcester, Mass.

Prices Outpace Incomes

Another telling note: In much of the country, rising incomes aren't keeping pace with the hefty increases in home prices. Home-price appreciation outpaced income growth in 38 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the 12 months through March, according to an analysis prepared by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Nationwide, home prices rose 6.7 percentage points faster than incomes during this period, according to the FDIC.

``Income growth has not kept pace with home-price growth, and in recent years that gap has been widening,'' said Barbara Ryan, an associate director at the FDIC.

To be sure, housing prices could continue to climb, thanks in part to interest rates that remain at historically low levels. In addition, how much effect declining affordability will have depends in part on whether it's offset by shifting demographics and by rising employment, which creates rising incomes, said David Berson, chief economist of Fannie Mae.

Postponing The Inevitable

Another factor: what happens to demand from investors who tend to focus more on total return than on their monthly payments.

As affordability has declined, many borrowers have increased their buying power by shifting to adjustable-rate loans and interest-only mortgages, which allow borrowers to pay interest and no principal in the loan's early years. More recently, many have embraced option ARMs, which give borrowers multiple payment choices. Borrowers who elect to make the minimum payment can see their loan balance rise, which is known as ``negative amortization.''

``We postponed the inevitable with these interest-onlies and negative-amortization'' loans, said David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. ``But you can't sustain double-digit price appreciation and keep homes affordable.''

So far, the steady upward appreciation in prices hasn't had much effect on home sales. The Realtors association on Wednesday boosted its forecast of existing-home sales to show a rise of 2.8 percent to 6.97 million this year, setting another record.

Florida, where the housing market is robust, is among the areas of the country where home prices are growing faster than per capita income. There was a 15 percent difference between home price growth and income growth between March 2004 and this past March, according to the FDIC. In Nevada, the gap was almost 25 percent.

Until recently, innovative mortgage products have made it easy for home buyers to buy ever more expensive homes while taking less out of their pockets. Monthly payments on jumbo loans have risen only once since 2002, according to the Bear Stearns study. That climb came when rates jumped in the third quarter of 2004 and quickly was reversed thanks largely to the surging popularity of option ARMs. Option ARMs and interest-only loans have accounted for 65 percent to 70 percent of jumbo-mortgage originations in recent months, according to financial firm UBS AG.

The data suggest ``the housing market could cool under its own weight,'' said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com.

The advantages of shifting from a fixed-rate mortgage to an ARM or other affordability products have been declining as the Federal Reserve has boosted short-term interest rates and the yield curve has flattened, narrowing the gap between short- and long-term interest rates.

County delays decision on land-use plan

Developers and real estate brokers say proposed changes would have an adverse effect on business.

BROOKSVILLE - County Planner Jim King said last week that business people had offered no objections to a planned revision of the county comprehensive plan.

"There has not been a single negative comment," he said.

But after Wednesday's County Commission meeting, King founded himself surrounded by a half-dozen hostile developers and real estate brokers, including Ana Trinque.

"You're strangling business is what you're doing," Trinque told King.

Similar objections to the revisions convinced the County Commission to postpone making a decision on them until next month. This will give planners time to meet with business leaders to discuss their concerns.

Len Tria, a government liaison for three business groups, said most of the members he represents were unaware of the proposed changes, which are part of a plan update the state requires every seven years.

After the meeting, King said they should have been informed; he sent e-mails to all the organizations, informing them of public hearings where the changes would be discussed.

Whether or not the members of the groups were adequately informed, Tria said, they are now mobilizing to oppose the changes.

"This is not a growth management plan, this is a no-growth plan," Brooksville real estate broker Gary Schraut said during a break in the meeting.

Two of the changes would close loopholes that have allowed the spread of strip commercial development. By limiting new construction to existing nodes, these changes would save the county and state huge amounts of road-building money, King said last week.

Schraut and others said the new rules would result in a shortage of land available for commercial development; it also would render road-front property nearly worthless because it is not desirable for residential development, Schraut said.

Schraut also complained about similar restrictions designed to stop the spread of residential development into agricultural areas.

In other business, the commission postponed decisions on two other controversial plans on Wednesday.

They decided to delay hearing a plan to build a commercial shopping center south of the entrance to the Glen Lakes subdivision, which is on U.S. 19 north of Weeki Wachee.

Residents filled the meeting room, concerned that the plan called for a private road in their development to connect to the shopping center.

The postponement is designed to give the county time to find out whether the developers have a right to use the road.

The commission also put off the vote on a plan by Sun Fiberglass Products Inc. to transform an abandoned house on Martin Luther King Boulevard to a sales center. Commissioner Nancy Robinson said she could not vote for rezoning to allow this plan because it would allow dump trucks and heavy equipment to be parked on the property, which is adjacent to a residential neighborhood in southern Brooksville.

Planners will look for a zoning classification that will allow the sales center but prohibit truck parking and potential objectionable future uses, including bars and miniwarehouses.

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

History may thwart development

A developer pulls its subdivision plan after research shows the site was the birthplace of part of the Seminole nation.

BROOKSVILLE - The County Commission already knew that much of the 464-acre site of a proposed subdivision was a wetland.

On Wednesday, the commission heard an even stronger argument for denying the project:

"This is the birthplace of the Seminole nation," said Doug Davis, an amateur historian and Brooksville business owner.

It is, at least, the birthplace of one branch of the tribe, said Willard Steele, a historic preservation officer with the Seminole Tribe of Florida who appeared at the commission meeting.

The Seminoles were formed by the Creek Indians, after they had been driven by white settlers from Georgia and Alabama, Steele said. One group wound up near Micanopy; another built a community southeast of Brooksville around what is now called Griffin Prairie and for many years was known as Chocachatti Prairie.

A large American Indian settlement was documented at Chocachatti in 1767 and was probably established several years earlier, Steele said.

Though U.S. military records show the Chocachatti community being destroyed in 1836, at least some Seminoles remained in the area into the 1840s, when white settlers began to arrive in large numbers, said Toni Carrier, who recently completed an archaeological dig on nearby land.

This dig and other historical research "is just now beginning to reveal the extent and significance of the prairie to the Seminole . . . nation," she wrote in a statement she read to the commission.

The Creeks along with refugees from several other tribes "forged a new cultural identity as Seminole," Carrier said.

"Many of the events that led to that new cultural identity took place on and around the Chocachatti Prairie."

The Tampa developer, Coastal Bay Properties LLC, planned to build houses, townhouses and a shopping center on the land, located south of State Road 50 and east of Emerson Road. Coastal Bay initially asked the commission to postpone hearing the plan, which the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended denying last month.

But Commissioner Nancy Robinson said she was ready to deny the plan based on the new information about the property's historical importance. Joe Quinn of Coastal Engineering and Associates Inc., who was representing the developer, withdrew the petition. County rules allow the company to resubmit a revised plan.

Steele and others hope that will not happen. They urged commissioners to ask the state or Southwest Florida Water Management District to acquire the property for environmental and historical reasons. Carrier said continued archaeological studies are needed to determine the size of the settlement.

Preserving the land as a historical site would be a nice change from the way the Seminoles are often portrayed, Steele said. Most historical sites are battlefields, and the stories of these conflicts are usually told from the viewpoint of the white settlers, Steele said.

Chocachatti, on the other hand, demonstrates the Seminole's prosperity and reliance on agriculture.

The prairie - flat, grassy, occasionally flooded - was ideal for grazing the tribe's large herds of cattle. The Seminole's wooden houses were built on the high ground to the east of the prairie, Carrier said.

Much of this land was later owned by the Hope family, one of the county's first families. In her archaeological survey of the Hope homestead, about a mile west of the prairie, Carrier uncovered numerous Seminole artifacts, including projectile points, shards of pottery and harness buckles and a coin from 1839.

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

Jul 13, 2005

Glen Lakes: 'NO!' to shopping center

Jul 13, 2005

17 Developments Up For Approval

The 17 changes, all of them east of the Suncoast Parkway, give a glimpse of future growth in the county with hundreds of acres of as-yet untouched land proposed for development along Handcart Road, Old Pasco Road and State Road 52.

That's a sign of the times as development continues to fill the county's open spaces instead of the county's urbanized west side, said Growth Management Director Sam Steffey.

Other projects, such as shifting King Ranch from residential to business, reflect the influence of changes on neighboring properties - in the case of King Ranch, the proposed Cypress Creek Town Center retail complex directly to the north, Steffey said.

The Development Review Committee will consider the changes in special sessions starting at 9:30 a.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. Friday.

Both sessions will be at the West Pasco Government Center in New Port Richey.

This week is the last time for about a year that developers will be able to ask for changes in designated use of their land, a factor that has likely produced more change requests than in years past, Steffey said.

The next round of twice- yearly changes will be dropped so county officials can focus on updating the county's 20- year comprehensive plan by early 2006.

Revisions to the 20-year plan could ultimately change the way this week's round of changes plays out in the long term, Steffey said.

Developers may find they can't do everything they had hoped when they asked for their new land use, he said.

At the moment, 11 of the 17 pending requests have met with opposition from county planners or from the county's Citizen Advisory Committee, which met for more than six hours last week to review the changes.

In three cases, planners and CAC members split on their recommendation.

``The CAC sometimes looks at things differently,'' CAC chairman Allen Altman said about the split votes.

Some of those rejections include the Evans Properties projects on Handcart and Prospect roads as well as D.R. Horton's plans to convert Grantham Ranch northeast of Quail Hollow to residential use.

In the case of King Ranch, planners suggested the project needs more economic study to ensure it will work so close to the mall, planners said.

DRC members will send their recommendation to the county's Land Planning Agency, which comprises the county's five commissioners.

Commissioners will later vote on the changes sitting as the commission before sending the final outcome on to the state Department of Community Affairs for review.

It's unclear if the DRC will follow planners' advice on everything or overturn some of their rejected projects.

``When you have that many denials, it's unlikely you'll get everyone to agree with you,'' Steffey said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

Jul 13, 2005

Pasco's Decline

I lived in Pasco County the first 20 years of my life; I now live in south Hillsborough. It saddens me to see what is happening to Pasco. Once a serene, rural county full of wilderness, it is now turning into an endless expanse of urban sprawl.

Pasco does not need the Ridge Road extension. Current east-west corridors are more than adequate to handle the county's growth, especially considering the currently planned lane additions.

Building another road will only create more subdivisions, more overcrowding and more destruction of precious wilderness and the habitat it supports.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should do a brave and rare thing - deny approval of this road. And the county commission should do a brave and rare thing by dropping the project.

Enough is enough.

LAURA LORENZEN Riverview

Send letter to the editor to Pasco Editor of Editorials William Yelverton wyelverton@tampatrib.com

Jul 13, 2005

Pasco Snares State Cross Country

The ranch also is bidding for an even larger and more prestigious event: the 2007 or 2008 International Association of Athletics Federations World Cross Country Championships.

The site, located just north of Dade City, is attracting attention from cross country coaches, officials and runners for its nearly 2,000 acres of pristine, rolling landscapes that include oak and pine trees, palmetto hammocks, cypress swamps and open pastures.

Making the location almost immediately usable for cross country meets are some of the same facilities used for an annual horse steeplechase competition held at Little Everglades: viewing decks and bleachers, an electronic scoreboard, a judges tower, air-conditioned buildings and parking for several thousand vehicles.

``It's fan-friendly and [the course] offers runners a real challenge,'' said FHSAA associate director Denarvise Thornton, who oversees cross country for the organization.

``Simply put, it's just a beautiful location for a cross country meet.''

Acting as meet director for the Nov. 12 state finals will be St. Leo University cross country and swim coach Cyle Sage.

This fall, Sage says the Little Everglades course also will be the site of a district prep meet (Oct. 27); two NCAA Division II meets, including the South Regional (Nov. 5); and the Flrunners.com Invitational (Oct. 1).

Sage said he already has met with Gov. Jeb Bush and his staff about hosting the 2007 or 2008 world cross country championships and, spearheaded by Longwood Lyman coach Fred Finke, a bid has been submitted. This year's IAAF meet was staged in France.

The past four high school state finals have been staged at the Ed Radice Sports Complex under the direction of former Leto cross country coach Bobby Ennis.

Those meets attracted some of the event's largest crowds ever and featured the first-ever night format. At Little Everglades, the event will return to a morning schedule, Thornton said.

Pasco County schools will serve as the official host and provide Sage with volunteers and services, said Pasco athletic director Kit Broadbelt.

Jul 11, 2005

Hurricanes prompt building code changes

Jul 9, 2005

Public Lands Squeezed In Land Rush

The state paves over at least 200,000 acres each year and the rate of destruction will likely increase as soaring land prices push growers and ranchers to sell out. Wild tracts throughout the state, from Panhandle barrier islands to the upper watershed of the Hillsborough River, are at risk.

The situation underscores the critical need for the state to shore up its land acquisition program, which buys environmentally valuable land for preservation.

The visionary program, launched by former Gov. Bob Martinez in 1990, provided a way to protect landowners' rights and the environment. Under the program, the state issues $300 million a year in bonds, which are paid back from documentary stamp taxes on the sales of stocks, bonds and real estate.

Since 1990 the program - initially called Preservation 2000, now Florida Forever - has saved close to 3 million acres throughout Florida.

But skyrocketing land prices are rendering the program impotent. Consider: During its first 10 years, the state paid an average of $1,700 per acre. Last year it paid $6,300.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which oversees state land acquisition in West Central Florida, routinely pays several times more per acre than it did just five years ago. More ominously, it finds itself unable to compete with what developers can offer.

Florida should recognize that marketplace realities have changed in the last 15 years and increase the amount it spends.

The state also should give greater focus to buying development rights, a deal that allows landowners to continue to work the land but not further develop it. The arrangement rightly compensates the landowner for sacrificing future land value.

The state made great progress in strengthening its growth management regulations this year. Now it's time to focus on the surest way to keep growth from ruining Florida's natural treasures: Buy them.

'Flippers' into get-rich-quick scene

Helping to fuel the real estate frenzy, speculators conduct their for-profit business without fear of the oft-mentioned bubble.

SPRING HILL - He plays music at weddings in Connecticut, but one recent weekday afternoon Tom Shields was down in Hernando County to sell another house.

The place: a small, one-story, two-bedroom, pastel-painted home not far from U.S. 19.

The look: flip-flops, cargo shorts, polo shirt.

The goal: $$$.

Shields walked back from the fax in the kitchen to the glass-top dining room table. His "work station," he calls it.

"See?" he said.

"Here's the offer."

The ceiling fan made a couple lazy go-arounds.

"All I've got to do," he said, "is sign this, send it back, and it's sold."

More than 1,100 licensed real estate agents are working right now in Hernando County, population 150,000 and rising, and Shields - well, he's not one of them. He's part of the uncounted, unregulated underbelly of the boom.

"I'm a flipper," he said.

He holds on to a house for two months, tops. He doesn't do fixer-uppers. But the market here is escalating so much, so fast, he doesn't have to. He buys, he cleans, he sells.

"You just kind of turn it," Re/Max agent Terri Osborn said. "You don't have to do much."

Exactly how many "flippers" there are at this point in Hernando is hard to say.

"We don't have any way of tracking," said Lisa Gurske of the county's Association of Realtors. "I can just tell you it's on the increase."

Around the country, too: There's no definitive way to count "speculative buyers, as such," said Iverson Moore of the National Association of Realtors.

What is certain, though, is this: Still-low interest rates, new tax breaks and real estate prices that keep going up like some sort of cartoon thermometer are creating what Money magazine terms a "perfect storm" for folks like Shields.

The National Association of Realtors says that only 3 percent of homes purchased in 2004 were for investment purposes. The mortgage tracker Loan Performance puts the number at 14 percent.

No matter the figure, it's happening, analysts say, in hot spots like Phoenix; Las Vegas; Austin, Texas; the New Jersey shore; and in the condo market, particularly in Miami.

In the state: According to the Florida Association of Realtors, the median sales price for a single-family home went from $181,900 last May to $230,800 this May. In five years, it's up from $115,100 - a 100 percent spike.

In Tampa Bay: The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan statistical area had the largest number of resales in May.

In Hernando: There's land still to be had, of course, and with Northerners looking for better weather, city folks looking for a bigger house and baby boomers looking for a place to retire, the flippers ...

"Jesus," Shields said. "There's got to be hundreds."

Maybe more than that.

"Oh my goodness," said Re/Max agent Barbara Quist, Terri Osborn's mother. "I have no idea. But I'm sure it's a lot more than I even realize."

Some builders don't like the speculators. Some lenders don't work with them. Almost everyone agrees they're adding to the ever-escalating price tags on houses.

For now, though, they're not going away.

On the contrary.

The National Real Estate Investors Association had 44 chapters in 2002. Now it has 170.

Last year, 86 real estate investing books were published, three times as many as in 1998.

And the ultimate arbiter of what's hot and what's not in early 21st century America?

The Learning Channel launched a reality show last month called Property Ladder. Watch, the cable network's Web site says, "as novice real estate developers attempt to renovate properties considered "diamonds in the rough' and resell them for a lucrative profit."

"They're part of it, and it doesn't bother me at all," Brooksville real estate agent Ginger Garnett said. "As long as they've got that green stuff and plunk it down, they're okay with me."

"I don't know how you tell how many there are," Tommie Dawson Realty broker Buddy Selph said. "But you know what?

"Everyone's speculating.

"Everyone's interested.

"Everyone's looking for a deal."

"People think it's a rapid way to get rich," the National Association of Realtors' Iverson Moore said. "But it's also a rapid way to lose your shirt."

Especially if a flipper is too heavily mortgaged.

Or if the real estate market makes like the go-go Internet stocks of the '90s and the so-called bubble bursts.

"But before it does," Shields said, "I'm getting in on it."

He lives in Branford, Conn., a suburb of New Haven. Down here, he has a red-cheeked tan to go with his dark gelled hair and careful goatee. He's 45 and single.

He was the kid with the lemonade stand. He was a paperboy. In middle school, he bought bikes, fixed them up and sold them to his buddies. He has been a truck driver, an assistant manager at a seafood restaurant and the owner of a tanning salon. He sells an occasional used car. He has been doing the DJ business for 15 years. He used to do birthday parties, christenings and bar mitzvahs, but now he just works weddings.

"Even my 75-year-old grandmother was groovin' on the dance floor," reads one testimonial on tomshieldsproductions.com. He flies Southwest - 79 bucks one way - from Hartford to Tampa.

"I'm pretty good at buying and selling things," Shields said. "Now I'm trying my common sense and street smarts with houses here in Florida."

Shields started looking down here after his older brother bought a second home in the Glen Lakes community north of Weeki Wachee. He bought a house - the one he now uses as his office - in late 2003, just to "enjoy Florida."

In the two months between the purchase and the closing, the value had gone up.

"That right there," Shields said, "is what started me thinking."

So did this:

He began to get letters and postcards in the mail.

Money May Not Grow On Trees . . . But in Hernando County It's Growing in the Pockets of Homeowners.

What Did You Pay For Your Home? Take a Wild Guess at What Its Value Is Now!

He drove around and looked at all the "For Sale" signs in yards. "You have your pick," he said.

So he sold his tanning salon. He got his sister involved, at least financially. She took out a mortgage on her house in Connecticut to join him. He took that money and started coming to Spring Hill, looking for more than just a vacation.

Shields bought his first house to flip last December. He paid $130,000 and sold it a month and a day later for $156,000. After paying a commission to an agent, so he ended up making less than $10,000.

The next one he did himself. Bought it in January for $107,000. Sold it in February for $117,000.

Then the third: Bought it in March for $102,000. Sold it in April for $112,000.

"The first one we thought, "Maybe it's a fluke,' " he said. "The second one, "Maybe we were lucky.' Now? It's rolling."

Shields has the previous owner make any structural repairs. He cleans the carpets. He might paint some walls. He makes the house a little prettier. That's it.

"It's ready to sell," he said.

Back at the glass-top table, in his flip-flops, he was looking over the splotchy black fax. He had bought the home for $115,000. The offer in front of him, not quite six weeks later, was for $129,000.

The phone rang.

"Yes," Shields said. "Yes, I did.

"Let me look it over. I'll fax it over then.

"All right. Thanks."

One more question:

"Are you buying this for yourself? A family member?" Shields asked.

Pause.

"An investment," he said.

"Okay."

Researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

Jul 10, 2005

Historical Donation

Photo by: CHRISTINE DeLESSIO The Rev. Cedric E. Cuthbert became the congregation's pastor in May.

``I think it's a wonderful idea,'' said the Rev. Cora E. Hill, who has been a member of the congregation for 70 of her 76 years. ``Most of our history is lost. It will be one piece of history that younger people can go back and visit.''

Scott Black, a museum trustee and Dade City commissioner, is equally excited: ``I think it's going to be an ideal addition to the museum collection of buildings. We have needed, for some time, to reflect the black community.''

The church congregation has wanted for at least a couple of years to donate its fellowship hall, a wood-frame building next to its white brick sanctuary at 14440 N. Seventh St. The stumbling block was finding the cash to relocate the building to museum grounds, just north of the city on U.S. 301.

The museum recently learned it qualified for a $21,500 historic preservation grant from the state to help with the costs of moving and restoring the hall.

The actual move probably will start in the fall, said the Rev. Cedric E. Cuthbert, who became the congregation's pastor in May. A previous pastor, the Rev. Nathan Mugala, first suggested the idea of donating the old fellowship hall.

The congregation worships in the larger, also historically significant, white brick sanctuary on Seventh Street, and needs the room for a modern fellowship hall.

Still, ``it didn't make sense to destroy'' the fellowship hall, Cuthbert said.

It simply breathes history.

The hall was constructed in 1903 by congregation members, local records indicate. At the time, the church had 29 congregants.

In 1884, the local congregation began receiving visits from itinerant ministers assigned to a circuit encompassing Dade City. The preacher would visit church members in a community known as Freedtown, which sat about four miles south of Dade City and was settled in 1869 by newly freed slaves, according to local research conducted by Black.

A citrus freeze in 1894-95 created economic havoc, and residents abandoned Freedtown, moving north to Dade City. Nothing remains of the settlement. It's not clear when former Freedtown residents started their own congregation of the Mount Zion AME Church in Dade City, but records show the congregation was active by at least 1901.

The congregation expanded as Dade City's fortunes improved after World War I, and a new sanctuary was needed. The church building, a white masonry structure noted for its stained-glass windows, was dedicated in 1920.

The original fellowship hall then was used for meetings. From her childhood, Hill remembers overnight prayer sessions held in that hall.

``We would go there for pray-ins and stay around the night, either when there were hard times or you were wanting more of the spirit available to you,'' she recalled. ``You would go there to rekindle yourself.''

Later, the building became a parsonage and office with electricity. Wood paneling and linoleum were installed over the pine board walls and floors.

Those coverings will be stripped away, and the hall will be restored to its original state after the move.

Over time, the museum hopes to gather historical items from the area and display them in the hall. Black hopes it can be a center for genealogical research as well.

Others interested in history agree the donation of the fellowship hall could signal a turning point.

``The reality has been, until very recently, there has been no public support for black history in Florida, until the most recent generations,'' said Canter Brown Jr., a history professor at Florida A&M University and co-author of two books on the development of the AME Church in Florida.

``In order to perpetuate the social system in place, the state actively repressed the most valuable parts of black history,'' he said.

``That doesn't mean there isn't exciting stuff to be found,'' he said. ``There is.''

Reporter Jo-Ann Johnston can be reached at (352) 521-3062.

New Look for Trilby Church Steeple

By Kathy Riley

The bell in the steeple of the Trilby United Methodist Church in Trilby, Florida, rang on Sunday, July 3, 2005 calling the church’s small group of faithful parishioners to worship.  This particular bell is 107 years old and has not had a chance to chime in almost 14 years.  Its return to service is the first step in the renovation of the steeple on this historic church.

The board of trustees of the church has not only authorized the project, but its members are the ones doing the work.  Several members who are experienced contractors have constructed a scaffold around the steeple and will be giving the steeple a new roof, new siding and a fresh coat of white paint.  Their expertise and work are their contribution to the church.  The Greater Trilby Community Association, Inc. has contributed to the project by donating the proceeds of several association-sponsored dances and The Christian Edge coffee house of Lacoochee also collected money.  The work will take about two months to complete.

