The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Redevelopment project teed up for a vote

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Residents of Quail Hollow subdivision packed the boardroom at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse seeking to persuade county commissioners not to allow a developer to swap a golf course for houses.

“It betrays the existing residents who have expectations of a golf course remaining. It (houses) would change the character and sense of place of our neighborhood,” said Edward Glime, who lives in Quail Hollow. He and others spoke during public comment at a hearing on April 12 in Dade City.

Land use attorney Barbara Wilhite spoke in support of a proposed project to redevelop the Quail Hollow golf course. She said the private golf course dates back to the 1960s — before nearby residential development.
(Fred Bellet)

The Quail Hollow Neighborhood Citizens Group Inc., presented county commissioners with a petition signed by about 380 people who oppose the closure and residential development of the golf course.

But, the contentious public hearing didn’t end in a final vote as normally happens — that is scheduled for May 9 at 1:30 p.m., in Dade City.

The voting delay will give Pasco County’s planners and legal staff time to review a prior decision to recommend approval of the project to the county commission. Staff members will make a presentation to the commission prior to the vote.

No additional public testimony will be taken.

Kris Hughes, the county’s director of planning and development, described the delay as “prudent,” though he said nothing he heard during the hearing was likely to change the staff’s recommendation.

David Goldstein, the county’s deputy attorney, said the additional review is needed to “cross every T, and dot every i, to make sure it’s bulletproof.”

Property owner Andre Carollo, of Pasco Office Park LLC, wants to build a maximum of 400 single-family houses, 30,000 square feet of office/retail and 10,000 square feet of day care.

In support of the project, land use attorney Barbara Wilhite recounted the history of the golf course, which dates to the late 1960s.

“It’s always been a privately owned golf course open to the public,” she said. “The golf course came first.”

It was nearly a decade later that houses were built around the golf course, which was closed for several years before reopening in 2011. Despite expensive improvements, Wilhite said the golf course is not profitable.

She also noted that the proposed development is less dense than the 800 dwelling units the county’s current comprehensive land use plan would allow.

“It’s always been zoned for residential units,” Wilhite said.

The attorney also pointed out that her client is taking the unusual legal step of making the proposed site plan “binding.”

“I’ve never seen anyone do what we’re doing here,” Wilhite said.

But, residents told county commissioners they worry about flooding, water contamination of Cypress Creek, lower property values and increased traffic on narrow roads with limited access to the site.

Wilhite and a team of consultants rebutted those arguments with information on a planned stormwater drainage system and data on property sales in the area.

Homeowners were skeptical.

The golf course property is “better suited for open space than high-density housing,” said homeowner Jeanne Luczynski. “Who benefits? That’s the big picture question. Why is the applicant more important than everyone here? Where is our protection?” she said.

Published April 26, 2017

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Barbara Wilhite – “It’s always been a privately owned golf course open to the public,” she said. “The golf course came first.” Well, our rural community came first…In fact, decades before Good Old Boy Pasco County approved a limestone (blasting) mine next to my subdivision and in a working class, family-oriented community. That opened the door for Dr. James P. Gills, Jr.’s Seven Diamonds wanting a limestone (blasting) mine in our community and that property being in the Weeki Wachee Springshed. Barbara Wilhite is Seven Diamonds attorney. The property would make an ideal connection to the wildlife critical linkage, provide additional protection to Cross Bar Wellfield, which is in close proxmity to the Seven Diamonds property, and complement the county’s major investment in the Jumping Gully Preserve. However, it will be interesting if there is compassion and consideration for the long established rural community or another feather in the cap of those that focus on enriching themselves.

