Road Improvement Requirements for Circa FishHawk Reduced

In a 5-1 vote Tuesday, Hillsborough County commissioners agreed to release Newland Communities from its obligation to spend $30 million on surrounding road improvements including the widening of Bell Shoals Road to four lanes from Boyette Road to Lithia-Pinecrest Road.

Commissioner Victor Crist’s was the dissenting vote.

Newland Communities is in the process of developing Circa FishHawk on 1,127 acres off Boyette Road, west of its current FishHawk Ranch development.

In the developer’s original Development of Regional Impact, called the Lake Hutto DRI, Newland proposed building 3,192 homes as well as commercial and office property on the site. However, as a result of the housing slump, Newland now wants to reduce the number of homes to 2,599 homes and increase its retail and office space by 160,000 square feet.

With the reduction in the number of homes, Newland asked commissioners Tuesday to relieve the developer of its obligation to spend a total of $72 million on road improvements. Instead, Newland wants to spend $42 million to widen roads and improve intersections.

Newland attorney Andrea Zelman told commissioners that the reduction in homes will result in less traffic on surrounding roads, eliminating the need for the improvements originally planned.

Newland had the support of county staff. Mike Williams, the county manager of development review, said fewer homes will mean fewer people commuting to Tampa and impacting surrounding roads. Staff also noted that last year the Florida Legislature reduced concurrency requirements for developments. By spending only $42 million on road and intersection improvements, Newland will meet the current concurrency law that requires developers to pay for any impacts the development will have on the area.

With the reduction in transportation dollars, Newland is proposing to drop plans to widen a portion of Lithia-Pinecrest Road between FishHawk Boulevard and Adelaide Avenue and only widen 1.3 miles of Bell Shoals Road.

The commission’s decision didn’t sit well with residents who say the area's roads are already congested due to development by Newland.

“They approved this based on a failed premise that this development would be self-sustaining, that all the traffic would be internal, that people will work, eat and shop in the development,” said civic activist George Niemann. “But what if a store like Ikea or a Bass Pro Shop goes in there? That would generate traffic from outside.”

Niemann also read a letter from Dave Kulow of the Boyette Springs homeowners association, who noted that traffic already backs up on Boyette Road from the existing FishHawk Ranch developments. He said the Circa FishHawk development would exacerbate the problem. He added that traffic counts by Newland were faulty because they weren’t taken at peak traffic hours.

It was the comments of the residents that swayed Crist to cast the lone vote against the proposal.

"I came into the room with an objective, open mind and listened to all the concerns and thought there was legitimacy to the concerns the public was bringing forward as far as realistic expectations of traffic on the roadways," said Crist. "Newland said reducing homes would reduce the traffic flow on the infrastructure and that commercial is not as big a draw. I disagree. In Tampa Palms where I live, they built a shopping center on the northeast side and, in order for it to be successful, have to market to surrounding communities. So the actual traffic on access roads has more than quadrupled. I visualized the reality of what I’m having to deal with and thought more time and consideration needs to be given to the proposal."

Bell Shoals Road was one of his concerns, he said.

"I thought Bell Shoals should be widened," he said. "But staff came in and said it was a good thing and would create jobs and wouldn’t create a bottleneck on Bell Shoals because it's already a bottleneck."

Crist said when it came time to vote, he thought Commissioners Kevin Beckner and Les Miller would vote against the proposal as well given the questions they were asking.

"I was a little bit shocked. I thought it's be a 3-3 vote and I’d be on the winning side," he said.

Nevertheless, he praised the residents for coming in to voice their concerns.

"It's a prime example that coming to the meeting and voicing your thoughts makes a difference. At least it swayed my mind," he said.

But Niemann said he was disappointed that more FishHawk residents weren't on hand to voice their views.

“Here’s the sad thing,” said Niemann. “The residents of FishHawk don’t have a clue about what is being approved, and they’re the ones that will suffer because of it.”