Just like the bell, the steeple has watched the church’s successes and difficulties that mirror the life of its town, Trilby.  The church was originally called the Trilby Methodist Church but was also known as the “Little Brown Church of the South” because for a long time it remained unpainted.  Organized by the Reverend T. H. Sistrunk in 1897, the church was built by the 12 charter members the next year near the railroad coal chute (located behind the present post office about half a block north on the Withlacoochee State Trail) but was moved to its present location (the corner of Rte. 575 and Old Trilby Road) in 1920.  It watched most of Trilby burn in a fire in 1925 and witnessed the struggles of the town and its church after that disaster.  The church was remodeled in 1978, but its congregation continued to dwindle.  In 1982, despite its disheveled condition, the church received designation as an historic building from the Pasco Board of County Commissioners and the Historical Preservation Committee.

In 1983, the church was at its lowest point: Only 7 souls attended services, and weeds and briars grew everywhere except in the mud hole beside it.  Dr. Rose Sims came to its rescue in 1984, and when she left seven years later the church boasted 350 members, and had added a sanctuary seating 250, a life center, an education building, a youth center and a missionary parsonage.

Today, the church has high hopes.  Although there are only about 25 regular members at the moment, they are an optimistic group who, under the enthusiastic and confident leadership of Pastor Juan Garay, are determined to revitalize their church.  On Wednesday nights, they have organized the Koinonia Kafe (Koinonia means shared life or fellowship in Greek).  “Come as you are and let us make you smile” is the way Pastor Juan describes the atmosphere at the café where he hopes people find “food, coffee, music and inspiration.”  The church also offers a youth group on Thursday evenings and has allowed volunteers with Healthy Families Pasco to set up a boutique where young mothers in that program can shop for clothes and food.

The renovation of the steeple represents this congregation’s pride in this grand old church and its history and their determination to see it return to its former role as the center of the community. 

Cutline:

James Garrity of Zephyrhills hands a plank to Richard Shere of Dade City as they install the scaffolding that they will use as they repair the Trilby United Methodist Church.

Jul 8, 2005

Siblings Of Kirkland Win Court Round Over Ranch

Kirkland's siblings - Jack Kirkland, Elizabeth Holloway and Anna Kirkland - want to sell the ranch. The elder Kirklands were hours away from signing an agreement with a developer in November when two nieces and a nephew filed a lawsuit to stop the sale.

Richard Kirkland, Laura Kirkland and Elizabeth Denney, who are Raymond Kirkland's children, said in the lawsuit that their father's siblings had not adequately considered offers or properly marketed the property. Kirkland's children also contended that a 1971 shareholders agreement made any sale of the property impossible without at least one of them agreeing to it.

On Thursday, Pasco County Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb ruled in a hearing that the elder Kirklands have the power to terminate the 1971 agreement, which they did in 2003 and again this year. The termination of the agreement means that the elder Kirklands, who hold 60 percent of the ranch's shares, constitute a majority in a vote to sell.

It isn't clear whether the elder Kirklands plan to use that majority to go ahead with plans to sell the ranch. John Gibbons, an attorney for Kirkland Ranch Inc., said after the hearing that any decision to sell would have to made by his clients at the completion of litigation. The elder Kirklands make up the corporation's board of directors. The younger Kirklands are minority shareholders.

``The court's decision confirms the right of the board of directors and majority shareholders to make the business decisions for the corporation,'' Gibbons said.

Although Cobb dismissed key portions of the lawsuit, those dismissals may be appealed. Seth Mann, an attorney for Raymond Kirkland's children, said he isn't sure what will happen next. He said if the elder Kirklands agree to sell for a price his clients think is too low, he can file a lawsuit to block the sale.

``The end result is, we still have options,'' Mann said.

The ranch, which is off Curley Road, has operated as a cattle and citrus farm for decades. Raymond Kirkland and his father, Cicero Kirkland, began buying the land in the late 1940s. The ranch was incorporated in 1960.

Raymond Kirkland raised his family there and eventually handed off the ranch's operation to his son Richard and daughters Elizabeth and Laura. Raymond Kirkland retired in 1999. He died in February at age 80.

Kirkland's children each continued to work for the ranch in some capacity until May. That's when they received letters from ranch president and their uncle, Jack Kirkland, telling them that they were fired. Laura Kirkland, who lived in a house on the property, was told that she was being evicted. The letters also instructed them to stay off the property, except to visit their ailing mother.

The letters indicate a rising level of frustration in the dispute. In them, Jack Kirkland tells his nephew and nieces that the operation of the ranch has been ``unacceptable'' in part because it had not generated enough profit to pay dividends.

``In addition,'' he wrote, ``both you and I know that you have made a litany of untrue statements and allegations casting aspersions and doubts about the integrity of the company and our family in court papers, to the press and to others. ... Enough is enough.''

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (352) 521-3156.

Orlando fertilizer company plants its roots in county

Howard Fertilizer & Chemical Co. becomes the "anchor tenant" sought for the Dade City Business Center.

DADE CITY - A family-owned fertilizer manufacturing company has become the newest and biggest tenant at Dade City Business Center.

The Orlando company, Howard Fertilizer & Chemical Co., signed a one-year lease for 40,000 square feet of warehouse and office space, business center officials said.

"We've been saying we need a big anchor tenant, and - oh, my gosh - we got one," spokesman Joe Kennedy said.

The company is setting up a distribution center for its fertilizer, which it sells throughout the Tampa Bay area and Central Florida, Kennedy said.

Company representatives did not return several messages Thursday.

Dade City Business Center, north of downtown on U.S. 301, is the reincarnation of the old Pasco Beverage juice plant.

Jim Guedry, president of Citrus Country Groves in Wesley Chapel, bought a piece of the site last year and announced he would move his citrus-packing company to east Pasco. The citrus company now owns 75 percent of the site and is adding 20 new jobs of its own.

The city recently annexed the park into the city, providing a long-sought boost to the tax rolls.

Guedry and his partners hope to lure 20 to 30 more businesses, ideally a mix of manufacturers and retailers, not just companies looking for warehouse space.

Howard Fertilizer fits that bill.

Kennedy said the company is advertising for jobs such as truck drivers, mechanics and forklift operators and plans to run two shifts. Kennedy said he didn't know how many people the company will employ.

"The great thing about this is that it's bringing jobs to the property and to east Pasco," Kennedy said. "That's number one and foremost."

Mayor Hutch Brock agreed.

"It's great news, no doubt about it," he said.

"With the price of their square footage and their proximity to the interstate ... I think it's going to be a no-brainer when folks are looking to expand."

Jul 7, 2005

Ridge Road Extension Is Bait-And-Switch For Taxpayers

Sadly, not enough officials are listening to these concerned citizens, who have nothing to gain but a stronger environment for future generations and the satisfaction of knowing that government has done the right thing.

As staff writer Julia Ferrante reported, the proposed Ridge Road extension would slice through the 6,800-acre Serenova Preserve in fast-growing central Pasco. The area is an environmental treasure of wildlife, fragile ecosystems and wetlands.

The state purchased the land, along with 3,600 acres of the Anclote River Ranch, to mitigate the loss of more than 185 acres of wetlands for construction of the Suncoast Parkway. Mitigation is an important process that ensures remedies to the environment when sensitive lands are destroyed for development.

The acquisitions, which cost taxpayers $26 million, were huge coups that helped create the 19,266-acre Starkey Wilderness Preserve. As a result of the mitigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dropped its objections to the parkway.

To come back now and allow an 8- mile-long highway through its middle represents a bait-and-switch that will degrade this great resource. The project would destroy more than 30 acres of wetlands that Pasco officials would have to compensate for elsewhere.

The proposal, under review in the Jacksonville office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, should be rejected.

At the same time, state and federal lawmakers should take the necessary steps to ensure sensitive lands set aside to compensate for environmental destruction are preserved.

A deal should be a deal. The mitigation process must end somewhere.

Send letters to the editor to Pasco Tribune Editor of Editorials William Yelverton wyelverton@tampatrib.com

Rush is on to calm homeowners

The Supreme Court's eminent domain ruling has Florida lawmakers and lawyers drawing up legislation.

Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a Connecticut town could bulldoze homes for private development, elected officials and property rights advocates throughout Florida are plotting ways to counteract the decision.

Several law firms are discussing possible legislative proposals. A Florida-based property owners organization has launched a letter-writing campaign. And on Wednesday, state Rep. Everett Rice, R-Treasure Island, filed a resolution that would ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment giving more protection to homeowners.

"There's a whole bunch of folks working on this issue right now on several different fronts," said Jackson Bowman, a St. Petersburg lawyer with the Florida firm of Brigham Moore. "There's a lot of room to get people's opinions."

Under the resolution filed by Rice, who is running for attorney general, voters would be asked to decide whether local governments should have the power to condemn homes for private development.

It is the opening salvo in what many believe will be a torrent of legislation aimed at protecting homeowners after the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo vs. City of New London, Conn.

House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, already has appointed a committee to study property rights issues. Gov. Jeb Bush has said he would support legislation aimed at helping property owners.

Opponents say the court's ruling last month cleared the way for governments to abuse the power of eminent domain, which allows cities to condemn homes for public uses such as building highways or wiping out blight. Now, they say, homes can be bulldozed for shopping malls and office parks if the project helps boost a community's economy.

Others say reaction to the decision has been overblown and argue that the court was only putting the decision of what's best for a community in the hands of local government, not federal judges.

Rice said he doesn't want to take any chances. He wants to ask voters if a sentence should be added to the Florida Constitution that reads: "Private economic development shall not be deemed to constitute a public purpose for which private property may be taken by eminent domain."

If the resolution is passed by the Legislature, the question would be placed on the November 2006 ballot, or a special election could be held.

"We could have a Connecticut situation right now in our state where the local government could come out and say they don't like the looks of your neighborhood and they're going to destroy your home," said Rice, the former Pinellas County sheriff who also has a law degree.

"To me, that's outrageous," he said. "It cuts deeply at the fundamental American right to own property."

If approved, the resolution also would restrict the ability of local governments to use eminent domain to remove blight, currently permitted in Florida, Rice said.

"Blight is a moving target," he said. "It can be anything you want it to be."

The Connecticut case began when Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials said that the private development served a public purpose of boosting economic growth and that it outweighed the homeowners' property rights.

Bowman, the St. Petersburg lawyer, applauded Rice's intentions but faulted the proposed amendment for being too broad. The term "private development" could be interpreted to mean many different things, he said.

Al Galbraith, a St. Petersburg assistant city attorney, also said he believed the amendment would be too broad.

"If this goes forward, we're going to spend the next 10 years in litigation, trying to define what the term "economic development' means," Galbraith said.

But Rice's proposal won't be the only one up for consideration.

Bowman said his firm and several others are discussing potential legislation.

Carol Saviak, executive director of the Orlando-based Coalition for Property Rights, said her organization plans to review several proposals for legislation from eminent domain lawyers.

The coalition also joined a national "Hands Off Our Homes" campaign, asking people to urge elected officials to sign a pledge to support legislation that would protect people from the use of eminent domain for private development.

"There is widespread support for statutory or constitutional change in Florida," Saviak said. "I have never seen a political issue take fire like this one."

Michael Allan Wolf, a law professor at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, said he's not sure Rice's proposal is really necessary.

"I don't think Florida homes are really in danger of being taken for private economic development," Wolf said. "I'm afraid that in the wrong hands, some really good projects might not be allowed."

But Wolf said there's nothing wrong with trying to change the state Constitution to protect homeowners.

In fact, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his majority opinion that states are free to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened.

"This is a legitimate response," Wolf said. "It's how the system is supposed to work."

Carrie Johnson can be reached at 727 892-2273 or cjohnson@sptimes.com

Big Cities Lose Population as Housing Costs Increase Jennifer C. Kerr Ventura County Star (California) July 1, 2005 Copyright 2005 Ventura County StarAll Rights Reserved   The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Consider a move to Gilbert, Ariz., if you're looking to trade in that two-bedroom home for four bedrooms and a pool in the backyard. "Everywhere we go, even back in the Midwest, you hear Gilbert all the time," said Karen Breeden, who moved to the Phoenix suburb last week from South Bend, Ind., with her husband and two children.     "People come here because there are good jobs, it's pretty affordable, and it offers lots for the families, too," she said. Gilbert topped the list of fastest-growing cities with at least 100,000 people, according to Census Bureau figures being released today. The numbers show new residents flocking to midsize cities in Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California. Hurt by skyrocketing housing prices, people are leaving San Francisco, Boston and other large cities in droves. Gilbert grew by more than 46,000 people, or 42 percent, to just over 156,000 residents in a little over four years. Next on the list ranked by percentage gain was Miramar, Fla., followed by North Las Vegas, Nev.; Port St. Lucie, Fla.; and Roseville, Calif. Rounding out the top 10 were Henderson, Nev.; Chandler, Ariz.; Cape Coral, Fla.; and Rancho Cucamonga and Irvine, both in California. San Francisco and Boston found themselves among the cities losing the most people between April 2000 and July 2004. Boston, for example, shed more than 19,000 people, or 3.4 percent of its population, while San Francisco lost 32,000, or 4.2 percent. "People like to live in smaller places, and a lot of it's propelled by the sharp spike in housing costs in the inner and more attractive cities," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "People want to get as much housing as they can for their dollars." The median price for a single-family home in Gilbert is around $220,000, compared to more than $387,000 in Boston and $641,000 in San Francisco. Peter Ragone, a spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the administration recognizes the problem and has begun a number of affordable housing initiatives, such as redevelopment projects aimed at producing more moderately priced homes. Greg Svelund, city spokesman in Gilbert, said many new residents are coming from higher-priced communities in California. Gilbert adds an estimated 1,000 residents a month, he said. On the Net: Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

Bush Signs 3 Bills Setting $8 Billion For State Growth Michael Dunn Tampa Tribune (Florida) June 28, 2005 Copyright 2005 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune BRANDON   ROADS, WATER AND SCHOOLS TARGETED By MICHAEL DUNN     mdunn@tampatrib.com BRANDON -- Calling it "an historic piece of legislation," Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday signed three bills he says will ensure Florida has adequate roads, water and schools to meet its rapid growth. The bills, touted by supporters as "pay as you grow" legislation, marks the biggest overhaul of the state's growth-management laws in two decades and provides more than $8 billion during the next 10 years for new infrastructure, Bush said. The governor signed the bills in at the Brandon Chamber of Commerce office in honor of state Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who was instrumental in bringing lawmakers together on the issue. Lee said growth offers tremendous opportunities for Florida, "but if we don't make strategic improvements in our infrastructure, we're not going to have sustainable economic development in our state, and we know that." The legislation targets three specific areas: Roads: Requires roads to be in place or under construction within three years of a local government's approval of a building permit that creates additional traffic. Schools: Requires local governments and school boards to jointly plan for necessary improvements by requiring that educational facilities are available or under construction within three years of new development. Water: Creates a stronger link between local water supply agencies and regional management districts and requires an adequate water supply be available before residents may move into new developments. The state committed $1.5 billion in the next fiscal year and a recurring $750 million annually for the next 10 years to help fund the requirements. "Here in the Tampa Bay area, you know about the struggles that exist in each one of these areas," Bush said. "We're a fast-growing state. If we do not invest in protecting water, building roads, providing an adequate education with enough schools, our growth will change and it will deteriorate. That's why it's important." The Senate's water bill also provides financial incentives for water suppliers to explore and develop alternative resources and techniques, such as desalination. Don Whyte, president of Newland Southeast, developer of FishHawk Ranch and other area communities, said the legislation is a good first step in smart-growth planning. He is a member of the Association of Florida Community Developers, which helped forge the legislation's provisions. "I think it's a good bill," he said. "We're not in favor of controlling growth because we don't think Florida's growth can be controlled. But what we think it does is facilitate the planning for growth, and that's the more important concept." RELATED STORIES, Page 6; * Legislature to set tuition costs. * Property rights to be reviewed. Reporter Michael Dunn can be reached at (813) 977-2854, Ext. 28.

Jul 7, 2005

Planning Board OKs Day Care Center Site

Pasco County planning commissioners on Wednesday approved a special exception allowing Lisa Anderson and Chitra Pathiavadi to open The Knowledge Block at the junction of Boyette and Wells roads.

Boyette Road resident John Locado raised the only objection to the day care center, saying it would increase traffic in the area and open Boyette to commercial development.

Developer Serge Gootan, a partner in the project, countered that the area is rapidly filling with new homes whose residents want more child care. The property also sits near the Wesley Chapel schools complex and the planned Wellspring Preparatory Academy.

``The need for day care is expanding in this area, not diminishing,'' Gootan said.

Anderson and Pathiavadi hold degrees in instructional technology. They plan to serve up to 75 school-age children at their center.

Part of the program will include tutoring and weekend camps aimed helping students succeed on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, Anderson said.

Anderson and Pathiavadi are representative of a growing number of companies opening day care centers in Pasco. In the past year or so, county officials have approved new centers in Trinity and Suncoast Crossings, on Collier Parkway in Land O' Lakes and at Seven Oaks, Meadow Pointe and New River in Wesley Chapel.

Also on Wednesday, planning commissioners:

* Approved a liquor license for La Mamma Restaurant, 8620 Sterling Lane in New Port Richey. The license will let owners of the 3,152-square- foot restaurant owners sell beer and wine on site.

* Denied Hudson landowner Ramona Migliore permission to rezone her 10-acre tract on Denton Avenue, just west of Kitten Trail, to make nine acre- plus home lots.

Migliore told commissioners she originally bought the land intending to create a catfish farm but learned it was too small and too high to excavate the kind of pond she would need. She said she intended to keep the property as natural as possible and shield the houses from the street.

Neighbors, many of whom own similar-sized lots with single homes, argued the rezoning was out of character with the rest of the area, which has several blueberry farms.

* Approved rezoning for a 22-acre subdivision to be called Hillside in the Dade City area. Landowners Stanley and Phyllis Hubbard propose to build 55 single-family houses on the site at U.S. 301 and Maltby Road.

Jul 6, 2005

Workshop Gives Leg Up On Identifying Frogs

It's the rainy season, and frogs are out in full force.

Pascowildlife Inc. and Pasco Adopt-A-Pond are sponsoring a frog identifying workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday at Land O' Lakes Community Center, 5401 Land O' Lakes Blvd. The workshop will focus on why frogs are vitally important to the environment.

Bring a frog in a container, and Gina Miller of the Hillsborough River Greenways Task Force will help identify it.

A $3 donation for each adult is requested, and frog-listening kits will be sold. Children are welcome, too, but space is limited. Call (813) 929-0114 for reservations.

Julia Ferrante <

Jul 7, 2005

Proposed Connector Called Road To Ruin

Rametta apologizes for the noise. There are big rust holes in the muffler and manifold. Not a gauge in the vehicle works, and once the Jeep is running, it's best if it stays that way. He looks into the rearview mirror to address passengers: ``Hang on! Richard, hit the roof if you see any wildlife!''

Rametta and his cohort, Richard Sommerville, are giving a tour at the Serenova Preserve, a 6,533-acre conservation area set aside to compensate for environmental damage from construction of the Suncoast Parkway between Tampa and Brooksville. The Serenova, which borders the Suncoast to the west, is part of the 19,266-acre Starkey Wilderness Preserve in central Pasco County and is owned and managed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

The Starkey preserve also includes Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park.

On the itinerary are stops at river crossings and wetlands, restored habitat for the threatened Florida scrub jay, an old hunting camp and a crumbling chimney said to be the remnant of a woodlands hideout of Chicago gangster Al Capone. All points of interest are in or near the proposed path of the Ridge Road extension, an east-west highway that if completed would bisect the fragile preserve and cross numerous wetlands to connect U.S. highways 19 and 41.

Rametta, a 62-year-old retired teacher who lives in Land O' Lakes, and Sommerville, a 49-year-old former surveyor who lives in Hudson, three years ago began lobbying county officials to halt the highway project, which would extend Ridge Road eastward from Moon Lake Road to U.S. 41.

Their fight has evolved into a near crusade to convince a half-dozen government agencies that it is fundamentally wrong to cut a road through a preserve set aside for another highway. They say the Ridge Road extension project represents a larger challenge to control development in Florida.

``It's more than just this road,'' Rametta said. ``It's like a giant burrito. Ridge Road is like the wrapping, and all the stuff inside is starting to stink.''

The War Room

Tucked behind the shutters of Rametta's farmhouse pantry is a war room with plans and ammunition for the battle to stop the county road.

Rametta and his family have lived in their cypress and pine house and worked on the 25- acre farm south of State Road 54 for 38 years, long before central Pasco became the target for numerous residential and commercial developments. Sommerville is a recent transplant from Wisconsin. He quit his job in 2000 to take care of his ailing parents. He supports himself with savings and an inheritance.

The pair met through Citizens for Sanity, a growth and environmental watchdog group started in 1997 by Land O' Lakes activist Clay Colson.

Rametta and Sommerville now lead the effort, spending much of their time poring over documents, writing letters and traveling to meet with regulators. They are among 10 major objectors to the pending Army Corps of Engineers permit. Others are lawyers, fellow residents and environmentalists.

Sommerville sticks to the details, doing meticulous analysis of maps, charts and reports, which his surveyor background helps him decipher. He is most passionate about environmental issues. Rametta does most of the talking. He is fueled by economics.

``I started before Dan,'' Sommerville said. ``I was looking for something to do environmentally. I saw the numbers of environmental groups in the paper and had seen that Citizens for Sanity was involved in this. I went to one of their meetings, and the speaker was Leslie Blackner, on Ridge Road.''

Blackner, a lawyer in Palm Beach, is another major objector. She helped organize opposition to Ridge Road after challenging the Suncoast Parkway too late - after it was half built.

Rametta and Sommerville have traveled several times at their own expense, holding meetings in cafeterias or anywhere else officials will listen to them. The week of June 14, the pair had meetings with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Atlanta one day and with the Army Corps and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Jacksonville the next day. In May, Rametta waited all day to meet with Gov. Jeb Bush.

``He couldn't meet with me,'' Rametta said with a shrug. ``The Legislature was in session.''

Rametta paid $110 for a permit to navigate his aging Jeep over the bumpy terrain of the Serenova. He visits regularly with his family and offers tours to those willing to brave the heat, dust and exhaust. Sommerville stands on the edge of the back seat, tightly grasping the roll bar, ready to duck brush and tap the vinyl canopy roof if he sees deer, alligators, wood storks or wild boar. He also has mastered the distress call of the scrub jay, which is said to be re-establishing itself at the preserve.

``There are only two people who aren't making any money on this: Richard and me,'' Rametta said. ``We work on this every day. If you look at some of my e-mails, they're at 4:30 a.m. I hold some of them back because I don't want people to know I'm up half the night. But who else is going to do it? It's so boring.''

The Road Show

Rametta and Sommerville have developed a two-hour road show to outline their case. They have no Power Points or fancy exhibits but come with stacks of manila folders, maps, highlighted documents and handwritten Post-It notes.

``All we're doing is using their own information against them,'' Rametta said. ``It is so flawed and out of date. The more you study it, the more ridiculous it seems.''

Their arguments center around five issues, including ``partnering'' meetings between the county, the state Department of Transportation and Swiftmud. The agencies worked out a plan to build the Suncoast Parkway, set aside the Serenova and still reserve right of way for the Ridge Road extension. Rametta and Sommerville also say the route was decided with influence from large landowners who agreed to donate land so the road would cross their property. They reject arguments that the road will serve as a hurricane evacuation route and argue that cutting through the preserve will hurt wetlands and drive away the scrub jay.

Pasco leaders disagree. They have paid engineers and lawyers more than $3 million to design, modify and defend plans for the road extension. County Administrator John Gallagher noted that the extension has been on transportation maps for more than two decades and that before the Serenova became a preserve it was slated for development. He also argued that extending Ridge Road would be less expensive than expanding east- west routes such as state roads 52 and 54.

Army Corps spokeswoman Kelly Finch said she could not comment on the validity of Rametta's and Sommerville's objections, but that the Corps considers all public comments and counts on residents and environmental groups to provide history and other information regulators may not have. She said the Corps, which has had the Ridge Road extension application since 1998, still has concerns about effects on wetlands and scrub jays. The county also has yet to respond adequately to public comments or to provide drawings of all versions of the road extension. Until that happens, the permit cannot be approved or rejected.

Swiftmud's official position is in favor of the road, but agency land manager Kevin Love said Rametta and Sommerville are correct that cutting a swath through the Serenova would seriously compromise the ecosystem.

