City P&Z Denies Rezoning for Cascades Expansion Project

A heated meeting of Brooksville’s Planning and Zoning Commission took place on Nov. 13, pitting residents of the Southern Hills area against representatives from Coastal Engineering Associates, Inc.
The end result was a denial of the rezoning request for the Cascades at Southern Hills expansion on the basis of incompatibility with the surrounding area, with the matter set to go in front of the City Council on Jan. 6. The City Council will make the final decision.

“I think we have a massive compatibility issue,” said Lee Johnson, who was the most vocal commissioner against the rezoning. “As a matter of fact the only thing that looks compatible is the existing development. Everything around it is incompatible.

“My personal observation over the last 30 years is that despite what the plans say, my observation has been that there has been a very large change in the flooding. I don’t know where the disconnect is, but that is what I have visually seen myself. I’m not buying it. I really think we have a compatibility issue and I cannot in any good conscience go ahead with it.”

In a quasi-judicial proceeding that took over two hours to complete, one resident after another stepped up to the podium to voice disapproval. Coastal Engineering, representing Cascades developer Inland Homes, was requesting a rezoning of 462 acres on the south side of Southern Hills Boulevard, north of Powell Road and east of Broad Street.

The request asked for a rezoning to allow for the development of up to 1,477 dwelling units and 50,000 square feet of commercial floor space at the project’s entrance on Broad Street. The development would feature conventional single-family detached units, villas, bungalows and townhomes.

However, Coastal expressed a willingness to drop the commercial rezoning as it has no current plans for commercial development.

Concerns over wildlife removal and traffic issues were raised. Even the loss of farmland came up, with some noting that they had moved from other areas to get away from overdevelopment.

But the hot-button topic was clearly flooding, an issue that has particularly struck a nerve thanks to the three hurricanes that hit the area this summer.

Cliff Manuel, CEO/president/principal engineer for Coastal, began the proceeding with a presentation addressing changes made to the expansion plan in response to concerns raised during a previous P&Z meeting on Sept. 11.

Manuel touted a 50-foot buffer along Powell Road and noted that there would only be four lots along Powell. Also, the road accessing Powell would be for emergency use only, with public access off Broad Street near the entrance of Hernando Oaks Golf Course. Coastal would additionally be willing to submit to an environmental study.

As for the flooding and drainage, Manuel cited a 2009 map of the Powell watershed from the Southwest Florida Water Management District. That was the year development began on the first two phases of the Cascades.

“The area that it shows flooding flood today, they flooded then. They flood historically. They probably flooded 100 years before development ever occurred,” Manuel said. “The reason they flood is they’re in lower areas in this particular watershed basin. This basin is 7.4 square miles, 4,736 acres are in the Powell watershed basin. And the flood areas that are there can’t be adversely impacted by development by state law.”

Those in attendance were quite simply unconvinced that the 15-year-old study provided an accurate reflection of current flooding conditions.

Many recounted the flooding issues they’ve experienced on their property, which they said had only worsened in recent years, and some even backed up their claims with photos and videos. Manuel insisted the idea that flooding was connected to construction was more perception than reality.

“Everybody wants to associate development with flooding criteria. So if you build on a hill, everybody downstream immediately says it’s development,” Manuel said. “But I assure you, you cannot discharge additional water, rate or volume, downstream from a developed area. I also assure you that what’s mapped here by the district was flooding and has been historically flooding for a long time. That’s their data, not mine.

“… Denial of this zoning application pushes it back in time to what’s there today that the City has already approved. And I think some of the benefits about the way we’ve worked on Powell Road, with only four lots being on Powell Road, four total lots. A 50-foot buffer, lots of open space, maintaining the open space requirements and providing a window of connection to (Broad Street) that will function for this project outweigh some of the concerns you’re hearing today that weren’t created by the development anyway. And you can say they were, but they were not.”

The Commission, though, decided there were too many problems to ignore in making the final vote.
“I don’t think that we’ve taken any extraordinary measures to reassure these people that there is a water mitigation plan that will work and not put them all under water,” Johnson told Manuel. “Unless there’s something that you haven’t told us about what your plans are for properly retaining water, I just can’t see how this isn’t going to negatively impact them.”