The Hernando County School Board has had a fine working relationship with Somerset Land and neither side wants to see that end.
That was the consensus after a presentation made at the Aug. 27 workshop, led by Cliff Manuel, president of Coastal Engineering Associates, Inc. who serves as the engineer for Somerset Bay Community Development District.
“I think it’s important to know that this is not the first dealings that we had with Somerset Land,” board member Gus Guadagnino said. “From Day 1, when we started with them, they were very amicable and very in tune with our needs and with our priorities.
“They were not in stone that is has to be this way. They wanted to look for the best of aesthetics and community beautification, too. I don’t think we should worry about them doing something that’s going to be detrimental to us.”
The presentation discussed the Somerset Bay project as it pertains to Explorer K-8, the school that resides within the Somerset Bay community. Somerset Land requested a 1,560 square feet piece of the Explorer land to give to the Hernando County Utility Department for a utility easement to connect to the existing force main that serves the school.
Additionally, the developer would like to make improvements to Explorer Boulevard, the school’s access road owned by the school district. Holding up that process is Duke Energy not approving of Explorer Boulevard becoming a public collector road.
“They site safety issues associated with their poles being created by being open to the public and becoming a collector road,” said Manuel, noting this was a reversal of Duke’s initial approval of the plan last decade.
Somerset Land would also like to rebuild the queuing area for Explorer to help improve access to the school.
“We would not build a square foot of this project without the district’s concurrence, the county’s concurrence, SFWMD permits and DEP permits,” Manuel said. “All of those permits have to be issued and none of them can be issued until the district agrees on the improvements that are being proposed.”
There was also some talk about the potential expansion of Explorer, as the developer has set aside land for that usage. There are no plans at the present time until the Somerset community provides enough students to require it.
“I appreciate the Board’s passion for the students we all need served and to be educated. I came through the system here myself,” Manuel said. “It’s something we’re all interested in.
“Nobody is working against the district being able to expand school capacity. Certainly, a developer sitting right on your border that’s proposing to build improvements, if these improvements were built I think the campus gets an upgrade.”
The lengthy presentation ended on a positive note with everyone wanting to see the project continue.
“We’re going to have tremendous growth here,” Guadagnino said. “We are having tremendous growth. What would have worked 5-10 years ago might not work 5-10 years down the road, that’s for sure.”
“I think as we continue to grow, we’ll continue to do business together and it’s all going to benefit the county,” board member Shannon Rodriguez said. “That’s what we’re all here for anyway. So we’ll just have to work accordingly when it comes to number of students, land, building, whatever it is.
“Definitely I think it would be a hinderance to hold this up. I think it’s going to happen regardless and we just need to adapt and all of us work together as we continue to do it together.”