``In an area like Central Florida and a place like Pasco where growth seems to be rampant, every acre of really high-quality habitat like Starkey and Serenova becomes priceless,'' Love said. ``The problem with the road, strictly from a conservation and land management standpoint, is that it basically bisects that patch of habitat into two patches of habitat with a hard barrier in between. That barrier makes it difficult to manage and difficult for wildlife. The Suncoast is enough of a barrier.''

Building the Ridge Road extension would hinder efforts to restore scrub jay habitat through logging and burning overgrown areas, processes that allow small scrub oaks and sand pines to re-establish themselves, Love said.

``You can't put smoke on a road,'' he said. ``The district's official position as a regulatory agency has permitted the road. My position is that any preserve would be better without a major road going through it.''

Love confirmed there have been several sightings of scrub jay since Swiftmud began restoring habitat, although a recent survey commissioned by the county found none.

Endangered wood storks were found in the survey, Assistant County Administrator Bipin Parikh said, but wood stork habitat is not as fragile as scrub jay habitat.

No Room For Diplomacy

Some have told Rametta and Sommerville they should be more diplomatic, but they disagree.

``There's so much corruption in it,'' Sommerville said. ``The whole thing about backroom deals and setting aside the Serenova for the Suncoast is wrong.''

Rametta's wife, Sarah, supports her husband's work but sometimes wishes he'd think about something else.

``I'm a sounding board,'' she said. ``We'll sit there on the swing and he'll say, `I'm going to tell that to [the Army Corps]. This is like a 24-hour-a-day job. I've never been sorry he started it, but you see so much incompetence from the agencies.''

Rametta has no regrets.

``Sometimes you start things, and you have to finish it, and if you knew what it involved, maybe you wouldn't do it, but in this case, I think I would have,'' he said. ``This may take another three years. I will probably be living in a tent back there on those 10 acres, but I'll be here. It takes so much time. They know you give up, and they count on you running out of gas.''

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220.

Jul 6, 2005

The Call Of The Wild

``Scree-eech, scree-eech,'' comes the sound from the recorder. It is the distress call of the Florida scrub jay.

``The Audubon guy told me to hold it like this,'' Rametta says. ``Hopefully, we'll get an answer.''

Rametta turns to his friend Richard Sommerville.

``Richard, make that noise,'' Rametta says.

Sommerville mimics the screech.

Still no response.

The exercise is one Rametta and Sommerville have practiced for months without success.

A response from a scrub jay, a threatened species, would bolster the pair's case against the Ridge Road extension, a proposed county road that, if permitted, would cut through the Serenova, disrupting wetlands and restored scrub jay habitat.

The 6,533-acre Serenova, once slated for residential development, was bought by the Florida Department of Transportation in 1995 to compensate for environmental damage from construction of the Suncoast Parkway. The Serenova was added to the greater Starkey Wilderness Preserve and now is owned and managed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

The name Serenova apparently comes from a relative of the former landowner, Alric Pottberg. Pottberg's uncle chose the name in the 1920s, said county planner Bill Munz, who was involved in the Ridge Road extension project when he was chief assistant county administrator.

County officials since 1998 have sought approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to build the Ridge Road extension through the Serenova. Pasco leaders say the road is needed as an alternative hurricane evacuation route and to ease traffic on State Roads 52 and 54.

Corps spokeswoman Kelly Finch said her agency still is waiting for the county to answer concerns about wetlands that would be destroyed by the road. The corps also has asked the county for an updated wildlife survey, with particular attention to the scrub jay.

Assistant County Administrator Bipin Parikh said the county has answered most of the concerns and is waiting for corps approval.

Scrub Jays Sighted

The Serenova is home to dozens of species, including wild hogs, egrets, herons, alligators, sandhill cranes and the Florida black bear, said Kevin Love, Swiftmud's land manager. He said a Florida Natural Areas Inventories team and others also have documented scrub jays in recent months, although a county-commissioned survey showed none. Endangered wood stork also inhabit the property.

Wildlife in the preserve have adapted to a massive electric transmission line, Love said. Also on the property are wetlands, river crossings, wellfields, a natural gas pipeline and a private hunting lodge.

Swiftmud's official position is in favor of the road extension. Love said, however, that the county's plan to divide the Serenova would severely disrupt the ecosystem of the 19,266-acre Starkey preserve and hinder management of the property.

``The Serenova is critical to the Starkey Wilderness Preserve,'' Love said. ``The citizens were very fortunate when that was set aside. ... It's an invaluable resource.''

The DOT, as part of a mitigation settlement for the Suncoast, gave Swiftmud $100,000 to restore scrub jay habitat through logging, burning overgrown brush and hydro-axing, or grinding down trees and bushes, Love said. Much of the habitat - composed mostly of small scrub oaks, sand pines and sandy areas - had diminished because it was not managed.

High-Quality Wetlands

Building Ridge Road through the Serenova would make managing the land much more expensive and time-consuming, mostly because Swiftmud would have to limit burning to smaller areas, Love said. Wildlife also would have a more difficult time moving from one area to another, even with several wildlife crossings.

``When you exclude fire, habitat begins to change and get thick,'' Love said. ``Conditions under which we can burn would change.''

Scrub jays fly low to the ground and bury acorns in sand, Love said. Gopher tortoises, gopher frogs and the eastern indigo snake also are found in scrub jay habitat.

Because they are low fliers, scrub jays are no match for vehicles passing at high speeds, Love said. Environmentalists recommend that scrub jay habitat be maintained at least a half-mile from highways. Swiftmud does not restrict its habitat restoration based on where roads are planned.

``They fly kind of like woodpeckers fly, with repetitive swooping, up and down,'' Love said. ``They fly pretty low because they want to be inconspicuous. They are very susceptible to road kill.''

Wetlands, which store water and protect against flooding, also would be disrupted by the Ridge Road extension. County officials say they are taking steps to save as many wetlands as possible and are reducing the number of wetlands affected by modifying the road design.

``It's much better to store water where nature stored it,'' Love said. ``These are high- quality wetlands. The major concerns are flood control, water supply and water quality. For that, the Serenova functions beautifully.''

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220.

Jul 6, 2005

Developer To Begin Work On Riverwood

Weiland's JES Properties, based in Clearwater, is developing Grey Hawk at Lake Polo in the Odessa area as well as other projects in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

Riverwood covers 35 acres just north of the Pasco-Hillsborough county line. Weiland plans 1,300 houses, 200 condominiums and 300,000 square feet of retail and commercial space by 2012.

About one-third of the community will be set aside as conservation areas, ponds and wetlands, Weiland said.

Kevin Wiatrowski <

Jul 6, 2005

Does Anybody Care?

Parikh estimated it would take five to seven years to complete the extension. He feels County Line Road through Meadow Pointe can handle all the traffic generated by locals, the 1,800-student Sand Pine Elementary School and the additional 3,600 students, parents and school employees who will be drawn by the two new schools.

His letter further states widening County Line to four lanes from Sand Pine to Mansfield Boulevard is the answer to traffic woes without a traffic impact study!

Mulieri mentioned in her e-mail to me that the county commission was trying to expedite - I guess through negotiations with developers - the situation. I would like to know what progress, if any, has transpired.

Construction of the two new schools starts this week. Completion estimates are 13 months for the middle school and an additional four months, or a total of 17, for the high school.

I talked via telephone over a month ago with school board Chairwoman Marge Whaley and faxed her Parikh's e-mail to me. Whaley thought that was not right and was going to check with her staff and get back to me.

I sent her a follow up e-mail last week. As of Tuesday, I had not received any reply.

In brief, my concern is the safety of both students and residents, as well as traffic bottlenecks that would be created. This week my neighbor had a heart attack.

The emergency medical services station near County Road 581 promptly responded within minutes down County Line Road past Sand Pine Elementary to treat and transport him to a local hospital.

How long would it have taken to respond to the same scenario at either the beginning or end of a school day with all three schools in session? Safety is a real problem. Do not ignore it.

I see every week in the newspaper another store or theater is planned next to Dillard's on the S.R. 56 extension, which won't be completed for years. Where did they get that date? Are they going to extend the road just to their stores?

As Gen. Washington said in a letter to the Continental Congress asking for help in the musical ``1776:''

``Is anybody there? Does anybody care?''

RAYMOND KOBASKO Wesley Chapel

Jul 6, 2005

What About Us?

They promised road repairs, but where I live nothing is happening. All the action I read about seems centered on areas where higher-paying taxpayers live, especially the Collier Place area in Land O' Lakes.

Residents there complain of having to wait 10 or 15 seconds to get out of their developments and, lo and behold, the county commission agreed to a study to see if a traffic light is warranted. Instant response!

Those of us who have to travel on Weeks Boulevard have put up with pot holes for years. Driving on Weeks is like driving through an obstacle course. As soon as the potholes are repaired (if ever), they reappear.

I read that Weeks is on the list ``to do.'' Well, when are they going ``to do'' it? Now that school is out seems the ideal time, or are they waiting until school resumes so they can inconvenience us even more?

I called the road department once to complain about a pot hole about five feet from where some pot holes that had just been repaired.

I was told they could only repair that which was on their work order. Does this make sense?

Weeks is a school road and handles heavy traffic daily, including buses. This road and the side roads of Ruth and Martha lanes, for example, are in bad shape and need to repaved now!

We poorer people are taxpayers, too. We deserve the same service that ``uppity'' residents get.

We are voters, too, and we will be heard, either now or at the polls.

MARY T. MOESER Land O' Lakes

Jul 5, 2005

Frazier: Just tell them good news

Jul 3, 2005

Planning Needed For Growth Along U.S. 301

Many officials have long pledged not to allow U.S. 301/98, east Pasco's major north-south route, to become another U.S. 19. Although that vow is commendable, it is somewhat tempered by U.S. 19's horrendous state.

County and municipal leaders can do a lot better than that. They should agree not to let the road become, well, another U.S. 301, where some stretches in Zephyrhills are just as intensely developed and hazardous as most of U.S. 19.

Bountiful open space between Zephyrhills and Dade City gives government officials another chance at smart planning. Plans to turn Gore's Dairy into more than 600 homes and, farther north, build 55 homes on 22 acres of citrus groves near Centennial Road show this stretch is beginning to change. So, the time to act is now.

Foremost should be protecting the terrain that makes east Pasco unique. Builders should not be allowed to bulldoze hills, as has happened in some areas of Zephyrhills, or further alter the landscape to the point that flooding could be exasperated.

In addition, proper buffering and compatible land uses should be required between new projects and existing developments. This stretch is home to farms, older homes and a few businesses. Compatibility and buffers will lessen the chances of conflicts between future residents, current homeowners and merchants.

If growth is going to come, require it to be responsible and attractive - not the plethora of strip shopping centers and convenience stores that make so many roads ugly.

And it is essential to public safety to carefully evaluate development plans at or near intersections.

For instance, the intersection of U.S. 301 and Centennial Road, home to two public schools and a county fire station, is extremely busy on school days. Even though the crossroads has a stoplight, it still can be challenging to motorists because part of the road is hilly.

There's also a lot to be said for a pleasant 8- or 9-mile ride along U.S. 301 from Zephyrhills to Dade City and vice versa.

County, state and municipal officials should be cautious about installing additional traffic signals and allowing more median cuts, both of which could cause traffic problems, not solve them. And they're bound to field these requests as more open land is transformed into homes and businesses.

As plans to develop Gore's Dairy and the Hillside project near Centennial show, change is inevitable along U.S. 301 between Dade City and Zephyrhills. By working together and recognizing past mistakes, elected officials can avoid compromising the integrity of both the highway and this picturesque area.
l
Send letters to the editor to Pasco Editor of Editorials William Yelverton wyeverton@tampatrib.com

 

Sustaining the Future "Green cuisine" is not just for hippies anymore

IN THIS STORY • Tips on buying sustainable food • A handy sustainable seafood   chart • Diary of a CSA: Country-fresh   vegetables without leaving   Brooklyn "Seasonal." "Local." "Artisanal." These buzzwords have become increasingly common on menus and supermarket shelves across the country. Add to the list another term: "sustainable." Peter Hoffman, whose organization Chefs Collaborative works to promote connections between restaurants and small farmers, defines sustainable cuisine as "following practices and management techniques that don't take any more from the world than they put back." An umbrella concept that incorporates the best from a number of movements, this is the latest food-world trend, and it's poised to enter the mainstream. "There's a whole new level of awareness," says Hoffman. "People want to understand how they're participating in the global food supply." And if they can do it while eating dishes like roasted pork loin with black beans and baby ramps, served at Hoffman's Manhattan restaurant, Savoy, all the better. The birth of a movement The sustainable cuisine movement was born in 1996, when Chefs Collaborative hosted a dinner with the U.N. environmental organization Earth Pledge and the nutrition think tank Oldways Preservation and Trust to focus on food that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." It was an idea that had long been gestating. In the 1970s, chef Alice Waters was the first to connect the counterculture's "green" ideals with the world of fine dining, forging relationships with local farmers and purveyors at her trailblazing Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. The incredible flavor of Waters's just-picked baby greens and artisanal goat cheese demonstrated the importance of simple, fresh ingredients, and helped invent California cuisine. A lost connection But Waters's "delicious revolution" remained on the fringe, little impacting the life of the average American. In fact, in the U.S at large, an opposite trend was taking place. Small family farms were disappearing, replaced by huge agribusinesses. Vegetables had to travel thousands of miles from farm to consumer. And as processed convenience foods took the place of home cooking, lifestyle-related diseases such as adult-onset diabetes rose to epidemic proportions. According to a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, between 1980 and 2002 the prevalence of type-2 diabetes increased by 47 percent in the U.S., a spike that corresponded with a huge increase in the consumption of refined carbohydrates such as corn syrup in processed foods. Things had reached a breaking point. Casting a vote But diners and consumers have begun to fight back. Increasingly sophisticated about food, they have begun to crave a more informed, meaningful gastronomic experience. "People want to reconnect with the source of their meal," says Dan Barber, a New York-based chef and strong supporter of local farms. "It adds romance, makes it taste better." The organic craze was the first wave of this new awareness. But as government regulation has broadened the meaning of this term and diminished its value (a recent move by the USDA to further relax organic standards was, thankfully, dropped after a huge outcry), a diverse group of organizations have filled the vacuum. Slow Food, founded in Italy, focuses on rescuing traditional artisanal products, such as handmade salamis and raw-milk cheeses, from growing homogenization. Barber's latest venture, the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, is the ultimate experiment in cooking locally: A branch of his successful Manhattan restaurant, Blue Hill, is nestled on an 80-acre Westchester farm, which supplies food for the restaurant. And Waters, the movement's patron saint, is still going strong. She has created a student-staffed teaching garden at a Berkeley middle school, and works with school districts around the country to include more natural ingredients in their cafeteria food. The term that unites all these agendas is "sustainability." It's a tall order, but, according to Barber, both fulfilling and attainable. "In our culture, we associate doing good with sacrifice," he says. "But here's an opportunity to combine morality with pleasure. You can cast a vote with every piece of food you buy, choosing what kind of world you want to live in. And you can make an enormous difference." We thought that sounded like a pretty good deal, so we've put together a guide to cooking sustainably. Read on for our tips on what to buy and where to get it. — Sarah Kagan

Doing Good While Eating Good The why and how of cooking sustainably

The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York IN THIS STORY • Intro: Why sustainability matters • A handy sustainable seafood chart • Diary of a CSA: Country-fresh vegetables without leaving Brooklyn Why support sustainable cuisine? • It tastes better! Large agribusinesses choose produce varieties for durability during harvesting and shipping rather than flavor, and pick long before ripeness. Most locally grown fruits and vegetables are picked at the peak of ripeness, handled gently, and sold quickly, ensuring maximum flavor. Meat and dairy from animals that are raised humanely and fed natural foods are generally of higher quality. Ditto wild seafood caught responsibly. • It's good for you. Eating whole, natural foods with less pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics is better for your health. Buying from local farmers or businesses committed to sustainability makes it easier to get information on the provenance of your food. • It's better for people. Buying locally grown food supports family farms. "In the past 40 years, agriculture has changed more than it did in the previous 400 years," says chef Dan Barber, of Blue Hill at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. "If we don't act now, small farmers will not be around in a generation." • It's better for the earth. Many modern farming and fishing practices put the dollar first, polluting and destroying the environment. Buying sustainable meat, produce, and seafood helps protect the land and sea for future generations. OK, how do I do it? • Buy locally: Try to buy as much of your meat, dairy, produce, and seafood as you can from local farmers' markets or farm stands. Or, join a Community-Supported Agriculture group. • For items that can't be bought locally (for instance, coffee, chocolate, bananas), look for products that are Fair Trade Certified™: This organization works with local farmers in foreign countries to raise the price they are paid by importers for their products and guarantee better working conditions. Fair Trade Certified™ products are grown by farmer-controlled cooperatives in an environmentally sound manner. • Ask about the handling of the products: Organic is one measure, but it's not the only thing to consider. Says Savoy chef Peter Hoffman, "The organic standards set forth by the USDA are limited. For instance, cattle cannot be given antibiotics, but they can be fed grain in feed lots rather than being raised free-range in pastures (eating only grass as they naturally would). By contrast, if a farm raises its cattle free-range, exclusively on grass, but treats them with antibiotics when sick, they would not be considered organic." Hoffman recommends getting to know the farmers at your local market — they should be glad to answer questions. His advice: "Try to focus on humane, environmentally-friendly processes, rather than specific labels." • For seafood, bring our handy chart to your local fishmonger. Does this all sound a bit overwhelming? "Start with one type of product," recommends Hoffman. "Ask your local farmers or purveyors, and learn about what to look for in that item, whether it's beef, or a type of fish. Then, you can expand from there." And remember, every step you take will make a difference. — Sarah Kagan • Page 1: Intro > • Page 3: Sustainable seafood chart >

Jul 5, 2005

Landowners In Limbo Along S.R. 54

Eight years later, she's wondering what will happen to her business when the county widens State Road 54 between Interstate 75 and Curley Road.

``It's the anticipation - not knowing what you're going to do, where you're going to end up,'' Gorter said recently. ``The anticipation is very stressful.''

She says customers have started to disappear, expecting her business won't be around much longer.

All along the project's path, landowners are in limbo, waiting for word about the future of the road but feeling certain their property is on the block.

``Right now, we're not completely in the know about the plans for that road,'' said Wendy's Clearwater-based marketing director Angie Valdez. ``Once they tell us what their plans are, we'll adjust our plans accordingly.''

Gorter's business sits close to the highway, the front parking lot well within the 50 feet of right of way the county plans to add to the north side of the road's western end.

That plan would probably wipe out parking for Gorter's shop as well as parking for Advance Auto Parts, a Wendy's restaurant, RaceTrac Petroleum and a part of a newly opened Honda motorcycle shop.

County officials are revising plans for widening S.R. 54 and could be ready to apply for a development permit from the Southwest Florida Water Management District by mid-July.

Plans for the project call for buying 50 feet of right of way. Closer to Interstate 75, that right of way is likely to come from land on the north side of the road. Farther east, it will come from the south side, where Wiregrass Ranch abuts the road, but will shift north again where the road passes a cemetery, project manager Loren Midget said.

The county has notified landowners of its plans but won't be in a position to begin buying right of way until next year, Midget said.

``We have to figure out how much right of way we need, and then we need to figure out how much easement we need,'' Midget said.

Included in that easement will be the number of driveways that will enter onto the new road. There are no plans for frontage roads to shift business-related traffic off the main trunk of the road.

Construction is still set for fall 2007, but that depends in part on how smoothly the right of way phase goes, Midget said.

``It's what we'd like to do,'' Midget said. ``But we don't know if it's possible.''

Jul 5, 2005

Keeping Focus Despite Surging Land Values

Property values jumped nearly 22 percent since last year, continuing a streak of record increases that stretches to 2002; more compelling yet, Pasco property values have risen at a record pace six of the past seven years.

Let's be clear about that. Pasco's year over year property values have increased in absolute terms almost as long as they've been keeping records. Almost every county's does. What is remarkable is, lately, that the rate of increase has leapt, from 11.4 percent in 2002 to 13.8 percent in 2003 to 14.6 percent in 2004 to, now, an astonishing 21.8 percent in 2005.

A Major League Baseball player with similar jumps in homers hit would be suspected of ingesting something sinister. In Pasco, it's just business as usual.

This is good news. County commissioners can lower property tax rates (although no one should expect to see a drop in their individual tax bill) and still collect substantially more property tax revenue - upward of $45 million more by some calculations.

This is also, to a certain degree, the bad news. Driving the latest record rise is Pasco rampant - some would say out-of-control - new development. One third of the increase in values resulted from new construction. No one will blame you for thinking, ``Yikes!''

The Important Rise Of Resales

Instructively, however, this marks the first year in several that new construction hasn't accounted for nearly half of Pasco's increase. Indeed, the buried headline in the 2005 report may be the effect resales have had on property values.

As Property Appraiser Mike Wells says, ``I can't believe what people are paying for property in Pasco.'' Recent civil suits rising out of sellers reneging on deals to sell building lots in Lake Jovita are a clear symptom of what's going on. A contract signed in April may look like a bad deal for the seller come closing in July.

In the west county, where few building opportunities remain, the turnover of houses from longtime residents to new young families continues apace, and even south- central Pasco has developed to the point that resales are an important market factor.

Whether Pasco has matured as a county to the extent that new construction will continue to fade as a piston driving values remains to be seen. Certainly, with several new shopping malls in the central Pasco pipeline, and other major subdivisions just breaking ground, the final chapter on construction has yet to be written.

Eyes On The Ball

What bears watching is how the county commission manages the latest windfall. It's a five-Republican panel now, and, say what they will about party politics playing a smaller role the closer to the people you get, this GOP-leaning county expects what the GOP purports to represent: Grim fiscal fists that concentrate on limiting bureaucratic growth (in numbers and costs), while seeking to return as much money possible to taxpayers.

In short, county residents will count on commissioners not to treat this latest windfall as a windfall, but merely a happy circumstance that does not distract them from the task of running the tightest possible ship.

Columnist Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

Past pain still present

A study of recorded lynchings in Hernando County reveals it had the highest per capita rate of violence against blacks in the United States.

	[Florida State Archives]
	Ku Klux Klan members march through Brooksville in 1922. As many as seven lynchings took place in Hernando County from 1900 to 1931. "They put lighter stumps on him and built a fire. . . . They danced and drank moonshine while this black man lay down and his bones turned to ashes." -- MABLE SIMS, right, recalling the lynching and burning of her relative, Carl Lang, by a mob in Hernando County in 1929.

BROOKSVILLE - In 1929, a 19-year-old black man named Carl Lang was arrested for shooting into a deputy sheriff's apartment above a country store in Hernando County.

Lang was briefly jailed and then, as he walked home, grabbed by a mob of white men on horseback.

In what is now the Withlacoochee State Forest, "they put (Lang) on a horse and tied a noose around him and popped his neck and then put his body down on the ground," said Mable Sims, 58, whose great-aunt was Lang's mother.

"They put lighter stumps on him and built a fire. ... They danced and drank moonshine while this black man lay down and his bones turned to ashes."

Lang's death was one of as many as seven lynchings in Hernando from 1900 to 1931 - more per capita than any county in the nation, according to the most reliable statistics available. Especially shocking, historians say, is that racial terrorism here peaked in the late 1920s, when lynchings were in sharp decline across the country.

"Remember, this was a tiny county at the time," said Gary Mormino, a professor of Florida studies at the University of South Florida. "(The rate in) Hernando County is just astronomically high."

In recent weeks, the Senate has apologized for failing to pass antilynching legislation; a Mississippi judge sentenced Edgar Ray Killen to 60 years in prison for the 1964 slaying of three civil rights workers; and Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist reopened the investigation of the 1951 killing of Brevard County civil rights leader Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette.

One elected official believes it's also time for Hernando to own up to its history of racial brutality, which the St. Petersburg Times began investigating after the Senate apology.

"When national leaders are apologizing, and then you find out that the county you live in is the leader in this atrocity, it would be wrong for us to do nothing and to say nothing," said county Commissioner Diane Rowden, who is preparing a resolution condemning the violence.

But Charlie Batten, 90 years old and white, waved his hand dismissively when he was asked about the lynchings of the 1920s.

"You mean the hanging times," he said. "There ought to be more of it going on now, Ku Klux Klan, too. A lot of those people need a good whipping."

