A new community consisting of multi-family townhomes and some commercial properties got the go-ahead from the Board of County Commissioners.
At an Aug. 27 meeting, Cone and Graham, Inc. received the approval by a 4-1 vote for the rezoning required to build on the 54.7-acre property located on the south side of State Road 50, west of Oxley Road and 1/3 miles west of Emerson Road. The company intends to develop up to 300 townhomes and a small commercial parcel.
“The project will provide another reasonably priced housing option for those families wanting to stay close to the County’s historic center,” Cone and Graham said in the application packet submitted to the Board.
However, some concerns were raised during the meeting. Commissioner Brian Hawkins was the lone descending vote, feeling he needed more information on whether such a project could get underway given the moratorium while the City of Brooksville improves its wastewater capacity.
Tracie Wood, a Brooksville resident who lives and owns multiple properties on Oxley Road, spoke in front of the Board and provided visual evidence of the flooding issues she deals with on a regular basis.
“You literally walk out in the backyard, it’s like quicksand from the rain,” Wood said. “You’ve got 300 homes coming in our backyards. There goes that hot mess. There’s sinkholes at the end. There’s tunnels, there’s caves, there’s tortoise. We’ve got deer. Everything’s going to be gone and we’ve got that we’ve got to deal with.
“And that’s without that (construction). When you put concrete on there, what’s that going to be like? They say ‘Oh, well we’re going to build it up.’ That’s (flooding) what we got.
“What’s going to happen to our homes? Our insurance is going to go up because we’re definitely going to get flooded then. And my concern is the flooding, the deer, the wildlife, my great-grandchildren. What happens when you’ve got 300 people coming into these homes? The traffic, it’s the Daytona 500.”
Cliff Manuel, president of Coastal Engineering Associates, Inc. who was representing Cone and Graham at the meeting, noted the plan is not to build on the entire property.
“We have wetlands and areas where the little boats and rafts and rubber duckies also can float,” Manuel said. “We’ve left all those areas out of the development envelop and we’re going to leave them in their natural conditions so those things can continue to happen and we don’t have to deal with the significant floodplain or wetland impacts that would be created by doing that.
“We’re developing on the high property and leaving the low properties that are wet alone. And we’re doing that for several reasons. One, Mother Nature wants water to be there and I don’t want to spend the money to move it. But it’s also more consistent with being able to have the open space piece that you all talked about earlier today. We also preserve trees in those areas, open space in those areas, we put passive recreation in those areas.”
The company is still working on options for the number of access points. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year.
