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More Development Sought Along Little Manatee River

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: January 21, 2009

RUSKIN - When developers approached Hillsborough County in 2006 about creating a gated community on a spit of land jutting into the Little Manatee River, environmentalists and community activists responded with e-mail blitzes, T-shirt campaigns and emotional speeches.

The plan, opponents said, would destroy a pristine segment of the river, doom gopher tortoises on the property and create other urban issues in a rural area.

Still, the county commission eventually approved the rezoning after reducing the number of houses allowed from 25 to 22 and requiring a buffer along the riverbank. There was also a plan to remove the tortoises and find them another home.

But nothing was ever built.

Now, the developers are coming back, this time asking the county to rezone an adjacent 46 acres that would be added to the parcel modified in 2006.

And environmentalists are again preparing to pounce.

Little Manatee Reserve LLC is asking that the property, mostly wetlands, be rezoned from Agricultural Rural to Planned Development and be approved for 10 houses on urban-sized lots in the planned gated community.

The request is scheduled to go before a zoning hearing master Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. at the County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd. in Tampa.

Ruskin resident and environmental activist Mariella Smith has already prepared a long list of talking points she plans to use to battle the developer, who wants to include county water and sewer lines in the planned community, even though much of it falls within the rural service area - where the county doesn't typically allow such public utilities.

Little Manatee Reserve is attempting to manipulate the rules, Smith said. "It's a travesty."

For starters, she said, the developer should have to include the land rezoned in 2006 in its proposal, since both parcels will be built as one community. Not doing so, she said, keeps the public from arguing against a larger plan that harms a fragile area. Wildlife and the quality of the Little Manatee are at risk, she said.

Principal Planner Ty Maxey, who represents the developers, said the property rezoned in 2006 originally was to be included in the newest rezoning, but the developer changed the plan Jan. 8.

To support their newest proposal, the developers plan to cite a new Planning Commission policy that they believe allows them to connect the additional acreage to county water and sewer lines, even though the property that would be rezoned is outside the urban service area, Maxey said.

The policy, approved in August, allows landowners with property that straddles the edge of the urban service area to install water and sewer lines, said Executive Planner Stephen Griffin. To develop on small lots in a planned development, the developers must get approval for those utilities, since using septic tanks requires lots a half-acre or larger.

Griffin said Little Manatee Reserve's rezoning request will be the first to test the new policy.

The Planning Commission, which makes recommendations to the county commission on rezoning requests, has not yet filed a decision on the project.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566.

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