Reign of mob violence

Hernando's history of endorsing racial violence dates back to at least 1856, when residents named their town after Preston Brooks, a proslavery South Carolina member of Congress best known for severely beating an abolitionist senator.

In the 1870s, white residents killed several African-Americans in an armed feud sparked by an interracial marriage. In 1900, a mob lynched two black men in Hernando, according to NAACP records.

Shocking as the killings seem now, they fit with the broader history of racial violence in the United States, said Ray Arsenault, another USF professor of Florida studies.

The number of annual lynchings in the United States crested in 1892 at 230, most of them in the South. Mob violence then began to decline because of pressure from Northern politicians and newspapers and, Arsenault said, because increasingly oppressive Jim Crow laws ensured severe punishment for African-Americans.

"Basically, you had legal lynchings," he said.

By 1924, the number of lynchings in the country had dropped to 16, according to a Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) survey of racial violence.

Charles S. Johnson used information from that study in his 1941 book, Statistical Atlas of Southern Counties , in which he calculated the lynching rate in Hernando - where the population in 1930 was less than 5,000 - at 101.05 per 100,000 residents between 1900 and 1931.

That was nearly 10 times the overall rate in Florida, which was second only to Mississippi. It was more than twice the rate in Levy County (site of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre) and many times higher than either Hillsborough or Pinellas, where the rate was 3.22.

Because of the difficulty of documenting lynchings, other equally small, isolated counties may well have seen as much mob violence as Hernando, said Mormino, author of Florida, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida.

"Lynchings are way undercounted," Mormino said.

But that is also true in Hernando. Johnson estimated the county had a total of five lynchings from 1900 to 1931, while interviews and other documents reveal the tally is more like seven, including four or five in the 1920s alone, as well as a fatal shooting of an African-American laborer and the vicious beating of a black farmer.

None of the killers were prosecuted. All of the victims were black teenagers or young men who had violated a symbol of white power or were alleged to have done so.

"(These allegations) should be viewed with an extremely jaundiced eye," Mormino said. "Rape, for example, could mean that someone had winked at a white woman."

1924: The worst of the violence began in 1924, shortly after a prosperous black farmer named Will Timmons bought a new car, said Retha Timmons, his now-deceased niece, in a 1999 interview with the St. Petersburg Times .

As she returned with him from the fields, he was confronted by a group of white men - unmasked because they apparently did not fear arrest - and then beaten "half to death," she said.

L.C. Mobley, 72, a lifelong Hernando resident, said he was told as a boy that the mob "beat (Timmons) between the legs until they tore his testicles up."

"They did castrate him ... because he bought a brand-new Ford."

1926: The April 30, 1926, Brooksville Herald carried front-page stories about the Hernando High School debate team and the impressions of the president of Hernando State Bank upon his return from a trip to North Carolina.

A story about a lynching - "Mob takes Negro on way to trial" - occupied one column on the bottom half of page 7.

Charles Davis, accused of killing a Pasco County deputy in eastern Hernando County, had been jailed in Ocala, the paper said. As Hernando Sheriff W.D. Cobb and a deputy led Davis south for his trial, he was taken away by an armed mob near Nobleton.

"I believe Davis was taken and thrown into the Withlacoochee River," Cobb told Brooksville's Southern Argus newspaper, which carried a brief story about the killing. "Maybe in a day or two the body will come to the surface."

The Argus devoted even less space to the December 1926 lynching of a black man who had been arrested on suspicion of stealing two pistols:

"Hopes of finding "Smokey' White alive were abandoned Saturday after a posse had made a forty-eight hour search for him following his abduction by a band of masked whites."

1928: The Brooksville Journal reported the death of a black laborer, Abner Wright, who it said started a fight in a rock mine's laborer's quarters and then threatened to stab a white supervisor, G.L. Ghiotto, who had tried to break it up.

"Mr. Ghiotto was compelled to draw his revolver and shoot the Negro in order that his own life might not be in jeopardy," the paper reported.

In May 1928, the Herald reported J.H. James, 17, was "thought to have been the victim of another murder." The paper did not say the black teen had been killed by a mob, but it reported two common signs of lynching: a pile of pine knots suggesting a failed effort to burn James' body, and a seeming lack of interest in prosecution.

"No clues as to the murder were located," the article concluded, "as no tracks could be found near the body."

1929: Along with cursory reports of Lang's killing, papers in February 1929 carried much longer accounts of the lynching of Buster Allen, 18, accused of raping a white girl in the town of Croom, now part of the Withlacoochee State Forest.

Because of the threat of mob violence, a Citrus County newspaper reported, Allen was taken to a jail in Hillsborough County. Six days later, a group of Hernando residents posing as deputies produced a statement from Sheriff Cobb authorizing Allen's release.

The men then drove Allen back to Hernando, shot him numerous times, and hung his body near Croom, on what was then a main highway to Tampa. Cobb told the paper the authorization had been forged, but the Hillsborough jailer said that it was typed on Sheriff's Office stationery and that, before releasing Allen, the jailer had carefully examined Cobb's signature to make sure it was authentic.

Nevertheless, the paper reported, a grand jury "found no evidence for an indictment and adjourned on Thursday."

The paper made no mention of the lynching's aftermath: Allen's body remained hanging by the highway for several days while Brooksville residents streamed by to view it, Roy Snow, a now-deceased former county commissioner, said in a 1999 interview.

"I can show you the tree where he was lynched," Snow said.

Racism in the community

Historians offer several possible explanations for the vicious racism in Hernando.

It was an isolated county populated mostly by poor farmers who tended to view African-Americans as an economic threat; it was ruled by a sheriff who seemed to foster the Wild West atmosphere that was partly to blame for the state's generally high rate of racial violence.

"Brooksville was so bad, you wouldn't hardly go uptown on a Friday or Saturday night without a pistol," said Neil Law Jr., 87.

"(Cobb) was just one of those old frontier guys who would shoot you first and then talk to you later," said Chan Springstead, 80, whose grandfather, Warren Springstead, a dairy farmer, was one of two prominent white residents shot and killed by Cobb.

But whatever the original source, Arsenault said, intimidation and oppression often lead to more of the same; racism becomes part of a community's character.

"It can take on a life of its own," he said. "It just becomes the way people do things."

In Brooksville, in the 1920s, Ku Klux Klan parades were cause for civic celebration, and one of them, in 1923, drew more than 1,000 spectators, the Argus reported.

"This was the largest crowd yet witnessed in the city."

In 1928, the Journal added disapproving commentary to a front-page news story from Okeechobee about a rally for black supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith:

"No good can come from inciting the Negroes to enter politics. ... Negroes have never voted in this county and white people and Negroes have always gotten along very well."

In 1948, Brooksville passed a zoning law mandating racially segregated neighborhoods, and 10 years later built a sewage treatment plant next to the county's only school for black children.

In the 1980s, when the federal government provided a grant to improve living conditions in predominantly black southern Brooksville, the money was distributed among white-owned companies, but almost none of the planned work was completed.

A statue of a Confederate soldier still stands on the lawn of the county courthouse in Brooksville.

And, in an interview two weeks ago, Law proudly told how his father, who replaced Cobb in 1932, put an end to the lynchings. But Law also said he hated to see them brought to light: "It just brings the coloreds up more than they need to be."

The hurting doesn't stop

Mable Sims grew up in the social wreckage on the other side of this divide.

The terror of lynching drove away black residents, especially men, in great numbers, Sims said, a statement supported by census figures in Johnson's book: While the county's total population climbed nearly 9 percent during the 1920s, the number of African-Americans fell 16.5 percent.

Retha Timmons said that her uncle, who was bedridden for more than a year with his injuries, never reclaimed his farm and that she stayed away for 70 years.

Lang's lynching "broke up our family. ... That's why I was raised by women," said Sims, who said Lang was falsely accused of firing the shots, which did not harm anyone, into the store.

"When my great-aunt talked about it, she would sit on the porch and cry. When you can see the pain and heartache, how he didn't even have a chance to go to the court to explain - it hurts," said Sims, who cried.

"It still hurts."

--Researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Dan DeWitt can be reached at 352 754-6116 or dewitt@sptimes.com

Jul 4, 2005

Buyers Play Hurry Up And Wait For New House At Belle Chase

Before the models are finished, nearly all of the development's homes will have been sold.

``I love the real estate market now,'' Thorne said.

``It used to be you would have 10 inventory houses sitting there, and we'd have to drive the salespeople to sell more homes. Now we can't get them in the ground fast enough.''

The build time is five to six months, Thorne said.

Thorne said available floor plans at Belle Chase, 1123 Napoleon Way, include the Ashboro with 1,407 square feet of living space, priced at $218,990; the Belvedere, a 1,875-square-foot house for $250,990; and the largest model, the Berkley, with 2,632 square feet, four bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths for $310,990.

Virginia Arnold of Westchase, a sales consultant for Morrison Homes, said the company began selling houses in Belle Chase in December.

The developer is Tom Sandridge of South Tampa, the owner of Thomas Development Inc.

Belle Chase includes 84 houses on 38 acres of pasture two miles east of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard on County Line Road. Twenty of those houses have not been released for purchase, but Morrison has a waiting list of ready buyers.

``We have a priority list,'' Arnold said.

``Every time we have a release, I move down my list and call people to purchase.''

When a prospective buyer receives that phone call, he or she must decide whether to pass or sign a contract. Prospective buyers are offered two more releases; if they pass on those houses, they lose their place on the list.

Arnold, who grew up in California, said she is not used to the fast-paced seller's market.

``It's a whole new way of selling,'' she said. ``I prefer to make connections with my buyers. Before, people took their time and you could hold their hand through the process.

``Now they have to come to you a lot more prepared and decisions are made quickly.''

She said the neotraditional- style homes have attracted a variety of buyers, including people looking for a second home.

``It's got the nostalgic bungalow look,'' Arnold said. ``Every home has a porch and covered lanais.''

The average lot is 50 feet by 110 feet, and is surrounded by ponds and conservation areas. Homeowners don't pay community development district fees, but do pay homeowners association fees of $750 per year.

For information on Belle Chase, call (813) 267-9872.

Jul 4, 2005

Labels Convey Style, Cachet

He called the community Trinity.

``Dr. Gills is a very devout Christian,'' said King Helie, a Hudson planning consultant who was involved in the development. ``I don't know if he was influenced by that or if it was that [Trinity is near where] three counties come together. I remember talking about the beauty of the sky, land and water. It has been a good name.''

The process of naming developments can be as simple as choosing a natural feature of the property, an animal or bird known to inhabit the land, or a historical landmark. Thus were born River Crossing near New Port Richey and Heron Cove and Dupree Gardens in Land O' Lakes. Other times the name is an amalgam of thoughts.

The trend in development names appears to be turning from nature to Mediterranean themes, at least in central Pasco. In recent months, Cannon Ranch has been renamed Bella Verde to denote its conversion to a community of thousands of homes. Also on the horizon are Tierra del Sol along U.S. 41 and Terra Bella at State Road 54 east of Collier Parkway. Another development north of S.R. 54 has been dubbed ``Tuscany.''

``I have noticed that,'' said county planner Bill Munz. ``The Mediterranean names evoke a certain kind of lifestyle. If they can use the name and keep everything the same, why not?''

Ben Harrill, a New Port Richey lawyer whose firm represents more than 100 developers in Pasco, suggested the Mediterranean names might follow a trend in architecture.

``There has been a shift in construction from contemporary back to Mediterranean flavor,'' he said. ``They may be trying to encompass that in the name.''

An old joke about the development industry is that neighborhoods are named for what they displace. Sometimes the names stick; other times developments are renamed several times before the first house is built. Such was the case with Palm Pointe Golf and County Club in Wesley Chapel, which became Country Walk after the owners dropped plans for a golf course.

``A lot of times we will put working names on them,'' Helie said. ``Sometimes they survive the planning, and others don't. Some of the names we've come up with are pretty obvious. They don't take too much genius.''

In the end, it all comes down to marketing. Appealing names sell houses.

Developers in recent years have learned to steer clear of names referring to swampland, Helie noted. They also strive for variety.

Cypress is one name that could be classified as overused. The Suncoast Parkway also has inspired its fair share of names, including Suncoast Crossings, Suncoast Meadows and Suncoast Lakes, Harrill noted.

``They try to avoid duplication and confusion with one another,'' Harrill said. ``A lot of the well-known nature names have been taken.''

Helie, who was planning director in Orange County in 1971, when Disney World was built, recalled brainstorming a name for a tennis resort along Interstate 4, across from Lake Buena Vista.

``We called it Vistana,'' he said. ``It doesn't mean anything. We just looked around and came up with the name.''

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220.

Jul 4, 2005

Is There An Echo, Echo, Echo Out Here?

The proposed name of the subdivision? It's not quite as groundbreaking: Zephyr Lakes.

This moniker shouldn't be confused with the six other ``Zephyr''-labeled neighborhoods in town, five of which are senior citizen mobile home parks. Nor should it be confused with the actual Lake Zephyr, in the appropriately named Zephyr Park.

These developments pay homage to the city's unique name. So do several shopping plazas (Zephyr Plaza on Gall Boulevard, for example), a cab company, a hair salon and a small apartment community on First Street.

Tried and true, apparently, is the name of the game in Zephyrhills.

``They pick a nonthreatening name that's easy to remember,'' said Gene Dunham, an adjunct finance professor at the University of South Florida who has studied the Florida real estate market for more than three decades.

There's no real science behind naming a subdivision, Dunham said. Often, a subdivision is named after a natural characteristic of the property, like a river or a type of bird spotted on the land, Dunham said.

Sometimes, nature has nothing to do with it.

There's no river, for example, near the proposed Hidden River subdivision to be built on the southeast side of the city. (Nor is there a Lake on the Zephyr Lakes property, for that matter.)

``It's whimsy,'' Dunham said. ``If you're the developer, it's your money; you can name it whatever you want.''

Marketing representatives from Windward Homes, the developer building the Zephyr Lakes project, were unavailable for comment last week.

Zephyr, which means soft breeze, isn't the only word getting use in new subdivision names.

Behind the Silver Oaks subdivision, another builder plans a development called the Links of Silver Oaks.

Beside that 122-home development, off Simons Road, another developer plans a 414- home neighborhood to be dubbed the Cottages of Silver Oaks.

Although the city is ironing out a policy for naming streets, it does not have a policy in place for naming housing developments.

``It can sometimes be a little difficult to keep the projects straight,'' said Todd Vande Berg, the city's director of development services.

Vande Berg's office is crammed with large posters of new subdivisions, town house developments and plans for retail plazas in this rapidly expanding city.

In the next five years, more than 3,000 residences are expected to be built here, effectively doubling the city's population of about 11,000.

Many times, a project changes names, too, as the development changes hands or expands.

``These names fly by night a lot of times,'' Vande Berg said.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613.

Jul 4, 2005

Pieces of the Past

New trail is a good first step

A few steps into our hike, Kristin Wood issued a warning.

"We'll be walking on a fairly nice trail for a while," she said. "And then we're going to have to bushwhack."

That's because the trail - or at least the new part - is not really a trail, but a series of blue, plastic flags tied to trees and leading through soggy lowlands and vine-tangled woods.

Workers from the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will soon start clearing this path and erecting permanent markers. When the work is completed, probably in early September, hikers will be able to walk from the entrance of Big Pine Tract - about 3 miles due north of downtown Brooksville - up to the Chinsegut Nature Center, a distance of 3.4 miles.

The trail will link not only the two properties, which cover more than 400 acres each, but also their existing trail systems, creating several miles of connected pathways, said Wood, director at Chinsegut.

It's a great idea, and such an obvious one that it had occurred to me even before Wood first mentioned the commission's plans a year ago.

But I had something different in mind.

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if you could start walking at Big Pine, head north along the edge of the pastures owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and then enter what I and many others consider the most beautiful property in the county: Chinsegut Hill, site of the 156-year-old Chinsegut Manor House.

Climb the hill, take in the view of Lake Lindsey and then dip down the eastern slope to reach the nature center and the trails that loop around its wildlife-rich wetland, May Prairie.

Why not?

Walking on working agricultural land is common practice throughout Europe.

All four of these properties were once part of the estate of Col. Raymond and Margaret Robbins, who lived in the manor house. The entire area is surrounded by a growing population that is in need of recreation and that is rapidly gobbling up the remaining privately owned green space.

Most importantly, all of this land is publicly owned. Shouldn't every effort be made to allow the public to use it?

But when Wood and other representatives from the commission talked to the USDA and the University of South Florida, which owns Chinsegut Hill, about crossing their properties, the response wasn't good.

"My input would be to disagree with that idea," said Keith Simmons, the deputy director of auxiliary services at the university.

"We have concerns about the general public walking our grounds with the assets we have on the hill. We've had thefts there and we've had malicious break-ins there," said Simmons, who added that he is also concerned hikers would disrupt groups that rent the manor house and surrounding cabins for weekend retreats.

Walkers might also interfere with work going on at the USDA's Subtropical Agricultural Research Station, said Sandy Hays, a spokeswoman for the department.

A greater concern is that it could be dangerous, especially for young children.

Because the cattle are moved from pasture to pasture, "one day it might be fine, the next time a great big Romosinuano cow will be staring at you," Hays said, referring to one of the South American breeds being studied at the station.

Wood said she understands these objections. But that leaves only one possible connection between the nature center and Big Pine: the uninspiring strip of trees and grass along U.S. 41.

If that is not a highlight of our walk, Wood was able to point out plenty of others, right from the start of the hike.

Big Pine, as its name suggests, is the site of one of the state's largest stands of old-growth longleaf pines, which were spared by loggers partly because their sap was valued for making turpentine. Wood pointed to several whisker-like cuts - called "cat faces" - used to extract the sap from the giant trees, which are now about 200 years old. The route of the trail, she said, was designed to pass several of the best and largest specimens.

A bit farther along, she identified a small purple flower as a meadow beauty.

"If you're adventurous you can eat a leaf," she said, tearing one off to offer a sample.

"It has a little bit of lemony taste."

She then looked up to point to swallow-tailed kites gracefully circling their nest in one of the tallest trees, and was able to tell me and Times photographer Keri Wiginton about their usual schedule for migrating back and forth to South America.

"They shouldn't be nesting this late," she said.

Of course, Wood will not be able to walk with and educate every hiker. But the commission does have plans for a reasonable substitute; signs identify the different plants and types of habitat.

The pines are in what is called a sandhill community. The trail passes from there to a bottomland forest of oaks, sweet gums and - Wood pointed out - a few native persimmon trees.

Some of the forest floor was covered with a nearly impenetrable mat of wild grape vines; on another stretch, the walking was relatively easy as Wood led us along a natural trail used by deer, which had left numerous tracks in the sandy soil.

This brought us to a ghostly clearing, canopied by oaks, formerly the route of U.S. 41, Wood said. The blue flagging showed that the trail will follow this old right of way for about 100 yards, over a still-sturdy wooden bridge, before heading back into dense woods.

Unfortunately, by then we could hear the humming traffic of the modern U.S. 41, and, after a few more yards of bushwhacking, we emerged on the side of the road.

When the trail is completed, Wood said, it will run along the fence line of the USDA property, meaning it will be separated from the road by a thin strip of trees and bushes.

For now, though, the easiest walking is on the grassy side of the road, and Wood, Wiginton and I slogged along in the rain like vagrants.

After a half-mile, we came to a new trail head and picnic area at U.S. 41 and Snow Memorial Highway; the commission calls this "the hub," Wood said, because hikers will be able to head either south to Big Pine or north to the Chinsegut Nature Center.

Which was, of course, the direction we headed, walking first on a wide fire break and then on a trail along May Prairie. We stopped to see a new blind that is designed to conceal visitors who want to look out over the water to watch ducks, ospreys and other wildlife. Then we ended our hike at the nature center building.

It was a good walk, one I plan to take many more times once the trail is completed. But I think the public agencies could work together to create something even better - a regional resource comparable to the Withlacoochee State Trail.

Maybe the trail could be routed well away from the cabins and manor house on the hill; maybe the commission could build some fences or vegetative buffers to separate hikers from the cattle at the research center.

I haven't given up on the idea, and neither has Wood.

"This is a start. At least this will allow them to see the public using it and whether they are respectful or not," she said.

"It might happen."

--Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

Wesley Chapel Connection (Pasco News of June 30, 2005)

Mapping Our Community

By JANETWATSON, Staff Writer WESLEY CHAPEL-

"Who are we? Where are we? What are we going to become?" seem to be the

big questions in our community these days.

While the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce and the "We Love

Wesley Chapel" citizens action group circulate petitions to establish

this community's boundaries, the Chamber's Government and Community

Affairs Committee has been diligently working on a Wesley Chapel Vision

Statement. Concurrently, Pascowildlife Inc.'s Executive Director,

Jennifer Seney, who is also a Chamber member and a member of Pasco

County's Citizens Advisory Committee, has approached the Board of

County Commissioners to request the righting of a wrong in the county’s

future land use plan.

It seems that while "rural character areas" were designated in all the

other planning districts in Pasco County, no such designation was made

in Planning District 5, which includes Wesley Chapel and portions of

Land 0'Lakes. Seney, who sees development threatening the rural

elements of District 5, believes that areas such as historic sites,

working farms, ranches, wooded parcels and wetlands all need

protection.

Gladding Jackson, the county’s planning consultant, recommended having

rural character areas in Pasco where the land use is less intense. Why

such areas were not specified in District 5 is a bit of a mystery.

Seney thinks that it was just an oversight, but one that needs to be

corrected.

Over die past 3 1/2 years, Seney and other District 5 members mapped

two such rural areas -- one that stretches across the northern section

of District 5 and encompasses the Cypress Creek Wellfield, and a

smaller stretch in District 5’s southeast corner, along the

Hillsborough County Line.

The most recent draft of the Chamber’s Vision Statement emphasizes

retaining that which makes Wesley Chapel unique and has attracted

people here -- elements that are already in place. The Vision

Statement is compatible with Seney’s approach. A number of

neighborhoods offer larger-than-average acreage per household and a

desirable semi-rural lifestyle. Preserving the area’s current image

and future attractiveness takes into account that many people came to

Wesley Chapel specifically for such a lifestyle. Another aspect that

the county is being asked to consider is the existence of some thriving

agricultural businesses that are an important part of the local

economy.

To help preserve rural character areas, adequate transitions would have

to be maintained between newer growth and existing areas through the

use of gradual density shifts and zoning compatibility. Maintaining

architectural compatibility means reviewing the appropriateness in

choosing features such as fences or walls, swales or curbing.

Semi-rural neighborhoods should typically allow for a variety of lot

sizes and home styles and varying setbacks. High density can be

concentrated in the interior of new developments while open space or

larger lot sizes could exist around the perimeter. Natural buffers and

landscaping, open space and home-clustering, ponds and lakes kept in

their natural conditions, and minimized sensory intrusion adjacent to

existing rural character neighborhoods all help to preserve the feeling

of “country.” Commercial development in rural character areas requires

careful planning.

It would be expected that existing Districts of Regional Impact (DRI)

and Master Planned Unit Developments (MPUD) That are located within

boundaries of District 5’s rural character areas would need to comply

with rural area requirements.

On June 22, 2005, nine requests for proposed land use changes in

District 5 were heard by the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), zoning

decisions that would involve over 3,000 acres of property. Many of the

properties being discussed were along Old Pasco Road, Overpass Road,

and Handcart Road, in the heart of one of the proposed rural character

areas. Over and over, “rural character” and “transitional areas” were

called to mind as applicants’ requests for increased densities or land

use changes were reviewed.

As Seney has noted, once land use densities start changing, it’s very

difficult to stop a freight train that’s gathering speed. The CAC was

not about to make it easier for that train to rip through the community

and recommended denial of one after another of the requests, to the

consternation of planning consultants such as King Helie, who felt that

they had attended CAC meetings in good faith and made changes to their

plans in accordance with what they had learned.

Of course, as CAC Chairman Alien Altman reminded the planners and the

public who were invited to make comments, the Citizens Advisory

Committee is “Advisory with a big A.” The Development Review Committee

will review the amendments on July 14 at 1:30 p.m. and July 15 from 9

a.m.- l p.m. at the West Pasco Government Center in New Port Richey.

The Board of County Commissioners will make the final decisions.

Likewise, the Citizens Advisory Committee has proposed the

establishment of rural character areas in District 5, but the Board of

County Commissioner would have to give approval.

