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South Shore Folks Fight Access Road In Scrub Habitat

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 18, 2008

TAMPA - Taxpayers didn't purchase conservation lands all over Hillsborough County only to have developers cut through them to access subdivisions, South Shore residents said Monday.

They showed up by the dozens at a zoning hearing to oppose plans to put 1,087 homes in a rural area and use an access road through endangered scrub habitat to move vehicles in and out of the neighborhood.

The zoning hearing master has two weeks to submit a recommendation to the county commission on the rezoning of 537 acres in Balm and Wimauma from agricultural-residential to planned development.

Even before that recommendation, county planners had put a condition on the rezoning request, limiting the development to 350 homes unless owner Turfgrass America can purchase right of way for a second entrance to the property.

The sod farm owns a 50-foot right of way through Balm Scrub, retained when the previous owner sold the preserve to the county's Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program in 1999. That road, which leads to Balm Road, would be the development's main entrance.

Another proposed road would run across the sensitive Bullfrog Creek, which environmental activists also oppose.

The county commission is expected to take up the rezoning request at 9 a.m. Jan. 13.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or yhammett@tampatrib.com.

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