  2. I have been a resident of the quail hollow golf course neighborhood for nearly 15 years. I have been in the land use business for close to 40 years. I have owned a land surveying/engineering business for over 20 years. According to FEMA and SWFTMD 38% of the 174 acre Quail Hollow golf course lies within a 100 year flood plain and 27% within a jurisdictional wetland. The remaining 60% of the property also has drainage issues. There are approximately over 150 homes bordering the property, with approximately 75 of them with on-site septics and wells. These homes already have drainage problems. In my opinion there is no permanent drainage design or solution for the effects that a 400 house development would bring. In my opinion the pollutants from a development of this density would have a significant impact on the Upper East Cypress Creek water shed area. Old Pasco road is currently an outdated undersized over used road that could not handle the traffic that would be generated from an additional 400 houses. This additional traffic would create safety concerns as well as a major inconvenience for the existing rural neighborhoods. In my opinion the golf course is better suited for open space or the current recreational use than the high density housing that has been proposed.

  3. An open letter to the Pasco Board of County Commissioners:

    Honorable Commissioners,

    In considering whether to rezone the Quail Hollow Golf Course area from R-1 to R-6 as requested by the seller and developer, I am asking you to please vote NO. There are a myriad of reasons why it should not be rezoned, but the most important is that it is currently zoned R-1 for the common good.
    The point to zoning, as you know, is to protect the common good and keep a balance in the community. Rezoning to allow a medium density populated area within an area of low density population is not maintaining the neighborhood character – something zoning was meant to do. Rezoning to R-6 in this area wipes out the benefits of zoning in the first place. Zoning should give the community some control over land uses and quality of life, a security that existing owners were counting on when they purchased their property. If the request of a wealthy developer is all that is necessary for a community’s neighborhood to be drastically changed, what is the purpose of zoning at all? If constituents can’t count on the Board of Commissioners to uphold the common good, why trust government at all?

    Neighborhood residents are fully aware that the golf course owner has the right to sell his land to a developer – or to anyone. We, nor the government, should have the right to tell a private land owner what to do with his property. But we do have the right to tell him what NOT to do with his property. In fact, government has already done so, and that applies to all of us in the area. Why should one property owner be granted an exception in this way?
    Please do not allow one land owner and one developer to persuade you to do something that amounts to spot zoning. Changing the zoning to R-6 would, by the developers own admission, allow a change to the area that differs from land use in the immediate and surrounding area. This smacks of unreasonable treatment for his limited area, and looks suspiciously like the developer would be extended special privileges that than of an ordinary landowner. This use of the land has obviously not been part of the comprehensive plan for this area of Pasco County, or requesting rezoning would not be necessary.

    No matter your view on this issue, I urge you not to make a decision until you have personally driven to the golf course area and on to Quail Hollow Boulevard on a week night between 5:30 – 6:30 from State Road 54. The developer proposes to add turn lanes to Old Pasco Road, but has no intent or authority to expand the surrounding roads that will also be negatively impacted by an influx of at least 1,000 more automobiles from his planned development. Perhaps you should also drive the area in the morning, keeping in mind that we have not even begun to see the additional traffic that will be traversing the roads due to the new high school on Old Pasco and the 300 apartments that are to be added to the area. You will quickly see why the developer’s proposed alteration of the road will not address impending problems.

    Just one more point. Despite the developer’s engineer claiming that he can most likely prevent flooding caused by this proposed project, any reasonable person who has seen what happens nearly every summer on and around the golf course would have cause for concern. My neighbor was forced to condemn his home and tear it down this past winter due to water run-off flowing into his home and garage several times in previous years. It’s difficult to believe more ditches can collect and carry away the exponentially increased amount of water an area of R-6 zoning would bring. Clustering of homes will not address this issue, and some of the ditches the developer proposes to change will not be his to use. One of them is partially mine.

    For the reasons listed above, I urge you with all the love I have for this part of Pasco County to vote NO to the proposed rezoning.

    Sincerely,
    Karen Morter

    • Wow Karen morter you make a great point I could not have worded that more eloquently. It boils down to the fact that zoning like everything else in government works against the people when a working average everyday person needs to make an adjustment to their property code enforcement and Zoning will be all over that however if your pockets are deep enough to Grease the mostly cowardly and innately corrupt politicians and government officials. When they do rezone the area they will just be proving to the public who is largely waking up to their corruption. They put fluoride in our water and these cowards say nothing. At least some states have officials who will reject this all out assault on the everyday average American.

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