Jul 1, 2005

Property Tax To Yield $19.8 Billion

Property Appraiser Mike Wells certified the tax rolls this week at $19.8 billion, he said. That's an increase of 21.77 percent from last year's taxable value. A third of the increase is from new construction, and two-thirds is from property revaluation.

``I can't believe what people are paying for property in Pasco,'' he said.

Pasco's taxable property value has been increasing rapidly for several years, but this year's increase is unprecedented, Wells said. Last year, the taxable value increased about 15.6 percent. In 1997, the increase was about 6 percent.

Management and Budget Director Michael Nurrenbrock would not predict how the new revenue could affect property taxes, but he noted that for the past four years the tax rate has dropped as tax rolls have increased.

New houses and businesses and higher sale prices are partly responsible for the increase. Tax revenue also rises when an older home is sold, Nurrenbrock said.

Florida's Save Our Homes law ties property tax increases to inflation or 3 percent, whichever is less.

Most residents who live in their homes for more than six months each year also are eligible for the $25,000 state homestead exemption. New owners, however, must pay taxes on the full value of a home at the time of purchase.

Taxpayers will receive notices in August with new property assessments and tax rate estimates.

Jul 1, 2005

Plans For Homes Near Airport Create Unease About Safety

The project, called Cypress Village, would sit on 36 acres off County Road 54 just off the north end of the Tampa North Aero Park's runway. The airport's flight path rises over the property from a minimum of 12.5 feet to 50 feet above.

Residents of nearby Lexington Oaks and Grand Oaks have complained in recent years about noise from private planes passing overhead as they take off and land at the airport. Those complaints boiled over last year when a pilot crashed into woods on the border of the two developments shortly after takeoff.

Tampa North owner Charles Brammer opposes more homes beneath his airport's flight path. In a letter to county officials, he has urged the county to force Premier Design Homes to tell potential residents their property lies under the flight path.

``There's nothing different there from going out between the lanes of I-75 and building a town house,'' Brammer said Thursday.

Tampa North Aero Park reports 11,208 takeoffs and landings each year, a figure Brammer expects to rise to just more than 12,000 by 2020. The majority of those flights are by recreational pilots flying small planes.

Premier officials say the presence of the airport shouldn't hurt their plans for the 36-acre property.

``We've already generated a waiting list to get on the waiting list for that community,'' said Scott Dispenza, Premier's director of operations.

In terms of noise or risk from accidents, Dispenza compared the County Road 54 site under the flight path to living next to a railroad line and to another Premier community built next to Interstate 75 in nearby Westbrook Estates.

``You have to look at what's a real detriment to the person you're selling to,'' Dispenza said.

The town houses' concrete- block construction should help insulate residents from airport noise, Dispenza said.

State airport officials remain unconvinced Premier's plan is the way to go.

State law mandates buildings should be no closer to an airport than half the length of its runway or where noise from passing planes is less than 65 decibels.

``The idea is you get houses or businesses too close to the runway then you're inviting noise complaints from the people there,'' said Richard Snell, aviation operations administrator for the Florida Department of Transportation. ``It just really doesn't make sense to invite more problems by allowing that.''

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

It's official: Real estate boom is for real

Home buyers experiencing sticker shock already sense it: The taxable value of Citrus property has increased, by 22 percent in the county overall, and by much more in some areas.

INVERNESS - The anecdotal evidence has been around for months.

"For Sale" signs have been popping up all over. Real estate ads show soaring property prices. Everywhere people are talking about the hot real estate market.

On Thursday, the property value buzz became the property value reality.

Property Appraiser Melanie Hensley certified the taxable value of Citrus County's real estate, cementing the key information that local governments and taxing authorities need to calculate their proposed tax rates in the coming month.

Over the past year, the taxable property values in Citrus County have increased 22 percent. In Citrus Springs alone, property values rocketed 162 percent since last year.

"It's pretty phenomenal," Hensley said. "I'm very, very surprised. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon."

Overall, the net assessed value of Citrus County property this is year is $11,168,850,300 - up from $8,880,668,614 last year.

The taxable value this year - after all exemptions are backed out of that total - is $8,700,489,533, compared with last year's $7,109,551,093.

Citrus Springs wasn't the only community to experience growth. Sugarmill Woods averaged a 30 percent increase in taxable value, while Beverly Hills and the area covered by the Homosassa Special Water District increased 21 percent each.

Inverness saw a 15 percent increase, while Crystal River went up 6 percent. The Crystal River numbers are artificially low: Last year, the annexed property along U.S. 19 was included, but this year it wasn't because a judge declared the annexation invalid, and thus the land was no longer part of the city.

That was a difference of about $30-million in taxable value, Hensley said.

In the 18 years Hensley has worked in the Property Appraiser's Office, she said, she has never seen such growth.

She said that means people have discovered the community.

"Is that fortunate or unfortunate? I don't know," she said. "I guess that depends on your perspective."

From the perspective of Sam Hurst, finance director for the school district, the higher-than-expected numbers were a pleasant surprise. Early on, Hensley had predicted an increase in property values of about 10 percent, and the school district's proposed budget anticipated about that much of an increase.

Hurst said the windfall in tax values won't help the school district's operating fund, because the state will adjust down the tax rate that can be charged to generate revenue to offset the soaring property values. Still, he said, there would be extra money raised in another portion of the tax rate and in the part of the rate used to pay for new schools, renovations and other capital needs.

"That will help us some," he said.

Jun 30, 2005

Help! Building department drowning in paper work

Jan 29, 2005

City, County Making Plans For Rainy Days

They installed pumps to help drain retention ponds in north Tampa that had overflowed for days after Frances. The cooperation paid off, and leaders of both stormwater departments met this week with Mayor Pam Iorio and Hillsborough County Commissioner Tom Scott to plan for this year's rainy season.

Tampa Stormwater Director Chuck Walter said the city and county departments would take a similar approach until permanent improvements can be made to the stormwater lines that drain from Fowler Avenue to the Hillsborough River. Pumps will be installed at drainage ponds throughout the area, and they will automatically kick in when the water level reaches a certain depth.

City and county officials estimate it will cost between $7 million and $9 million to expand the drainage system between Fowler Avenue and the river. Both governments have applied for loans and grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Florida Department of Transportation and the Southwest Florida Water Management District to help pay for the project. In all, the city and county have applied for more than $11 million in assistance.

``We've applied for more than the cost of the project because we're trying to cover all the bases,'' Walter said. ``We feel good about our chances. This project is a little unique because of the city-county cooperation. It's really more regional in nature.''

The Tampa Stormwater Department is considering two options to expand the system in north Tampa: replacing the existing pipes with bigger stormwater lines, or installing a second stormwater line along 30th Street.

Hillsborough County Stormwater Director Ed Tapia said the county plans to buy a 2-acre parcel near University Mall and build a fourth drainage pond to serve the area. The county also plans to build a permanent pumping station at that location, Tapia said.

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 977-2854, Ext. 25.

Feb 7, 2005

Development Rules Need To Be Changed

In recently proposing an ordinance to better regulate vehicle, trailer and similar dealerships, the county attorney's office correctly noted such uses can be ``intense'' and ``intrude'' into neighborhoods.

It is very much a question of compatibility, as Assistant County Attorney Elizabeth Blair has indicated.

As a result, county commissioners are considering two changes to land development regulations that not only will ensure proper compatibility but also help reduce the undesirable effects dealerships may have on nearby neighborhoods.

The first change would bar such dealerships from developing on parcels that have residential land uses but are zoned C-2 general commercial, which allows a wide range of businesses, including auto and motorcycle sales.

Under the proposal, dealerships would only be permitted in this zoning district if the county's land-use plan designation for property is mixed use or retail/office/residential. This would help ensure that a dealership wouldn't be built up against a development consisting of only single-family homes. Clearly, these two land uses are not compatible.

In addition, the proposed ordinance would place reasonable restrictions on dealerships that would allow operations while lessening the impact on neighborhoods that would not fully benefit from the new regulations. Some proposed dealerships would be exempt from some of the new rules because their site plans either have been approved or already filed.

The recommended restrictions include prohibitions against test drives on ``neighborhood residential'' roads and outdoor ``amplified speaker/public address'' systems. These conditions would reduce noise and prevent neighborhood streets from being inundated with additional traffic, which could become a hazard for children, pedestrians and others.

In addition, light fixtures that reduce glare are required, and outdoor lighting not used for security must be turned off by 9 p.m. And a ``green space'' buffer at least 75 feet wide must be installed at dealerships abutting neighborhoods.

These proposals may not be any comfort to homeowners already living next to dealerships or to those who soon will be. But at least steps are being considered to reduce the impact on their quality of life, and the county is making a good effort to try to avoid similar conflicts in the future.

County commissioners shouldn't hesitate to adopt these proposals. And in doing so, they also should stress that variances should not be freely given, especially when existing homeowners are at their mercy and county officials didn't foresee this compatibility clash sooner.

Letters to the editor can be sent to Pasco Tribune Editorial Editor William Yelverton at wyelverton@tampatrib.com or call 813-948-4228

Feb 7, 2005

Developer Purchases 650 Acres On U.S. 301

Weiland's Riverwood LLC paid $3.7 million for the land in late January: $1.75 million for slightly more than 95 acres owned by the Joseph C. Asbel Trust, and $1.98 million for about 545 acres owned by Sandra and Thomas Sims II.

Riverwood is the latest development slated for land between Zephyrhills and Crystal Springs - an area that has been known more for mobile home parks and Zephyrhills Correctional Institute than for single-family subdivisions.

Developer Bob Gagne, president of Woodshed Development Corp., plans to build single-family homes and a small commercial project on 540 acres at the southeast corner of U.S. 301 and Chancey Road.

County officials rezoned Gagne's land last year. His project remains under review.

As Gagne and Weiland see it, U.S. 301 is another potential pipeline to carry commuters into downtown Tampa.

``The access to the working world down 301 is the reason that area has come alive,'' Gagne said recently.

``It's really not as far out as you think,'' Weiland said. ``We're anticipating additional activity out there.''

Weiland sees the area as an extension of development rapidly turning Wesley Chapel's ranches and orange groves into suburbia.

Long-range plans call for extending State Road 56 from its current terminus at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard as far east as U.S. 301.

Plans call for tying S.R. 56 to the main entrance of Gagne's Rucks development that borders Weiland's land to the north. The project is named for former landowners Neil and Rita Rucks.

That will put S.R. 56 a mile or so north of Weiland's development.

Gagne notes that the S.R. 56 extension remains a long- range plan. U.S. 301 is likely to be the main route for reaching Rucks and Riverwood in the near future, he said.

The county has no plans for the next 10 years to upgrade U.S. 301 in the area of both projects to accommodate new traffic.

When improvements are finished at Interstate 4 and Interstate 275 in Tampa, Weiland expects Riverwood to be as easy a commute to downtown as his Grey Hawk project under construction a mile west of the Suncoast Parkway.

Weiland expects to build 1,400 single-family homes in Riverwood, catering to the same young families that have made the rest of southern Pasco such a hot place to live.

Construction on the first 700 homes could start in 18 months. Westfield Homes, Lennar Corp. and its subsidiary US Home have signed on to build in Riverwood, Weiland said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

Work ahead for SR 52, but it will be in fits and starts

Today we take a short break from discussions of construction and traffic on State Road 54, and give a little attention to its cousin to the north: State Road 52.

When, oh when, is that one going to be widened? Curious readers who travel cross county want to know.

We will see actual construction later this year. No kidding. We're talking about the part of SR 52 from Moon Lake Road over to the Suncoast Parkway. It's going to be widened from two to six lanes. Hold the applause.

What about the other sections? Well, they're working on it. The state Department of Transportation is supposed to start design work on the widening from the Suncoast Parkway over to U.S. 41. Again, they're looking to go from two to six lanes. Can't say yet how much longer it will be before construction starts on that section.

To borrow an overused phrase, SR 52 is the new SR 54. It will be widened in major construction phases, just like SR 54 has been. And it will be home to all sorts of new development that will quickly fill those new lanes with traffic.

It's fixed

Okay, we can't help it. Back to 54.

If you drive by the entrance to the Oaks subdivision on County Road 54 (We don't need to explain the County Road/State Road thing again, do we?) heading east. Look left. Now look up a bit.

There you'll see a couple of trees leaning down on the power lines. They're tugging on the lines just a bit. Looks scary to us.

After an alert reader pointed this out (We have nothing but alert readers here. Sometimes they're astute, but most are merely alert.), we called the folks at Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative to see if a) it was their wire, and b) whether they could do anything about it.

If only it were always this easy.

Withlacoochee spokesman Ernie Holzhauer is our new favorite spokesman. He had a guy go out there that very day and check it out. Then he called us back to say, yes, it's their wire and, yes, they would fix it. Expect to see the trees trimmed this week, he said.

Next we're going to ask Mr. Holzhauer if he can look into global warming, the deficit and Social Security. And, if it's no trouble, could he wrap it up by Wednesday?

Look out

If you drive down Parkway Boulevard in the morning, watch out. We've gotten several reports of sheriff's deputies ticketing people along there.

Now, of course, that's the area near Pine View Middle and Pine View Elementary schools. So if you're speeding in that area, especially in the morning, you deserve a ticket and a lecture.

Here's where we point out that the best way to avoid a ticket is to pay attention and obey the speed limit. Just a thought.

--Want to vent about traffic problems? Drivers' Side welcomes commuters' rants, comments and suggestions. Send e-mail to hegarty@sptimes.com or leave a phone message at 813 909-4610.

Water warriors hunt for well field plugs

A group hikes through scrublands and wetlands near the Cypress Creek well field to try to solve drainage problems in Quail Hollow and Saddlewood Estates.

Dave Arnold scurries down from the cattle trail and peers into a rusted metal culvert running beneath the trail.

He sees daylight. That means it's not plugged up. Part of the top is caved in, as if someone took a giant can opener to it. The bottom is rusted away, and swaths of dirt on each side are washed out.

So, is the old culvert still working?

"It's hard to say," said Arnold, an engineer with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly known as Swiftmud. "It looks like water's getting through."

Arnold was one of a party of 15 that hiked in the scrublands and wetlands in and around the Cypress Creek well field last week. They were looking for backed-up culverts. Everybody who might have a hand in solving the chronic drainage problems in the area was there: representatives from Swiftmud, Tampa Bay Water, Pasco County, County Commissioner Pat Mulieri and neighbors from the nearby Quail Hollow community.

The group found the culverts - several of them set into the elevated cattle crossing trail - but no easy answers.

Whose culverts are they? Are they contributing to flooding problems 2 miles upstream? Should they be replaced?

If anything the search was a reminder that solutions here will involve looking beyond the flooded streets and homes in Quail Hollow and Saddlewood Estates. If there's too much water in Quail Hollow, look to the northeast where the water comes from, and look to the southwest where the water is going.

"People don't think outside of their own boundaries," said Jennifer Seney, a water activist who lives in the northwest corner of Quail Hollow bordering the well field.

"What one neighbor does affects another neighbor," she said. "One neighborhood affects another neighborhood. People forget that."

"Nowhere to go'

It seems backward and illogical. If you have too much water on your property, why would you look downstream where the water goes? Wouldn't you just look at where the water comes from?

But there's a solid logic in clearing out culverts downstream from Quail Hollow and Saddlewood Estates.

"The problem comes when the water has nowhere to go," said Jerry Lentz, who lives along Quail Hollow Boulevard and has a steady stream of water that runs behind his house, headed to the well field and Cypress Creek.

A year and a half ago, Pasco County workers cleaned out a row of 20 culverts that had been plugged up for who knows how long. They were roughly 11/2 miles downstream from the nearest Quail Hollow homes.

Then back in August, county workers quietly removed a series of five culverts maybe three quarters of a mile west of Quail Hollow. The pipes had collapsed or were dammed up with tree branches and brush, almost as if a pack of beavers went to work on the opening.

Just in time. The work was done a few days before Hurricane Charley dumped several inches of rain in the area.

Why would that help? Blocked culverts act as plugs. If the culverts downstream are badly clogged, they prevent water from traveling southwest to Cypress Creek and then to the Hillsborough River. So water backs up and that's a threat to homes.

It takes time, but eventually water finds its way back to the neighborhoods where it came from. No wonder residents in Quail Hollow and Saddlewood Estates have observed that flooding is often the worst days after the rain stops.

"That made a big difference," Seney said of the removal of culverts months ago. "We still had flooding. But we drained a lot faster. You just have to keep the water moving."

North, south, downhill

Dave Arnold of Swiftmud stands atop a large metal pipe extending over a pond. He leans over and drops in a pinch of brush and dirt, then he watches.

"It's flowing north," he says, watching the debris drift slowly northward as it sinks in the dark water.

There's some discussion about whether the water here always flows in the same direction.

That's one of the challenges in figuring out how to fix the problems facing Quail Hollow and Saddlewood Estates; the water does crazy things.

One map drawn up by Tampa Bay Water shows the water flow through the neighborhood as a series of interconnected arrows. The arrows point southwest. That is, except when they point to the north, or when they point southeast.

As hundreds of new homes have been added in the area in the past five years, the water path has become even more circuitous, harder to predict. That makes a solution more tricky.

Engineer Steve Noriega with Reynolds, Smith and Hills, who has been studying water flow in the area under a contract with Swiftmud, is full of educated insights and observations, and the occasional deadpan reminder: "Water always runs downhill."

Before fixing or replacing the cattle trail culverts west of Quail Hollow, Swiftmud and the county will have to figure out if the water is getting through. Then they have to make sure they know whose property they are on. Never mind the question of who would pay for the work.

If anything, the hike into the woods was a time for all the involved agencies and governmental entities to look at problems together. As County Commissioner Pat Mulieri put it, "It's good to get out there and see what they're talking about. Sometimes you can't see it on a map."

The trip also served as evidence that several groups are investing the time, science and legwork into fixing things.

"We had a pretty good crowd out there," Quail Hollow resident Jerry Lentz said. "That was good to see. I think we have their attention."

Feb 7, 2005

Counties Seek Power To Protect Mangroves

Photo by: MARK GUSS Longboat Key resident Sky Muncaster was arrested in November after she tried to prevent the mangroves directly behind her from being trimmed by landscapers.

The waterfront forests are such productive ecosystems that Florida law protects them, just as it does the manatee and Florida panther.

The law, however, hasn't stopped illegal cutting, critics say, because the state lacks inspectors to crack down on violations. Developers and homeowners, desiring waterfront vistas, have been known to hack down 20-foot-high mangroves to 2 or 3 feet high, rather than 6 feet high as allowed by law.

The problem is so widespread that several west coast counties - including Hillsborough - want to take over mangrove enforcement from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The agency has only four inspectors to cover 11 counties.

The department's southwest district, which includes Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties, investigated 195 complaints about mangrove cutting from January 1999 to December 2004. That's about 40 complaints a year.

``Forty violations. That's nothing,'' said Tom Mayers, a certified mangrove trimmer on Longboat Key. ``That's not enforcing the law.''

Mayers said he rarely sees the environmental agency take action against residents or landscapers who cut mangroves without state permits. He said he has lost many trimming jobs after explaining to homeowners that the law restricts how much mangroves can be cut.

``Oftentimes, people say, `I'm not going to hire you. I'm going to get somebody to do what I want,' '' he said.

Agency officials insist they investigate every complaint about illegal mangrove cutting, typically within 14 days. They rely on landscapers, county authorities and the public to report infractions.

``We want the public to be calling us if they see any mangrove trimming,'' said Cece McKiernan, who heads the department's watershed resource office in Tampa.

Records show the agency is not shy about punishing homeowners and landscapers who hack mangroves without a permit. In some cases, the agency makes offenders take out advertisements in local newspapers explaining that mangroves are protected. Fines typically are less than $1,000.

Residents and local officials have complained, however, that the agency is slow to respond to complaints about illegal cutting.

Fred Dallowitz, who lives in the Bay Crest area of Hillsborough County, called county environmental authorities in July to report illegal mangrove cutting across the canal from his home. He was referred to the state department.

``I called about 20 times,'' Dallowitz said. ``Nothing happened. I always got ... the same answer: `We'll get to it when we get to it.' ''

The environmental agency since has investigated Dallowitz's complaint. They found that 2,800 square feet of mangroves, ranging from 16 to 20 feet high, were cut to between 2 and 4 feet high.

Gonzalo Valdes, son of the property owner, Olga Casadevall, said his mother was not aware of the law. Valdes said he is working ``to make sure the matter gets corrected in a proper fashion.''

Cut, But Not Too Much

Cutting mangroves drastically can kill them. The Legislature tried to strike a balance in 1996 by allowing waterfront homeowners to cut mangroves no lower than 6 feet high.

Environmentalists say legislators were more interested in making developers and homeowners happy than in protecting mangroves. In their zest to maintain waterfront owners' right to a view, lawmakers allowed them to trim trees on publicly owned submerged lands.

``They really catered to the homeowners rather than what was good for the environment and good for the state of Florida,'' said Michael Miller, of the Suncoast Group of the Sierra Club.

Trimming mangroves to 6 feet tall does not kill them. It does, however, destroy the canopies where birds nest and reduces leaf litter that feeds small animals and enriches the mud around the trees.

Miller was part of a two-year debate about mangrove trimming in Pinellas County that pitted environmentalists against waterfront homeowners. The debate started when Pinellas asked the state for authority to enforce its own mangrove ordinance in 2002.

A citizen advisory committee worked for 15 months before submitting a recommendation to the county commission. The plan would have prohibited trimming mangroves lower than 12 feet in most cases.

Homeowner groups objected, however, and the commission appointed another task force. The resulting rule, approved in May 2003, allows mangroves to be cut to 6 feet high, but only 65 percent of the trees can be trimmed. And homeowners with mangroves over 16 feet tall have to leave the canopies of 25 percent of the trees intact.

Counties Taking Charge

Although environmentalists weren't happy with the final ordinance, Pinellas officials say violations have dropped dramatically.

``Our manpower was much better than the state of Florida's,'' said Will Davis, director of the Pinellas Department of Environmental Management. ``DEP has been notoriously understaffed for these kinds of things.''

Hillsborough, Sarasota and Manatee counties may follow suit. Hillsborough and Sarasota have sent draft applications to the state.

Jadell Kerr, head of wetlands management for the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission, said her office has nine people available to work on mangrove enforcement, including an arborist.

``We have all kinds of folks that have the qualifications and the ability to take on administering this rule,'' Kerr said.

Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash has asked his environmental department to look into taking over mangrove protection. McClash said he knows of mangroves that were cut illegally a year ago and nothing was replanted.

``I would say there's probably a lot of illegal mangrove cutting going on if a person driving down the road can notice it,'' McClash said.

Manatee environmental administrator Doug Means characterized the state agency's response to mangrove complaints as ``pretty slow.''

``I know they don't have a lot of staff to devote to just mangrove trimming, and they're based in Tampa, not Bradenton or Sarasota,'' Means said.

- McKiernan, the watershed director, would not comment on whether the agency is understaffed. But she is encouraging counties to seek mangrove enforcement authority from the state.

``Because of their close proximity, they might have better ability to get out to the site,'' McKiernan said.

Passion for Protection

No one knows how many of these dense shoreline forests have been destroyed to make way for industry, agriculture and waterfront homes. There are approximately 469,000 acres left in Florida, according to the environmental agency, but many of those are in sparsely populated areas along the southwest coast such as Everglades National Park.

Holly Greening, senior scientist for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, said the Bay area had about 16,500 acres of mangroves and mangrove marsh in 1900. By 1995, the latest figures available, mangroves had shrunk to 13,700 acres.

Greening said much of the mangrove acreage was lost to dredging and filling to build residential developments on canals that ring the Bay. Agriculture and heavy industry also took a toll.

Not only has mangrove loss played havoc with Florida's coastal ecology, it also has compromised one of the state's stoutest defenses against hurricanes. Scientists agree that mangroves are effective at absorbing both wind and tidal energy from storms.

Indian researcher V. Selvum told the The Christian Science Monitor that 172 families were saved from last month's tsunami in the fishing village of Thirunal Thoppu because dense mangroves were thriving there.

Closer to home, much of Charlotte Harbor was able to withstand Hurricane Charley's 145 mph winds because of mangroves.

``When Charley hit these mangroves, it absorbed a lot of Charley's wind and sea energy,'' said Lisa Beever, senior scientist with the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program.

Punta Gorda, which suffered the most property loss from Charley, also had the fewest mangroves. The environmental agency's Web site says that Punta Gorda waterfront development accounts for 59 percent of all mangrove loss in Charlotte Harbor.

