Carnival Equipment OK to Keep at Tropical Acres Homes

A few dozen Riverview residents who have been asking the county for a zoning change to allow them to store carnival equipment on their property have gotten their wish.

The County Commission recently gave a thumbs up to a compromise that allows some in Tropical Acres to store equipment just like their neighbors in nearby Gibsonton.

Gibsonton residents have long grown used to seeing trapeze apparatus erected in front yards or elephants grazing in nearby fields.

For more than 70 years, the Hillsborough County community has been the national winter home of circus performers and carnival workers.

To accommodate the unusual uses in Gibsonton, the county enacted a special Residential Show Business zoning law allowing residents to keep circus animals and carnival rides and exhibits on their properties.

A move to allow similar zoning for in the Tropical Acres subdivision off Balm-Riverview Road in Riverview where 1,550 people live including 39 show business families has been approved, with a compromise. 

Although previous meetings had drawn dozens of residents opposed to the zoning, the second public hearing on the issue drew only a few people, according to TBO.com. 

The county approved a compromise. According to the article on TBO.com, county staff came up with "a change in the land-use code that would grandfather in those who already were illegally storing equipment in Tropical Acres."

Tropical Acres' residents who have been storing equipment since 2011 can continue to do so. No new property owners can store such equipment.

To read more about the compromise and the new zoning, read the article on TBO.com 

See Previous Coverage:

• Show Business Zoning Proposed for Tropical Acres
• Boyette Springs Residents Object to Nearby Land Use Amendment