Perhaps because so much has been lost, the passion for mangrove protection sometimes reaches a fever pitch. Sky Muncaster, a lifelong Longboat Key resident, was arrested in November after she tried to interfere with what she called an illegal mangrove trimming.

Police say she manhandled a landscaper who was lawfully trimming mangroves on town- owned land.

Muncaster doesn't deny yelling at the landscapers, but said she didn't touch them or resist arrest. Her court date hasn't been set.

``There are so few mangroves left on Longboat Key,'' she said. ``So every one becomes more and more precious and more necessary to nature.''

News research manager Jody Habayeb contributed to this article. Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

Plans for new school may hit roadblock

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council says part of the proposed Wiregrass Ranch school could pose a danger to wildlife and wants it moved.

The Pasco School Board's plan for a high school in Wesley Chapel has hit a snag. How big a snag remains to be seen.

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council has reviewed the plan for a high school in the Wiregrass Ranch development and decided it could damage a "significant wildlife habitat." The Regional Planning Council is recommending the project be moved.

However, the Regional Planning Council cannot kill the project. The recommendation is merely that, a recommendation.

The report and the recommendation will be added to the volumes of data considered by the Southwest Florida Water Management District when it comes time to decide whether to allow the project to proceed.

Still, the news of the recommendation was a shocker for Ray Gadd, the school district administrator who has been the point man as the district struggled to secure the site and get the school built.

"This is completely out of left field," Gadd said late Friday. "I have some phone calls I need to make.

"I'm hoping what this amounts to is a statement of "Tell us what you're going to do to deal with these issues,' " Gadd said.

The district is really counting on this school site. The planned school is expected to provide much-needed relief for crowded central Pasco schools. In fact, district officials say the new schools are necessary to keep students off double sessions. It took about two years of searching and negotiating to find the necessary land in central Pasco.

The plans call for a high school and a middle school to be built on the site. They are expected to provide relief to Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel high schools as well as Pine View and Weightman middle schools. The district also has plans to build elementary schools in the Wiregrass area.

The report from the Regional Planning Council dealt only with the first part of the high school construction plan.

"It will have a significant impact on an important wildlife habitat," said Suzanne Cooper, principal environmental planner for the Regional Planning Council and the author of the report. "We're talking about sand hill cranes and gopher tortoises."

The Regional Planning Council is scheduled to vote on the staff recommendation at its Feb. 14 meeting.

The school would be called Wiregrass High School, named after James H. "Wiregrass" Porter, the patriarch of the family that sold the land to the district. It is scheduled to open in 2006.

Tommytown effort wins federal award

DADE CITY - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, presented Pasco County this week with a "Strengthening Communities Award" for its efforts to revitalize Tommytown.

The county's Community Development Division has renovated or replaced about 100 homes in the impoverished east Pasco community, and officials are designing road, drainage, water and sewer improvements using a $13-million loan from HUD.

"It was nice to receive the attention and recognition," said George Romagnoli, the county's Community Development manager, who accepted the award at a HUD conference in Tampa.

Lower-income senior housing proposed

If the developer can get two forms of government aid, it will build the low-rent apartments in east Pasco.

ZEPHYRHILLS - A developer has announced plans for a 160-unit, $14.8-million apartment complex for lower-income seniors.

The complex would sit on 30 acres just east of the East Pasco Medical Center in Zephryhills, in a corner of the county where the 2000 Census found 42 percent of the residents were older than 65.

Many seniors are on fixed incomes, but the area has few rentals for them, said George Romagnoli, the county's Community Development manager.

"There is a real need for affordable senior rental housing," Romagnoli said.

About 22 units would be available to people earning less than 30 percent of the median income ($10,750 for one person or $12,300 for two). The remaining 138 units would be for people earning less than 60 percent of the median income ($21,480 for one person or $32,750 for two).

For now, these are just plans. In order to become reality, the developer, Finlay Acquisitions of Jacksonville, needs to secure two forms of government aid:

A $200,000, zero-interest loan from Pasco County government.

$13.5-million in federal tax credits.

The County Commission will consider granting the $200,000 loan at its Tuesday meeting. If approved, the local contribution would boost Finlay Acquisition's chances of getting the tax credits, said Jeff Tatreau, executive vice president of Neighborhood Lending Partners of West Florida, the county's loan underwriter.

"It's a very competitive program," Tatreau said.

The Florida Housing Finance Corp. dishes out the tax credits, which developers then sell to investors to raise money for their housing projects.

The principals in Finlay Acquisitions have built lower-income apartment complexes elsewhere, from Jacksonville to Fort Wayne, Ind., and Benton Harbor, Mich. The company did not return a call for comment Friday

Ryland plans to build 'high-end' condos

NEW PORT RICHEY - In another redevelopment coup, city officials said Friday that Ryland Homes is looking to build a new condominium complex in New Port Richey.

"It will be four to seven stories and probably 450 units," said City Manager Scott Miller, who met with Ryland representatives last week. The idea is to build "high-end" condos that will fit in with the city's redeveloping residential landscape. The condos would go up on a 20-acre parcel west of U.S. 19 near the Sea Forest Beach Club townhomes, officials said. They would generate thousands in tax dollars for the city, which needs a shot in the arm since most redevelopment profits are going toward New Port Richey's Community Redevelopment Agency. Plans still are in the early stages, said Miller. The project is set to be discussed at a City Council work session this month. In the meantime, Ryland is "working to come up with a conceptual plan," he said.

Feb 4, 2005

Planned Park Pricey

Pasco officials are examining options for adding to the pool design and making an adjacent 25,000-square-foot recreation building hurricane-resistant. The design changes could, however, come at considerable cost.

County commissioners will consider the alternatives at a meeting starting 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the West Pasco Government Center, 7530 Little Road, New Port Richey.

The cost to develop the 143- acre Wesley Chapel park site, without the upgrades for the pool and hurricane shelter, is estimated at $16.6 million, but rising prices for steel and concrete and limited supply of materials because of last year's hurricane season could add to that amount, Assistant County Administrator Dan Johnson said.

The base design for the district park at Boyette and Overpass roads calls for ball fields, tennis courts, playgrounds, picnic shelters, hiking trails and a skate park as well as meeting rooms, a gymnasium and the aquatics facility. The aquatics center was modeled after similar facilities in Clearwater and Trinity.

County Commissioner Ted Schrader inquired at a recent meeting about expanding and covering the pool so it may be used year-round.

Emergency Management Director Michele Baker also suggested the recreation building be made hurricane- resistant. The county has a deficit of shelter space, and recreation centers are better suited for shelters than schools because they contain large open areas free of computers and office furniture.

Among the alternatives for upgrading the design:

* Add four lap lanes to the pool, for a total of eight, plus a zero-entry play area. Estimated cost: $402,766.

* Cover the pool with a tensile dome canopy so it may be used year-round. Estimated cost: $1.35 million.

* Expand the pool to 50 meters and eight lanes. Estimated cost: $2.29 million. The cost of operating a 50-meter pool is estimated at $200,000. Some of that may be recouped through park impact fees.

* Cover the 50-meter, eight- lane pool. Estimated cost: $2.08 million.

* ``Harden'' the roof, windows and doors of a recreation building to make it hurricane- resistant. Estimated cost: $801,090.

Commission Chairwoman Pat Mulieri, who represents Wesley Chapel, said this week that the board must consider parks and recreation needs throughout the county in selecting the design for the Wesley Chapel aquatics center.

``There also is a park earmarked in Odessa,'' she said. ``There's only so much money to go around, so I think we need to balance that.''

A Park Every 10 Miles

Pasco's parks and recreation master plan recommends creating regional parks within 10 miles of every resident by 2010. An expansion of the Land O' Lakes Recreation Complex and development of a 600-acre coastal park at Strauber Memorial Highway in west Pasco are among the approved projects. The county also is looking to buy park property in the Trinity-Odessa area, and officials are working with developers of Connerton in central Pasco to identify 80 acres for a park there. Expansion of a park in Dade City also is planned.

``We have a lot of major projects planned,'' acting Parks and Recreation Director Martha Campbell said. ``It's very exciting.''

Park impact fees, collected through construction permits, have generated more revenue than county leaders anticipated when they developed the parks master plan in 1999, Johnson said. County officials have rehired the consultant, Wade-Trim, to update that plan. County voters approved park impact fees in 1986.

``The impact fees are coming in higher than anticipated because of growth and building permits,'' Johnson said. ``If you don't have the growth, and you don't have the money, the idea is you don't have to provide the amenities. If you have the money to make improvements, you can accommodate the growth.''

Closing The Gaps

The greatest need is for ball fields, especially for soccer, and for basketball courts, Johnson said.

``We have a high demand from the leagues, and it has gotten worse as the population grows,'' he said.

Several upgrades have been made to the Wesley Chapel park design since it was developed. The original plan was to spend $15.1 million, but county and community leaders called for a number of additional elements, bringing the cost up by more than $1.5 million, Johnson said.

The park plans now include lighted tee ball, softball, soccer and football fields; football concession and storage areas; restrooms; and parking areas. The original plan omitted football fields and had four soccer fields instead of eight.

Mulieri, the commission chairwoman, noted that a larger pool may attract sporting events and related tourism, but at least one other aquatics complex is proposed at the Little Everglades Ranch north of Dade City. The Land O' Lakes Recreation Complex and Hercules Aquatic Center in Zephyrhills also have pools, but they do not have the zero- entry play areas, which are the trend in public pools.

Construction of the Wesley Chapel park is scheduled to start this summer and be completed within nine months. That timeline could change depending on the options commissioners choose Tuesday, Campbell said.

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220.

Thursday marked a milestone for the Hernando County Fire Rescue District.

Officials celebrated the opening of Fire Station 23 at U.S. 41 and Lake Lindsey Road. The station is the first the county has built since the Fire Rescue District was consolidated in 2000.

The station will serve residents of northeastern Hernando County. In the past, response times in parts of the area have not been good enough, officials said, and the new station will provide a permanent fire fighting and medical response presence.

"It's really nice to know that you have somebody close at hand during emergencies," said Carolyn Todd, owner of the Lake Lindsey Grocery. "Not only for our little store, but for everybody who lives in the community. It is growing rapidly."

A temporary station at a Division of Forestry training center about a mile away from Station 23 has served the area since 2001, said Assistant Fire Chief Danny Roberts.

But the new station will offer more space, greater ability to secure equipment and a more visible local presence, Roberts said.

Completion of the station, which has two bays and was designed with possible future expansion in mind, was stalled by a few months due to the hurricane season and the need to shift the construction footprint to avoid wetlands, said Assistant County Engineer Gregg Sutton.

The project cost $542,567. A loan that is being repaid with fire impact fees, which are one-time charges that developers pay on new construction, will pay for much of it.

Jan 29, 2005

Restoration Of House Remains On Hold

Thomas-Mathis suggested Monday that the city release $150,000 that it had pledged for the restoration. She said the nonprofit organization that owns the building has shown good faith in raising its share of the $300,000 needed for the project.

Although other commissioners say they support the restoration, they wanted to hold off for now. Thomas- Mathis decided to withdraw her request in the face of opposition.

``It looks like it would be a 1 to 4 vote,'' she said of her motion to release the money to The Improvement League of Plant City.

The Bing House at 205 E. Allen St. was built in 1918 by Janie Bing and offered the only public accommodations for blacks in Plant City during the days of segregation. The boardinghouse closed in the 1970s, and the league wants to restore it and open a museum there.

Thomas-Mathis said moving forward with the restoration would help encourage redevelopment of the area. In recent months, the city has supported improving the area by buying property for affordable housing and constructing a park and lake named in memory of longtime civil rights leader Sam Cooper.

The other commissioners say they support restoration of the Bing House but they want to make sure there is enough money to complete work on the aging building. Restoration of the structure has been on hold since Mayor Mike Sparkman first raised questions about financial backing for the work.

Reporter Dave Nicholson can be reached at (813) 754-3765.

Jan 22, 2005

City Braces For Flood Of Homes, Demands

In a recent interview, he cited these areas of concern:

* Applications for planning reviews, building permits and inspections are expected to flood city hall, and he is taking steps to ensure the affected departments will be efficiently organized and adequately staffed.

* With the expected increase in population, the library and other recreational facilities will have to be expanded, roads built, city utilities extended, and fire and police services increased.

* Unless the city revises its fee structure, the cost of providing services to new homes could exceed the property taxes they generate.

In recent months, the city has annexed or rezoned at least 6,000 residential lots, and officials figure this will mean a 52 percent increase in the number of homes requiring such services as sewer, water, transportation and public safety.

Several residential projects are on the horizon but have not gone through the zoning process.

The largest include Lakeside Station and County Line Farms, which were approved by the city commission and are awaiting the go-ahead from the state Department of Community Affairs.

Lakeside Station, planned for the east side of Park Road south of U.S. 92, is expected to have about 2,600 homes. The project had been on hold for more than a year because of environmental concerns, but health officials have found no direct link between pollution and the health of area residents.

County Line Farms, a proposed development on 203 acres bordering County Line Road south of U.S. 92, would add about 1,000 homes to the city.

Record Annexation Rate

The city is annexing residential tracts at an unprecedented rate.

``We are not beating the bushes to find land to annex,'' Sollenberger said. Developers with projects on city boundaries are seeking annexation.

Among the largest pending annexations are 330 acres at Knights-Griffin Road and State Road 39, which could result in development of more than 600 homes, and about 650 homes on 177 acres on Charlie Taylor Road, between U.S. 92 and Interstate 4, east of the city.

South of the city, two recently annexed projects are expected to add more than 500 homes. Magnolia Green is planned for about 90 acres at the southwest corner of Trapnell and Drawdy roads. Trapnell Ridge is a 60-acre subdivision at the southwest corner of Trapnell and Timberlane Drive.

Sollenberger said he does not expect to see construction at most of the big residential projects this year, but he expects the floodgates to open in 2006 and beyond.

The impending house building boom can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how it's handled, he said.

Plant City is short of housing sites. Without development of more residential projects, house building in the city would slow to a trickle.

But with the city's current fee structure, growth will not pay for itself, according to a report by consultant Paul S. Tischler. The report identified budget shortfalls for stormwater utilities, street construction and library expansion.

Tischler identified $221,000 as the break-even price for new homes under the present revenue structure and $190,400 if the city adopts higher fees proposed in a previous study. Lower prices mean the homes cost more to service than they contribute in taxes, Tischler said.

The houses to be built in anticipated projects are generally below the break-even price identified by Tischler.

There is a positive aspect of this picture, however.

Art Wood, president and chief executive officer of the Railroad & Industrial Federal Credit Union, said homes ``in the midrange and below'' are well-suited for Plant City.

``The homes I've seen proposed look to me to be just the right size,'' he said. A longtime mortgage lender in this area, Wood said residents tend to average $13 to $15 an hour. They are ``solid people who go to church and hold down jobs.''

Even with rising interest rates, residents will be able to afford to buy and keep the new homes, he said.

To help absorb the cost of servicing new homes, city officials are looking at a revised fee structure.

Higher Rates, Fees

The city recently raised stormwater utility fees to meet current demands and provide for continuing improvements, but transportation and library impact fees have to be addressed, Sollenberger said.

In a report presented to the city commission, he suggested raising developers' impact fees and adjusting rates to pay for growth.

Sollenberger cited a survey that showed Plant City charges developers thousands of dollars less in impact fees than other local governments in central Florida.

The commission gave him the go-ahead to discuss raising impact fees with ``community interests'' such as the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce. Commissioners also approved retaining a consultant to study creation of library impact fees.

The 19,000-square-foot Bruton Memorial Library will need to be expanded by 10,000 square feet to keep pace with growth expected in the next 15 years, Sollenberger said. He said a recent architect's study put the cost between $2.3 million and $2.7 million.

The city has started to charge for planning and engineering services, and revenue from this program will be used to fund a new engineering position.

``We are building a financial foundation to pay the cost of growth,'' Sollenberger said.

Financial Barometer

Building permits generally are considered a key indicator of a community's economy. Permits issued by the city last year were well ahead of the 2003 total - nearly $51.5 million, compared with about $42 million.

That increase was due mainly to residential projects.

The city issued 210 permits valued at about $20.6 million for single-family residential construction during the year. It was more than triple the single-family permit activity in 2003, when home building in Plant City declined dramatically after the build-out of Walden Lake.

Two factors dimmed this apparently rosy picture:

* The increase came mostly from U.S. Home Corp.'s Royal Hills subdivision, an extension of the Country Hills development on Turkey Creek Road, and home prices in that subdivision ranged from $119,000 to $149,000.

Those lower prices mean the homes cost more to service than they contribute in taxes, Tischler said.

* Home building slowed in the second half of the year. After Walden Lake reached build-out in mid-2003, Royal Hills was the largest city tract available for development. That subdivision was sold out by midyear, and - with the exception of a few small subdivisions - isolated housing sites remained within city limits.

Jesse Carr, director of the city's building department, blamed a shortage of land with sewer and water services within city limits for the second- half slowdown.

``We need a large project to provide serviced housing sites. They sell homes as fast as they can build them,'' he said.

Large projects are coming.

``Quite clearly, residential development will be strong'' in the years ahead, Sollenberger said.

Commerce, Industry Down

The commercial and industrial outlook was less robust.

Both categories were down in 2004. There were no new industrial permits in 2004, compared with four in 2003, valued at $826,375. Although the 14 commercial permits issued in 2004 equaled the 203 total, the value of the permits fell from $19.2 million to $9.7 million.

No industrial or commercial blockbusters have emerged for 2005, but Sollenberger said a large industrial company he wouldn't identify plans a major expansion.

He said state-funded projects will boost the city's development, citing examples such as the widening and rerouting of State Road 39 and extension of a waterline from Oakview Estates to connect with the Lakeland system at Wiggins Road.

State plans call for improvements to State Road 39, Alexander Street, Sam Allen Road and Park Road to complete ``a loop around the city,'' he said. ``It will have a huge impact.''

The city's preparation for growth will better serve large- scale projects, Sollenberger said.

He cited these examples:

* $5.6 million for conversion of the old AutoNation plant at 2412 Willamette Drive, off Alexander Street, into a police station and city maintenance facility.

* $35 million to upgrade and expand the city's wastewater plant.

* Development of the Ellis- Methvin Park on East Cherry Street, near Park Road, and the Sam Cooper park in the east end of town.

Sollenberger said roads will be resurfaced and railway crossings improved as part of an ongoing program to upgrade city infrastructure. The continuing beautification of downtown will contribute to the downtown's historical character and attract desirable commercial development, he said.

``We are also looking at our codes,'' Sollenberger said. He cited a recent overhaul of zoning requirements for town houses, which is making Plant City more attractive for that type of development, and adoption of traditional neighborhood design regulations, which will provide more flexibility in developing planned communities.

Reporter George Graham can be reached at (813) 754-3765.



$18-million state deal protects 18,000 acres

By Associated Press
Published February 2, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet on Tuesday approved an $18-million deal that will bar development on more than 18,000 acres in the Panhandle, keeping it clear for wildlife habitat and military training.

The vote to purchase a perpetual conservation easement means landowner M.C. Davis and his heirs cannot sell or develop the land, and only certain low-impact uses are permitted.

The land's appraised value is $60-million. Officials say if Davis had chosen to sell it in parcels to developers, he could have gotten much more.

Davis, a real estate speculator and conservationist, said he wants to preserve the land for wildlife habitat.

It is also part of a massive tract officials are trying to keep undeveloped to avoid interference with military training and testing, particularly by units at nearby Eglin Air Force Base.

The plan to keep the "Nokuse Plantation," near Freeport in Walton County, out of development is one of the first parts of a planned 1,000-square-mile no-development zone in the Panhandle, envisioned to stretch from Eglin, near Fort Walton Beach, east and then south to the Gulf of Mexico.

The undeveloped land spanning six counties would be kept in its natural state, protecting several endangered species living there, but also allowing the military to continue using airspace without worrying about disrupting people.

The project was partly made possible by new federal authority allowing the military to join states and nonprofits to create such buffers. The federal government chipped in $1-million of the cost of the easement.

"This project will play a critical role in protecting Eglin's mission," said Col. Robert Nolan, commander of the 46th Test Wing at the base.

County searches for ways to develop

Consultants advise Pinellas to attract businesses and encourage redevelopment with incentives.

CLEARWATER - In two years, there will be no undeveloped land left in Pinellas County.

That could make the economy plummet, a group of consultants said at a meeting Tuesday, unless officials overhaul the county's approach to development, focusing on three things: dollars, dirt and design.

The meeting, which combined presentations with small-group discussions, was the first of four scheduled around the county this week to get reaction to a draft plan for the future of county redevelopment.

In their presentations to the 180 government officials, developers and residents at the summit, consultants stressed the importance of fostering economic growth, identifying and redeveloping available land and creating more urban centers.

To do this, consultant Bill Fruth said, the county must attract businesses and encourage them to redevelop land, using incentives such as tax refunds, low-interest loans and grants for land and building, faster permitting and decreased regulation.

The county should focus on attracting businesses that sell their products outside the county and employ a large number of workers at above-average wages, he said, and help them find sites to redevelop.

"Economic development is ultimately a real estate transaction," he said. "If you don't have a site, you're not in the ballgame."

In small-group discussions after the consultants' presentations, several audience members said that incentives should include measures for accountability so that businesses not only come to the county, but stay. They also stressed the importance of balancing countywide guidelines with city control.

David Healey, executive director of the Pinellas Planning Council, which co-sponsored the summit with the Board of County Commissioners, said a revised draft of the plan will be presented to the County Commission and the planning council in April or May. And hopefully, he said, the commission will vote on the plan in June.

"From there, then the tough part starts," he said. "Approving the plan doesn't make it happen." County and city officials will need to work together to implement the plan, he said.

Commissioner Karen Seel said comments from the meetings will help shape the plan.

"There were a lot of people there who I didn't know," she said. "I was really pleased. . . . It's really setting the stage for the future of what I hope is a much better-looking county."

Redevelopment Draft Plan Summit meetings will take place at three other locations this week:

8 a.m. to noon Wednesday at USF St. Petersburg campus activity center, 333 First St. S, St. Petersburg.

6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive, Largo.

8 a.m. to noon Thursday at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church hall, 36 N Pinellas Ave., Tarpon Springs.

Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

Hildebrand faces no penalty for errors on disclosure form

The state ethics board suggests the commissioner made mistakes in filing but has decided not to pursue the case further.

State ethics officials have found "probable cause" that County Commissioner Ann Hildebrand erred by not fully describing her Alabama cabin or her bank interest income on the standard financial disclosure form for elected officials.

But they also decided not to seek any penalties for the infractions, which Hildebrand addressed by filing a corrected form last November.

"While the facts show a violation, I am of the opinion that further pursuit of this matter would not serve the public interest," wrote James H. Peterson III, advocate for the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The ethics commission adopted Peterson's recommendation Jan. 27. The findings were made public Tuesday.

Environmental activist Clay Colson filed the complaint last July. He noted that Hildebrand only listed her cabin property as "Lake Martin, Dadeville, AL," without providing an address or legal description.

He also noted that Hildebrand listed $3,257 in interest income, but did not identify the sources, as required for any amount over $1,000.

Hildebrand said the cabin sits on a dirt road without an address, but she attached a legal description to the amended form. She also provided a breakdown of the interest, which came from three bank accounts listed on another part of the form.

Colson filed a flurry of complaints against Hildebrand last year. But so far, this is the only finding against the 66-year-old commissioner, who was re-elected to her sixth term last November.

Colson did not return a call Tuesday afternoon.

"I think all of the complaints that he filed have been unfounded," Hildebrand said Tuesday. "But when they receive a complaint, just like in any business, they are bound to investigate that and see what it is."

Feb 2, 2005

Channelside Developer Plans Move To Pasco

Company President Mike Hogan told a gathering of Pasco business representatives last week that his company plans to move its operations to Northpointe Village, part of Hogan's 100-acre business complex at Suncoast Crossings.

``They're the type of professional organization we're trying to get to move to Pasco County,'' said Mary Jane Stanley, president of the Pasco Economic Development Council.

Suncoast Crossings straddles the Suncoast Parkway at State Road 54. Northpointe takes up the east side of the project.

The Hogan Group has leased office space in downtown Tampa's Bank of American building for a decade. That lease expires next year.

The downtown location was ideal when the company was getting started, Hogan said recently. But as the company has grown, it has more business in Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale so the downtown location is less important, he said.

The company should begin construction on its two-story office building, along with restaurants and other offices, in the fall, Hogan said.

The Pasco site will put company officials closer to Tampa International Airport. But it will also put the company much closer to its employees, Hogan said.

About 80 percent of The Hogan Group's workers live in southern Pasco, northern Hillsborough or northeastern Pinellas counties, Hogan said.

Hogan's employees are among more than 65,000 Pasco workers who commute out of the county for work, according to 2000 census figures.

During his presentation at last week's Business Development Week luncheon, Hogan pitched Northpointe as a way to bring employers closer to Pasco's army of commuters, giving workers a reason to skip congested freeways and stay closer to home.

Northpointe Village will be a complex of offices, shops and restaurants fronting on S.R. 54 and designed to serve the companies that build in the industrial park to the south. Plans show a neotraditional streetscape akin to an old- fashioned downtown rather than the more common campuslike setting for businesses.

Northpointe's first industrial tenant, flight simulator maker Opinincus, will move from Clearwater to Pasco this year. Hogan said the company could begin construction on its new office and manufacturing plant next month.

Crews are building the main road into Northpointe. That could be finished in about 30 days, Hogan said.

The Hogan Group has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Atlanta. Along with Channelside, The Hogan Group also built Walt Disney Co.'s Tampa call center and Verizon's headquarters in Atlanta.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

Snake sightings keep housing development on hold

Lot sales in Dupree Lakes are delayed indefinitely as wildlife officials investigate the discovery of a threatened species.

LAND O'LAKES - The eastern indigo snake, slithering along on a bluish-black body that can stretch to 9 feet, enjoys burrowing into high, dry, sandy soils.

That puts the reptile, since 1979 a federally listed threatened species, on a collision course with developers who favor the same terrain for houses and strip malls.

Just ask Beazer Homes, developers of Dupree Lakes, a new housing community proposed for Pasco County. After two indigo snakes were discovered on the 465-acre property last fall, the federal government invoked the Endangered Species Act.

Lot sales in the 670-home development were scheduled to start around November. That has been postponed indefinitely, according to Beazer officials.

Last fall, Beazer already had begun clearing the site, mostly orange grove, when a biological survey team trapped one snake and saw another nearby.

Beazer, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has to figure out how to protect the reptiles, which appear to have set up house near a wetland on the southwest corner of the property.

"They've been advised not to continue work until this has been resolved," county biologist Bob Tietz said.

The Atlanta-based developer hasn't had the easiest time building the company's first development in Pasco.

Part of the project will sit on land belonging to the former Dupree Gardens, a heavily flowered amusement park that was one of Florida's premier roadside attractions in the 1940s.

To preserve a bit of history, Beazer agreed not to raze a coquina stone ticket booth from the former park. The booth would grace Dupree Lakes' entrance road on Ehren Cutoff in Land O'Lakes.

Then came the discovery of gopher tortoises. At the instigation of environmental regulators, Beazer cut a check for $435,650 to restore habitat for the tortoises off site.

In June, Beazer's consultant, Meryman Environmental, advised that the Dupree Lakes site contained no observable indigo snakes.

"This species most likely does not exist on the subject site due to the heavy impacts," Meryman wrote in a June 30 report.

Tietz wasn't so sure. Where you find tortoises, you often find indigo snakes. The snakes, the largest nonvenomous variety in North America, tend to share the same underground burrows. He asked Meryman to do a second survey. It turned up the two snakes in October.

"They're not the kind of snakes you want to meet near your back porch," Tietz said. "They'll run up to 8 to 10 feet. They're big."

In fact, despite their size and habit of swallowing their prey whole, indigo snakes are prized for their docility. Up until their listing on the threatened species list, the glossy blue-black reptiles were frequently trapped by pet dealers.

Development has squeezed the species further. It used to range widely in the southeastern United States but is now largely confined to Florida and south Georgia.

Being a "threatened" animal isn't as serious as being "endangered." Florida panthers and manatees are endangered, meaning they're at risk of becoming extinct. Threatened animals are those "likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future."

Beazer is floating a snake preservation plan it hopes Fish and Wildlife accepts. It proposes setting aside at least 10 acres and erecting an informational kiosk to alert future residents to the snakes' possible presence.

The discovery of threatened animals rarely condemns a project. Most receive permits to proceed within three months to a year. That was the case with indigo snakes found on construction sites in Charlotte, Volusia and Marion counties.

"We expect to be on our way in 60 to 90 days," Beazer land development director Steve Gamm said. "It's not that different from normal development stuff."

This is the first time the federal government has invoked the Endangered Species Act over an indigo snake to delay a project in Pasco, Tietz said.

"We've had bald eagle issues but nothing like this," he said. "I'm as curious as anyone about how this turns out."

Letters to the Editor
Published February 1, 2005

Someone needs to stop issuing building permits

Re: New homes expected to top 100,000 , Jan. 30

Excellent article on a subject we will all live with for a long time - this overdevelopment of Pasco County coming as fast as building permits can be issued.

But one important point is overlooked. Is this construction frenzy just inevitable, or are elected officials the ones issuing the building permits?

We see quotes in the local papers questioning where the water, schools and other resources will come from, without much thought toward why so many homes are allowed in the first place.

One hundred thousand new homes in two years is just too much, too fast!

Land preservation fund's time is now

Re: Tax to preserve land rolls onto agenda as prices rise , Jan. 2 6 Times editorial:

It was refreshing to see this idea receive such a warm reception from the Times and some local leaders. Doubling the millage rate for the county's Environmentally Sensitive Lands Fund is truly an idea whose time has come. In fact, those involved say it is an idea long overdue.

It is common knowledge that Hernando County has the smallest environmental lands fund of the 30 or so in the state. Compounding this is that since the completion of the Suncoast Parkway, development has increased at an astounding rate. Not since the 1980s have we seen this amount of residential growth. In addition, land prices have skyrocketed in that same time period. Anyone not convinced of this should simply contact a local Realtor and inquire about purchasing even a small parcel of land.

Acquiring green space is a noble idea and one that benefits all citizens. It also is a concept that is certainly viable, so long as we act now before it is too late.

Without additional funding, many of these lands simply cannot be saved. I would hope the public is equally enthusiastic about helping to preserve open space for future generations.

Click here to send a letter to the St. Petersburg Times 

Feb 1, 2005

Plant City Hires Consultant To Help With Growth Issues

White will be paid $15,000 for his services and expenses.

More than 6,000 new home sites are at various stages of government approval in what Plant City officials expect to foreshadow an era of rapid growth.

White has a long history of government service, including management positions with Miami, Prince George's County, Va., and the Florida House of Representatives.

Dave Nicholson <

Jan 31, 2005

Groundbreaking near for Brooksville Lowe's

Jan 31, 2005

More stores to surround Lowe's

Hardware stalwart Scotty's closing two stores

The longtime Florida company, which filed for bankruptcy in September, is selling out its inventory after about 30 years.

The death of a longtime Florida business could be seen the last few Saturdays on neon yellow close-out signs waved on busy intersections throughout the county.

Scotty's Inc., a bastion of home improvement and furnishing supplies for local homeowners for some 30 years, plans to close its two stores in the county in March. The chain declared bankruptcy.

The company's Hernando County stores include an older Brooksville store, on U.S. 98, and a newer Spring Hill Drive store in Spring Hill Plaza.

The 81-year-old company, headquartered in Winter Haven, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. A bankruptcy official and several store employees confirmed the company is liquidating its inventory and closing Florida stores.

Scotty's employs 470 people companywide at 40 stores in Florida and Georgia. It's not clear how many are employed in Hernando County. Local managers said they had been ordered not to talk about the closing.

Increased competition, poor sales and losses during last year's hurricanes were reasons cited for Scotty's bankruptcy, according to records.

Scotty's debuted in Hernando County with its Brooksville store in the 1970s, say longtime Brooksville business owners.

"They were good competition, and I always hate to see any business have problems," said Joe Weeks, owner of 89-year-old Weeks Hardware. Over the years, Weeks has steered customers to Scotty's if he didn't carry what the customer was looking for.

Yet, news that Scotty's is closing was expected, some business leaders say. The company had struggled in Hernando County and throughout Florida over the years as big-box stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot elbowed their way into the county.

In fact, the Brooksville Scotty's store was briefly up for sale in July 2003, until its owners backed out of an offer, said real estate broker Gary Schraut.

In 1999, Scotty's closed an 11-year-old store on U.S. 19 a few years after a Home Depot sprouted down the road. Lowe's has since opened a store on that busy highway. Staples moved into the old Scotty's store. Another Lowe's store is planned for Brooksville only 2 miles south of Scotty's on U.S. 41.

Other local hardware store owners say they aren't too concerned about big-box competition that led to Scotty's demise.

"Not everybody can be all things to all people, and we cater to our customers with service and get customer loyalty," said Scott Pickett, owner of Pickett's Western Auto True Value.

Justin Crowder of Crowder Express Hardware said his company stays busy, because he buys through a national purchasing group. The group, with its large buying power, makes it easier for the 50-year-old family-owned business to offer more competitive prices.

Scotty's stores in Hernando County have been busy during the past few weekends with bargain hunters looking to take advantage of items marked down by as much as 60 percent. The first major weekend of Scotty's going-out-of-business sale was frenzied, with often mean-spirited customers fighting over merchandise or upset with store employees about not being able find what they were looking for.

Stores were quieter Monday. Several customers, such as painting contractor Larry Courter of Courter Enterprises Inc., expressed anger and sadness at the loss of the Florida chain.

"I hate it," said Courter as he entered the Spring Hill store. "Now I'm going to have to drive to Home Depot. What a bummer."

Jennifer Liberto can be reached at 352 848-1434 or liberto@sptimes.com

--Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

Jan 31, 2005

Low-Impact Development Workshop Draws Interest

Wesley Chapel-based Pascowildlife Inc., run by activist Jennifer Seney, will host the workshop April 29 at The Florida Aquarium. The one-day seminar will feature representatives of the Low Impact Development Center in Prince George's County, Md.

The roster of supporters includes Heidt & Associates Inc. and King Engineering Inc., two companies that have designed many Pasco developments; Figurski & Harrill, the New Port Richey law firm that represents many of the county's biggest builders; and Terrabrook, the company building Connerton in central Pasco.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District is the event's biggest sponsor.

Seney is promoting low-impact design as a way to make Pasco's future growth more ecologically sensitive.

The workshop is aimed at members of the development community as well as government regulators. Anyone interested in participating can register with Pascowildlife by calling (813) 907-0200. Registration costs $25.

Kevin Wiatrowski

Objections Stall Bill On Managing Growth

The 172-page House bill that began circulating this month would have returned oversight of local land-use plans to 11 regional planning councils.

That power was stripped away about a decade ago after developers complained the councils had become too antigrowth, said Laura Jacobs, who has worked on growth issues as a House staff attorney and a lobbyist for developers and local governments.

``Now developers are saying, `What's going to prevent that from happening again?' '' she said.

A broad range of interest groups expressed concern about various parts of the bill, which is expected to resurface in another week or so.

``It was like pulling a piece of thread, and the whole thing unraveled,'' said Charles Pattison, executive director of the growth watchdog group 1000 Friends of Florida.

``The details weren't there. People were nervous about signing on to something without knowing how it was going to work.''

Cities and counties are required to create comprehensive land-use plans, or blueprints for growth that identify areas for homes, businesses and parks. The plans are reviewed by regional councils, but the Department of Community Affairs and other state regulators hold the power to stop projects or change comprehensive plans.

Regional councils voiced concern the bill failed to provide them with more money.

``If we get additional responsibility, we need additional dollars,'' said Manny L. Pumariega, executive director of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

The Tampa Bay council oversees growth in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Manatee counties.

Polk County belongs to the Central Florida regional council.

Tallahassee sends less than $2.5 million annually to the 11 regional councils. Pumariega said his state funding has remained flat for more than a decade.

Wade Hopping, a lawyer who represents developers, warned the combination of stronger regional councils and continued state oversight could create a third level of bureaucracy. He suggested that ``it may be time to start from scratch.''

DCA released policy papers in November saying there is widespread dissatisfaction with Florida's planning process.

The House bill was based on many of the department's recommendations, but may have been too ambitious, Jacobs said.

Other trouble spots include proposals to change representation or boundaries of the regional councils, requirements to submit updated comprehensive plans if cities annex surrounding land, and new exemptions to the planning review process.

State Rep. Mike Davis, vice- chairman of the House Growth Management Committee, promised to sponsor a revised bill before the legislative session begins in March.

``The first version should have been worked on longer,'' said Davis, R-Naples. ``We all agree on the vision. But none of us feel we have that vision on paper yet.''

State Rep. Bob Henriquez, another committee member, suggested smaller changes may have to be proposed in separate bills.

``If you muddle it all together, there is a chance it will die of its own weight,'' the Tampa Democrat said.

A Senate bill also is exploring growth management issues, including ways to pay for schools, roads and other infrastructure needs.

``Growth management is a financing problem more than it is a planning problem,'' Senate President Tom Lee said Friday.

``If this Legislature is unwilling to acknowledge that reality ... then rearranging the permitting process or land-use process and declaring some kind of political victory on reforming growth management will not happen,'' Lee said.

The Senate's Committee on Community Affairs is scheduled to hold a public meeting on growth issues Feb. 11 at the University of South Florida's Tampa campus.

Jan 31, 2005

County Official Hired To Reform Rules

Development among the ranches and pastures of state roads 52 and 54 was hardly imaginable, and the county had yet to conceive a code enforcement department.

A University of South Florida sociology student at the time, Millard, now 56, joined the county through a federal job creation program. He has risen through the ranks. In October, Millard was named assistant zoning and code compliance director. He replaced Joe Gross, who left the county in May for a similar job in Temple Terrace.

Millard, a San Antonio resident, spent much of his career in Dade City. He was hired formally by the county in 1979 as an environmental control inspector, making $3.09 per hour. He later served as a job counselor, zoning officer and permitting supervisor after the county created its code enforcement division in 1986.

Zoning and Code Compliance Administrator Debra Zampetti, who supervises the code enforcement, consumer affairs and public information offices, has charged Millard with reviewing county ordinances and revising the entire land development code. He also will take over some duties temporarily for Code Compliance Manager Steve Pence, who retires next month.

Zampetti said she chose Millard among about six finalists for the position because of his vast knowledge of the land development code and of county ordinances. His annual salary is $46,150.

``Based on his background and experience, I needed somebody who could walk in and know how the county works and know the people,'' Zampetti said. ``He has a real comprehensive idea of the land development code. Someone else would not know all of the problems with it.''

Changing Focus

Gross joined the county about four years ago, when it was converting from an appointed code enforcement board to a court citation and fine system. A certified arborist, he helped create Pasco's tree ordinance and enforce controversial sign and sexually oriented business ordinances. He also initiated neighborhood sweeps, in which inspectors target areas with numerous code complaints to encourage compliance.

Millard said the department likely will continue sweeps in areas with widespread violations, but he will concentrate on clarifying confusing rules and regulations, such as the sign ordinance.

``People have a lot of questions about the sign ordinance,'' he said. ``There seems to be a lot of confusion. We have thousands of illegal signs out there. In some places, like U.S. 41, S.R. 54 and County Road 54 [in Wesley Chapel], the code enforcement officer can pull up all the signs and later that night there will be more.''

The code enforcement department handles about 20,000 complaints per year for violations ranging from illegal businesses to junk vehicles and high grass. Since October, about 6,000 complaints have been received. A handful of cases end up in the court system, but many of those who are cited work to correct the problems, Millard said.

Millard has received consistently good evaluations during his years as an environmental inspector, zoning technician and development review technician, specifically in areas of dealing with the public and understanding county codes. He served as central permitting supervisor for a year in 2002 but voluntarily returned to his previous position as development review technician. His supervisor commended Millard for his efforts to learn management responsibilities but said he should be more assertive and better communicate the needs of the department.

Among the guidelines Millard is working to change are rules for certain larger vehicles such as trucks, Zampetti said. The department may seek to prohibit such vehicles on agricultural-residential property smaller than 5 acres.

Millard and Zampetti also are working to tighten setback regulations for tool sheds and other structures, which are difficult to enforce. The county may not prosecute such violations after a year, although they can cite property owners for not having construction permits. Property owners may not get permits without the proper setbacks.

``He is going through the entire code to see if certain things should be special exceptions or if they should be permitted uses,'' Zampetti said. ``It is a lengthy process. Joe concentrated on landscaping and signs. What I'm trying to focus on is what we have instead of creating something new.''

The zoning and code compliance department also must determine how to enforce new ordinances, such as a proposed ordinance limiting deposits of fill dirt. The ordinance, prompted by a flurry of violations during last year's active hurricane season, is intended to prevent and correct flooding problems created when residents and business owners build dirt barriers around their homes to keep out high water.

Zampetti said she will conduct a nationwide search to replace Pence, who has served a critical role in code compliance. In the meantime, Millard and Supervisor of Code Enforcement Pat Phillips will take over those duties.

``I will take my time,'' she said. ``I don't want to make a rush decision, because that it a very critical position.

`Being of Service'

Millard has spent his entire career in Pasco and working in government.

``To me, it's a way of being of service,'' he said. ``You don't make a lot of money in government work, but I don't think I could work in the private sector now.''

His wife of 27 years, Jean, described her husband as diligent and dedicated. She said he educated himself on county codes years ago, when he switched from the permitting department to the zoning department.

``He brought the zoning code home and taught himself what the codes are,'' she said. ``He is well-respected in zoning and central permitting. People just know that he really understands code. He believes in public service and that it's just something you do.''

An avid reader, Millard always has about 20 books on hand, his wife said. He is especially drawn to nonfiction books on American Indians of the southwest, spirituality, history and horses. The couple attend Catholic churches in San Antonio and Brooksville.

``He's a very caring person,'' Jean said. ``He loves animals.''

When Jean became involved in the Girl Scouts of America about 10 years ago, her husband accompanied her to all of her training classes. He became involved with the Girl Scouts as well.

``Lee did all of the teaching of astronomy to the girls,'' Jean said. ``He is very musically oriented, artistic and talented.''

The biggest challenge for the zoning and code compliance department is keeping up with growth, Millard said. The U.S. Census Bureau lists Pasco, which is closing in on a population of 400,000, among the Top 100 fastest-growing counties in the nation.

``We are trying to manage growth so we don't destroy it for the people here,'' he said.

Jan 31, 2005

County Will Take Property On C.R. 54

The county attorney's office has been unable to reach agreements with 14 property owners along a roughly 2-mile stretch slated for expansion from two to four lanes and eventually to six lanes, Assistant County Attorney Marcie McDonie said in a letter to county commissioners.

The project includes the congested C.R. 54-Interstate 75 intersection, which is slated for additional improvements.

``We've negotiated purchase of a lot of the property,'' County Attorney Robert Sumner said. ``This is a 2-mile project and just 14 parcels.''

County commissioners at a meeting Tuesday in Dade City approved a resolution of necessity for the road and authorized the county attorney's office to file a complaint with the circuit court, Sumner said. The court is expected to issue an order saying the county may take title to the property. The property owners may object.

Appraisals completed in 2004 estimated property values at $1.87 million. The court requires the county to deposit double that amount into an account to cover costs of the takings. The county also incurs attorneys' and appraisal fees and court costs for eminent domain proceedings.

Sumner said the county could begin construction of the road in as soon as three months. The estimated cost of construction is $6.8 million. Right-of-way acquisition is estimated at $6.5 million.

Portions of those costs will be funded with gas taxes, impact fees and property tax proceeds, Sumner said.

Wesley Chapel Boulevard was known as S.R. 54 until the opening of State Road 56 more than two years ago. The state Department of Transportation transferred title to the county, which immediately initiated plans to expand C.R. 54 to alleviate traffic congestion, Sumner said.

In May 2003, commissioners approved a route that will destroy 8.21 acres of wetlands. A similar alternative would have destroyed more wetlands and required taking more property. None of the parcels in question is occupied by homes, Sumner said.

``Now it's a county road, so we have the obligation of six- laning it ourselves,'' Sumner said.

Commissioners unanimously supported expansion of the road and said they were eager for the project to begin.

Jan 31, 2005

Dade City To Annex Sheriff's Center Site

A state law requires that all constitutional officers, such as the sheriff, supervisor of elections and clerk of the court, maintain an office in the county seat, which is Dade City.

The property, at State Road 52 and Gene Nelson Boulevard adjacent to the county's John S. Burks Park, is just outside the city limits. It was donated to the county for the Capt. Charles ``Bo'' Harrison Building, which opened last summer.

County leaders have begun annexation proceedings to transfer the land to the city. Dade City officials are expected to approve the annexation in coming months.

The county is exempt from paying property taxes, so the annexation is more or less a formality, said Assistant County Attorney Elizabeth Blair.

Harrison, the highest-ranking black deputy in sheriff's office history, was shot and killed in 2003 while on surveillance duty across from Rumors nightclub on U.S. 301 in Lacoochee. He was the first Pasco County deputy killed in the line of duty in 80 years.

Alfredie Steele Jr., 20, is charged with first-degree murder in Harrison's death and is awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty and faces the death penalty if convicted.

A stretch of U.S. 301 through Pasco County also was renamed in honor of Harrison.

Jan 30, 2005

Don't Abandon School's Agriculture Program

Land O' Lakes/Lutz is no longer a mostly rural area of farms and ranches. An influx of subdivisions, with more planned, and businesses has resulted in a thriving urban community with new needs and interests.

And when too few students show interest in an offering, as school officials say is the case with the agricultural program at Land O' Lakes, school administrators should evaluate and make changes when needed. It makes no sense to continue offering stand-alone programs when interest is lacking.

But to completely drop a program - one that encourages future farmers needed to grow our food, help keep land open and raise food-producing animals - among other purposes - would be extreme.

Proper farming is essential to our health, economy and survival, and it is an integral part of our history.

An operation doesn't have to be big. Many people with the interest and time grow tomatoes and other foods in their back yards for personal enjoyment and nutrition.

This is one field that should be encouraged, not dissolved, especially considering rapid changes to Pasco County's landscapes.

Consider other courses, aside from vital core subjects such as English, mathematics and science, currently required to graduate: physical education, practical or performing fine arts, ``life management'' and a number of electives with wide-ranging subject matters.

Agriculture - with its far-reaching elements - would fit that list, too, as an important part of an education.

It certainly is an important part of the day to many students at Pine View Middle School, a feeder school to Land O' Lakes. Pine View has a very strong and active agriculture program. It has more than 100 students - more than Land O' Lakes - who could give a big lift to the high school program.

Pine View students who will attend Land O' Lakes would have to make other arrangements if they wanted to continue their pursuit of agriculture.

Under school choice, they would have to attend high school in Zephyrhills or Dade City - both of which have active agriculture programs - or take part in a veterinarian's assistant program in New Port Richey. Travel could be one of a number of obstacles.

Land O' Lakes and district officials should do everything possible to keep the program. At the very least, they should try to mold the program into other offerings, such as the sciences, if they deem it no longer feasible to let it stand on its own.

School officials can't keep the program alive by themselves.

Parents need to impress upon their children the value of agriculture to cultivate more interest. And the Land O' Lakes/Lutz community, which has seen more than its share of changes the last few years, needs to get behind the program, because farming is part of the area's heritage.

In fact, school officials reported Friday that several residents have pledged support to help save the program, resulting in them re-evaluating their decision to drop it. Enough students must be committed to save it into next year and beyond.

Numerous inspiring youths at Pine View Middle know that agriculture remains a fertile field. Others should see that, too.

Jan 30, 2005

Growth On City Officials' Minds

For the first time in two decades, the city plans to review its comprehensive plan, a document that outlines growth goals and boundaries.

Hot-button topics include how far to extend city limits, how much industry versus residential development should come to town and how to keep city services in line with population growth.

``It's critical we get these policies and procedures in place so we grow in the right manner,'' Director of Development Services Todd Vande Berg said.

That means smart growth, not sprawl. And user-friendly streets and sidewalks, not jammed throroughfares. It also means maintaining a good quality of life in Zephyrhills, a city once considered a seasonal retirement community but where residential and commercial development has boomed during the past few years.

The growth spurt started when East Pasco Medical Center on U.S. 301 opened in 1985, bringing with it a medical community with multiple offices in the surrounding area. Then Wal-Mart arrived, a big trigger for change, Vande Berg said.

``You can only build so much out there on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard [in New Tampa] and Wesley Chapel, and we're the next community in line,'' Vande Berg said.

Because the city is on the cusp of change, officials would like people most affected by growth to have input on the comprehensive plan.

Residents can attend a meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday at city hall.

Jan 30, 2005

Advisory Group Makes Progress On Downtown

On Tuesday, the group redrew the circle into a rough rectangle straddling both sides of U.S. 41., which for the first time defined the boundaries of the activity center.

The committee is helping Hillsborough County planners create an overlay district at U.S. 41 and Lutz-Lake Fern Road. The result will be regulations to govern redevelopment and specify how buildings look.

Once written, the guidelines will be reviewed by planners and eventually adopted by the county commission.

At their sixth meeting this week, members expanded the activity center's boundary to include Lutz Elementary School, the Old Lutz Schoolhouse and Carolyn Meeker Park because they wanted a chance to create a link between public property.

The next meeting is at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Lutz Senior Center. Planners are expected to present draft guidelines and aerial maps with the new boundary.

``The balance of our meetings is going to focus on language,'' said Randy Kranjec, director of planning services at TBE Group, the consultants overseeing the project. ``I think we all know what we want. We just need to get it on paper.''

Kranjec said residents have told them they want to see rules that encourage natural colors, landscaping, wood or brick siding, low-scaled lighting, gaslight-looking street lamps and Georgian Revival architecture.

Consultants showed schematics of how a small-scale, mixed-use building would look. Restaurants and shops would be on the main floor with offices on top and parking in the rear.

Kranjec also provided examples of how fast-food chains in Stowe, Vt., and Freeport, Maine, have moved into nontraditional buildings and blended into the landscape.

He said the new overlay district boundary is about as large an area they can handle. Although the activity center will include property on the east side of U.S. 41, its core remains the intersection of U.S. 41 and Lutz-Lake Fern Road.

The northern boundary will be along the Lutz cemetery on Fifth Avenue NE and along Fourth Avenue NW on the west side of U.S. 41.

From there, the line jogs south around Lutz Lake and hugs Lutz-Lake Fern Road on the west. The southern boundary is Carolyn Meeker Park and properties on Fifth Avenue SE.

Jan 30, 2005

Large Crowd Shows Appreciation For Tiny Fruit

``This is a record crowd today,'' Barthle said Saturday afternoon at the eighth annual Kumquat Festival. ``It's got to be over 30,000. This is an amazing crowd. That figure is our best guesstimate.''

Barthle, who helped start the festival and formerly owned Katy's Country Corner kumquat shop in St. Joseph, said she estimated the crowd with Dade City Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Phyllis Smith.

Barthle said expanding the number of downtown streets used for the festival is being discussed. Live music, and food, fruit, vegetable and other vendors lined the streets ringing up sales.

Frank Gude agreed that he'd never seen anything like the crowd attending Saturday's festival, which celebrates the sweet, round Meiwa kumquats and the oblong, tart Nagamis.

``We're doing just super today,'' said Gude, co-owner of Kumquat Growers Inc. in St. Joseph. ``This is at least as good as any crowd we've had. This crowd is just amazing. I brought 120 kumquat trees and I'm going to sell out.''

Gude said he also was amazed to attract 2,500 to Friday's open house at his company's facilities on Gude Road.

Tricia Hall, culinary arts instructor at Moore-Mickens Education Center, said her class sold out its more than 500 kumquat oatmeal cookies by 11 a.m., and the 100 containers of candied kumquats were gone one half hour later.

``This is the fastest we've ever sold out here,'' Hall said.

Barthle's daughter, Debbie Bogert of San Antonio, made 330 kumquat pies that produced 2,640 slices going for $2 each. It was a fundraiser for the Sacred Heart Early Childhood Center in St. Joseph.

``We started selling them at 9 a.m.,'' Barthle said, ``and we're going to be sold out by the early afternoon. One lady said she drove 110 miles for a piece of kumquat pie. Another person came from Jacksonville.''

Roger Swain, who has become the Roger Kumquatseed promoter of the bite-size citrus, came all the way from Peterborough, N.H., and 2 feet of snow to promote kumquats in front of the Kumquat Growers display. He handed out free fruit from one basket of Nagamis and another full of Meiwas.

``A billion-and-a-half Chinese can't be wrong!'' Swain shouted to the crowd swarming around him. ``Here, try a Nagami. Try a Meiwa.''

Georgiann Peterson of Tampa took him up on the offer, asking, ``Do you peel them?''

Swain, the science editor at Horticulture Magazine and a PBS TV show host, told her to eat it ``peel and all.''

``They're very good,'' Peterson said. `I'm going to get some recipes and buy some.''

Swain handed her a recipe brochure.

Les and Carol Lantaff are spending part of the winter in Zephyrhills, and bought six bags of kumquats to take home to Evansville, Ind.

``We're going to use them to make kumquat ice cream and enter it in the Vanderburgh County Fair back home in the summer,'' Carol Lantaff said.

Jan 28, 2005

County Sets Its Sights On Business Development

Four of Pasco's biggest builders hope to turn some of those commuters around, keeping workers closer to home by drawing new industry and offices to the county.

``For many years, people looking for a home have found it in Pasco County,'' Keith Appenzeller, chairman of the Pasco Economic Development Council, told a gathering Thursday. ``Now people looking for a home for their businesses are finding it in Pasco, too.''

Appenzeller, president of King Engineering Inc. in Tampa, headed a panel of builders at the council's luncheon as part of the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce's Business Development Week. The event drew 270 people, nearly triple the audience of past years.

King Engineering is designing Wiregrass Ranch on 5,000 acres owned by the Porter family in Wesley Chapel.

Together, panel members presented a picture of future growth in Pasco heavy on homes but including millions of square feet of potential office and retail space.

Wiregrass Ranch, Bexley Ranch, Connerton and the Northpointe section of Suncoast Crossing - the subjects of the panel discussion - offer more than 20,000 acres and 8 million square feet of business space, said Mary Jane Stanley, president and chief executive of the council.

Residential development, which has dominated the county's recent growth, has been criticized for swallowing business sites.

Without those new homes, many of them increasingly expensive, Pasco won't draw the businesses it wants, said Georgianne Ratliffe, senior planner for Wilson Miller, the Tampa firm designing Bexley Ranch and Connerton. Ratliffe also is vice chairman of the development council's board of directors.

``Economic development will not happen without the residential development,'' she said.

All four developments expect some of their success to come from proximity to major roadways - Interstate 75 and State Road 56 in the case of Wiregrass, U.S. 41 and Ridge Road in the case of Connerton, and the Suncoast Parkway in the case of Bexley and Northpointe.

Though some of those roads haven't been built, the major north-south highways carry thousands of commuters every day. Mike Hogan, developer of Northpointe, sees the traffic jams and surrounding residential projects as key to his planned industrial park.

Northpointe's first tenant, Clearwater-based Opinicus, is likely to break ground in Pasco within a month, Hogan said. The company builds flight simulators.

``It's our sincere hope that the people living in Bexley and Connerton will get tired of driving to Tampa and decide to build an office in our park,'' Hogan said.

Audience member Jimmy Keys, of Keys Concrete Industries in Odessa, said the presentation showed Pasco has a great opportunity.

``I think the county has got the opportunity to do it right for a change,'' Keys said.

Jan 27, 2005

County's Rural Past Recalled In Videos

It was downright country. Inland, ranchers herded cattle. Near the water, anglers speared tarpon.

Such details emerge on two new videos to be shown at this year's Community Aging and Retirement Services annual benefit dinners. The first is tonight at Heritage Springs Country Club. The second dinner is a week from today at the CARES Crescent Enrichment Center in Dade City.

With the theme ``Young at Heart: Members of Pasco's Pioneer Families,'' the videos are part of a living history project for the nonprofit CARES, which serves Pasco residents 60 and older. The first series of videos was made in 2003.

Students from Harry Schwett-man Education Center interview, film and edit under the supervision of teacher Doug Van Etten. The project was the brainchild of Marc J. Yacht, director of the Pasco County Health Department.

Dressed in a cowboy hat, kerchief, boots and other Western wear, Yacht introduces the videos and plays harmonica.

``You're going to hear some of the true pioneers of Pasco County,'' he says.

In the first video, brothers Hap, James and Page Clark recalled that when they were boys, most private boats didn't have motors: They were either dinghies or sailboats. At night, without all the lights now along the Gulf of Mexico, the water glowed with phosphorus as the waves broke.

``These tarpon came in close to the shore back then,'' Hap Clark said.

The boys would spear them and other fish, and their mother would smoke the fish and make fish cakes. The family spent $5 a week on groceries and got its milk from a neighbor's cows.

Jay B. Starkey, Jr. recalled how in 1937, his family drove 300 cattle from their farm in Pinellas County to a 16,000- acre ranch in Pasco. He loved living on a farm.

``It was a perfect place for a boy ... in those days to grow up,'' Starkey said.

James Mitchell remembered driving 49 head of cattle from Hudson to New Port Richey when U.S. 19 was just a lime- rock road, before it was paved and State Road 54 was 8 or 9 feet wide.

Some things, though, don't change. Mitchell recalled how others on the road weren't happy that day.

``The people behind us couldn't pass us,'' Mitchell said. ``We heard some foul language.''

The second video made for the Dade City dinner features ranchers Charlie Mack and Mark Overstreet and lawyer/historian Bill Dayton.

Jan 26, 2005

Council Agrees To Annex 2 Parcels

The Zephyrhills City Council voted Monday night to annex a 15-acre parcel of land on the north side of town that will be used for residential development. The land is on the east side of the CSX railroad tracks near Sixth Avenue and is zoned for agricultural use.

The city will rezone the property to allow for residential and industrial use, said Todd Vande Berg, the city's director of development services.

The 15-acre parcel is part of a larger 95-acre piece of land that soon will be transformed from pasture to houses.

Although this project is smaller in scope than other projects in the works for Zephyrhills, it is significant for a city trying to attract businesses and development, while maintaining its small- town feel.

``The developers moved out of New Tampa and Wesley Chapel and came to Zephyrhills. It's just our turn for that kind of growth and development to come here,'' Vande Berg said.

The council also gave initial annexation approval to a 9.5- acre tract on the southern end of the city. That piece of land, off Chancey Road between Tucker Road and Sunpath Avenue, will be used to build a steel manufacturing plant and the corporate office of Universal Structures Inc., a Plant City business.

The business will employ 30 to 40 people.

County Reroutes School Project

County commissioners meeting Tuesday in Dade City unanimously endorsed a school district proposal to direct construction traffic to the 15-acre middle and high school site from State Road 54 south on Meadow Pointe Boulevard, Beardsley Drive and Mansfield Boulevard.

Also Tuesday, commissioners agreed to introduce an ordinance imposing new restrictions on car, boat, truck and other dealerships.

The truck route, which follows county-maintained roads, will have less of an impact on wetlands and eliminate the need to construct a temporary road, said Ray Gadd, the school district's administrative assistant for planning. The school district will be responsible for repairing any damage to Beardsley Drive and Mansfield Boulevard.

``We'll be coming through the back door of Don Buck's new neighborhood,'' Gadd said, referring to a Wiregrass Ranch developer.

Commissioners previously asked the school board to construct a temporary road through Wiregrass Ranch to access the school site. School officials considered three other routes, but those options all crossed wetlands, and it appeared the routes would not pass muster with regional water district officials, Gadd said.

Several Meadow Pointe II Community Development district supervisors addressed commissioners Tuesday. They generally supported the Meadow Pointe Boulevard route, but some had concerns about additional traffic on County Line Road, which also meets Mansfield Boulevard.

Harold Ziegler, one of the Meadow Pointe II supervisors, wondered when the State Road 56 extension, a planned alternative to County Line Road, will be built. He and others said the road is needed to alleviate traffic on congested roads in their developments.

County Administrator John Gallagher said the S.R. 56 extension is about seven months behind schedule, but officials are working to move the project forward.

County officials received about 200 e-mails in support of the Meadow Pointe Boulevard route. Many came from parents of students at Sand Pine Elementary School, which is at about double its capacity. School district officials have said Sand Pine would have to go on double sessions if another school is not built in Wesley Chapel.

The dealership ordinance would apply to dealerships that submit applications and site plans after Tuesday.

Among the restrictions, dealerships, which now are allowed in C-2 commercial zones, would have to be in areas designated for mixed use or retail, office and residential use, and away from houses. They also would have to turn out bright lights after 9 p.m., use a type of lighting that limits glare, limit public address systems to fully enclosed buildings and partially mask vehicles from the road.

Some commissioners expressed concern about a proposed limit on staging or structures that elevate vehicles and boats. That issue likely will be addressed at upcoming public hearings.

The Citizens Ordinance Review Committee is slated to discuss the proposed ordinance at a meeting, 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 16 at the historic Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City. Public hearings are scheduled for Feb. 22 and March 8.

In other news, the county has been notified that 161 emergency service workers and dispatchers have signed a petition to unionize. About 377 employees are eligible for representation by the Public Employees Relations Committee, administrator Gallagher said.

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220.

Agreement paves way for Majestic Oaks

Backtrack on development irks commissioners

A plan to build houses and hotel rooms near World Woods Golf Club, once denied, has new life.

BROOKSVILLE - There's a first time for everything.

Take Tuesday, when the County Commission voted to reconsider its recent denial of a change to Hernando's comprehensive plan that would have allowed for a large development near the World Woods Golf Club.

The matter was not listed on the board's regular agenda, but was considered at the end of the meeting after the developer's representative appeared and pleaded for a second chance. It was granted, despite fierce objections from two commissioners.

Since 1990, when the current growth management methods were adopted, Planning Department director Larry Jennings said he could not recall a board ever having agreed to rehear a past decision to leave the comprehensive plan intact.

At issue is a proposal brought forward by one of the state's largest residential developers, WCI Communities Inc. The developer wants to build 1,680 homes and hotel rooms on 1,170 acres owned by World Woods, just east of the Suncoast Parkway's northern end.

The land is home to a recently discovered cave system that one geologist described as unique not only to Florida, but perhaps the world.

Pointing to the proximity of water and sewer service to the site and the area's increasingly developed character, planning officials supported approval of the plan. But on Jan. 12, the County Commission voted down the amendment to the comprehensive plan - a critical growth regulation document - that would have made it possible.

Board members pointed to the need to protect the largely unexplored cave system. The also did not want to compound poor planning decisions in the past that had allowed dense urban growth in isolated areas.

On Tuesday, Cliff Manuel of Coastal Engineering Associates of Brooksville, which represents the developer, urged the board to think again. He said he was working with WCI and the land's current owner to bring the cave system into public ownership and preserve it.

The state of Florida, he said, may have an interest in buying the system and using it for educational purposes.

The argument appeared to sway commissioners Nancy Robinson and Chris Kingsley, as well as board chairman Robert Schenck. They all voted to schedule a time to hear the comprehensive plan amendment again.

Such comprehensive plan changes are first approved by the County Commission, then must be sent to state regulators for review. Once the state has weighed in, the board must vote on whether to adopt the changes.

It's a process that can take a year.

By heeding Manuel and deciding to give the WCI plan a second look, the commission put the proposal back on track to perhaps secure a first approval. Had they not, WCI would have had to resubmit its proposal to county planners for review, and several months of effort on the company's original plan would have been wasted.

Commissioners Jeff Stabins and Diane Rowden were adamant in their opposition. They asked that their fellow board members at least put the question of whether to rehear the case on next Tuesday's agenda so the public could be informed and attend the discussion.

"If we are going to do something extraordinary," Stabins said, "we should not do it in the heat of the moment."

County Attorney Garth Coller pointed out that while the board may not have ever reheard a comprehensive plan decision, the "genie was out of the bottle" because zoning changes and land use variances are routinely heard again.

Robinson said notice was important, but that she did not support waiting to discuss a rehearing at a previously announced time because the public will be able to comment whenever the actual amendment is again considered.

County officials are to announce next week just when that might be.

The decision left Rowden furious. After the meeting, she accused Robinson of having aided Manuel in bringing the matter forward without notifying other board members. She expressed disgust that the matter could not have been tabled for future discussion.

"It's our job to be as open and honest with the people as possible," Rowden said, "and this was not honest. And the people out there ought to be mad. I know I am."

Robert Brooks, a member of the National Speleological Society and the Florida Cave Survey, discovered the caves in 2002. He was not particularly impressed with the board's decision either, but said it might all mean nothing if he is able to properly survey the caves in February as planned.

Once the extent of the network is known, much of the land now slated for development may prove too dangerous to build on, and its current owner, a Japanese citizen, may wash his hands of the whole deal, Brooks said.

"I mean, would you want your house on hollow ground?" he asked.

Information from Times files was used in this report. Will Van Sant can be reached at 352 754-6127 or vansant@sptimes.com

Jan 25, 2005

Cypress Creek Faces Challenge

The questions challenge two measures county commissioners passed in November: a change to the county's comprehensive plan to allow the mall at Interstate 75 and State Road 56, and a development order spelling out how the mall will be built.

Both measures need state approval.

The Department of Community Affairs filed a challenge to the development order Friday. Action on the comprehensive plan amendment is pending, according to the DCA.

The DCA told county officials late last week it would challenge the county's actions out of concern for wetlands and stormwater management, said David Goldstein, assistant county attorney.

The department has concerns about the need for the additional retail space and wants to learn more about plans for wildlife and wetlands protection, DCA spokeswoman Erin Geraghty said. The county needs to show that it is addressing those issues.

``We felt like we had adequately dealt with those issues in the development order,'' Goldstein said.

Such challenges aren't uncommon, Goldstein said. But challenging a plan that passed regional review is unusual, he said.

Previous challenges have ended with deals between the county and the DCA that let the projects move forward, Goldstein said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

Expert in small farms will field questions

Serving four counties, the new extension service agent will aid everyone from retirees with little plots to organic growers seeking markets.

An expert in small farms has joined the region's agricultural extension service.

Stacy Strickland, 27, who has a doctorate in plant medicine and a background in both plant and animal production, is one of four new regional specialty agents who will serve Citrus, Hernando, Pasco and Sumter counties.

The position is a new concept in delivery of services and information to farmers, an extension official said.

While some agents under the umbrella of the University of Florida Extension Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences have been assigned in recent years to cover more than one county, this marks the first hiring and assignment of agents who will have designated specialties for multiple counties, said Donna Peacock, director of the Hernando County Cooperative Extension Service. The new agent is based in Hernando County.

With just over a month on the job, Strickland, a native Georgian, is forging ahead.

"Some of the concerns are marketability - fruit, vegetables, whatever they are producing. When you have only 10 acres ... it's hard to advertise and promote yourself. A lot of people do not know how to advertise," he said.

"We have a few different avenues we can go on. I'm going to start compiling a list of roadside stands, and (buyers and growers) can find out who is selling persimmons," for instance.

Strickland said money is available to make the list available at sites everywhere. He said there is "a universal concern about marketing for small farmers." He also wants to help them find grocery stores that might buy their produce.

Strickland also intends to launch classes for small farmers on marketing, regulations and agricultural products in demand.

"You need to find the niche market," he said, mentioning organically grown produce as an example.

Strickland is fielding questions from "the gentlemen farmers, retirees" who yearn to work small plots of land but lack all the knowledge they need. They are asking about poisonous plants, fertilization rates for pastures and spraying of blueberries to keep them from setting fruit before the threat of frost is past.

Strickland grew up on an antebellum plantation near Mount Vernon, Ga. His grandfather raised traditional Georgian crops of the era: tobacco, cotton and corn. The property transitioned to beef cattle, then to pine trees for their pine straw, and also peaches and pecans. The new agent worked with them all.

Strickland said his knowledge of such farming endeavors and his education suit him to the small-farmer specialty. His range of agricultural experience is broad.

He earned a degree in biology with a minor in chemistry from Valdosta State University, following it up in 2003 with a doctorate in plant medicine from the University of Florida. He worked for an extension plant pathologist at UF while a student there, then spent months on a cotton farm.

"This is my first big job," he said of his extension position.

Peacock, the Hernando County extension director, welcomes Strickland's addition to the staff.

"We're hoping this is going to serve better the four counties," she said.

During the time there was no agricultural agent, Peacock said, "some calls were referred to other agents in the district, or (people were) given a publication" on the subject of their inquiry.

"We tried to serve the county residents as much as we could, even during this vacancy," said Peacock, a consumer affairs specialist.

In the new scheme of specialized agents, Ed Jennings in Pasco County handles livestock issues and Joan Bradshaw in Citrus County focuses on natural resources. A yet-to-be-named commercial horticulture agent will be based in Sumter County.

All farming inquiries may be directed to Strickland at the Hernando Cooperative Extension Service at (352) 754-4433. The office is at 19410 Oliver St., on the south side of Brooksville.

Jan 25, 2005

City Seeks Facelifts For Facades Downtown

Arthur Besinger, who owns the building that now houses Art & Pat's Antiques, wants to return his storefront to its roots. He especially would like to put up a balcony like the one in the old black-and-white postcard he and his wife found at a postcard show.

Through a historic renovation grant, Besinger might be able to do just that.

Monday night, the Zephyrhills City Council reviewed qualifications from two architectural firms - Atelier AEC Inc. of Tampa and Renker Eich Parks of St. Petersburg - that want to help restore the facades of five to-be-determined buildings on Fifth Avenue. After the presentations, the council unanimously recommended the Tampa firm.

City administrators will decide later which firm's bid is chosen.

Each qualifying city business will receive about $20,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds, with the owner kicking in at least a 10 percent match, said Todd Vande Berg, city director of development services.

The idea is to attract and retain new businesses in the city's downtown by sprucing up what's there.

``It's kind of one link in the chain of downtown redevelopment initiatives,'' Vande Berg said.

Two years ago, six city businesses underwent facade upgrades using grant money. Besinger applied then but didn't make the cut. He hopes this time around, his shop at 38435 Fifth Ave. will be chosen.

``I think it would help the town, the looks of it. And it would bring business to the town,'' he said.

In nearby Dade City, similar initiatives are under way. The city is looking at two grant applications for commercial building renovations in its downtown business district.

Renovations are ongoing at the building once known as the Old City Market at 1418 Eighth St.

The bottom floor was used for the market until it closed in 2003, said businesswoman Barbara Huckaby, whose family has owned the building for decades. Huckaby has put more than $1 million toward repairs.

Any grant money would help with exterior lighting, painting, windows and other improvements, Huckaby said.

The other Dade City structure being considered for a grant is the two-story building at 37809 Howard Ave. Owners Norman and Rochelle Morris recently bought it to lease to health-related service businesses. The building now is home to a day spa and beauty salon, a smoothie shop and a chiropractor's office.

The owners said in their grant application they would like to add a porch-deck with a railing and awnings.

The Dade City applications will be discussed tonight after the city commission meeting.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613. Reporter Jo-Ann Johnston can be reached at (352) 521-3062.

Hundreds gather to promote industry

NEW PORT RICHEY - Record residential growth might be the hallmark of Pasco's development these days, but courting and keeping new businesses is the focus of this year's 12th annual Business Development Week.

The six-day event is hosted by the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce and Pasco County government. It began Monday with a business showcase and kickoff luncheon attended by 330 people.

"It's going great," said Joe Alpine, West Pasco chamber president, noting a turnout that rose from 260 in 2004 and includes county commissioners and Pasco schools superintendent Heather Fiorentino.

The week includes workshops on marketing and good hiring and seminars on starting a business and health insurance for small companies.

Also offered are programs on payroll and state sales tax, identity theft, bank loans and buying and selling a business.

The goal, organizers say, is to emphasize the importance of courting and keeping entrepreneurs and industry in Pasco.

"It's easy to open a business, but it's harder to stay in business," said Judy Parker, events/marketing coordinator for the West Pasco chamber, which now has about 1,200 members.

To help retain companies, continuing education courses are being offered today through Friday.

Also a priority for the week is raising the business development profile in emerging markets in central and east Pasco, said Parker, who is resigning from her position with the chamber effective April 1 for family reasons.

A highlighting for the week is a day of activities Thursday in Wesley Chapel. The schedule includes a Pasco Economic Development Council luncheon at Saddlebrook Resort, where officials will discuss the plans and impact of four major projects that will reshape the county's landscape: Bexley Ranch, Connerton, North Pointe at Suncoast Crossings and Wiregrass

Jan 24, 2005

Friends rally to develop site