Communities off U.S. 19 fear wooded parcel’s development will hurt their lifestyle

SPRING HILL — Marty Martino said he knows what he’s going to do if construction starts on the parcel next to his subdivision off U.S. 19.

“If they crack ground, I’m putting a sign on my property saying, ‘Bye-bye,’” he said.

Bob Schneider, a fellow resident of the Lake in the Woods communities, disagreed with Martino’s assessment that their property will lose value if the commercial and residential development is approved and work starts on the Huntley Holdings wooded lot.

“I’m just saying nobody here knows what’s going to be built, where,” Schneider said.

But Martino retorted, “There’s no one that’s ever going to tell me that having multi-family next to existing residential is going to improve the real estate values. It’s quite the opposite.”

Schneider’s views on property value impact were in the minority at a recent meeting of the ad hoc committee that’s considering actions as the April 11 Hernando County Commission meeting approaches and residents complain that they’re being “railroaded” and “ignored.”

“We need to make a stand,” said association president Yvonne Caskey.

Quiet lifestyle

Just a short drive from the hustle and bustle of an ever-busier U.S. 19 is a quiet array of 214 large homes whose owners like the lifestyle they have in the communities of Lake in the Woods. 

But the residents who assembled an ad hoc committee recently at a maintenance building have a big weight on their shoulders. A nearly 73-acre piece of land to their south, hitherto wooded and undeveloped, is being eyed for a large retail development project and 500 apartments. It’s the latter that raises the most concerns, Caskey said. 

There would be about 1,000 more people in the area, she said; maybe 1,000 more cars; and more schoolchildren at a time when children are sitting on the floors of school buses.

“We are a neighborhood with lots of kids, and those buses right there?” Caskey said, pointing to a school bus. “I have a petition in here that the neighbors are signing. Those kids sit on the floor and they have to be three or four to a seat. Or they’re standing because they’re so crowded. And you want to put 500 units over there?”

They say it’s only going to be 84 kids, she said, from the new development, but there are 214 units in Lake in the Woods and there are 65 kids there.

Martino added that Primrose Lane has 72 homes, Wedgewood Estates has 12 homes and Country Woods has five homes.

Frustrated with government

Resident Wayne Bruscino, a member of the committee, is not happy with the Planning & Zoning Commission and especially frustrated with the Hernando County Commission. 

He says the members of both bodies are “rubber-stamping” development requests across the county with no respect or regard for the current residents, and allowing improper development with no transitional areas.

He means that Lake in the Woods, with some of its homes worth six or seven figures, will be at their closest less than 200 feet from rental apartments. True, there will be natural buffers and a wall, he said, but the county is supposed to allow for gradual transitions to prevent such disparities, and it’s not making the developer do that on that property. 

The matter is on the April 11 County Commission agenda, and members of the committee opposing the rentals fear it will go through even if they show up en masse to protest the approval.  

“You follow all these county commission meetings every week, and you see all the approvals that they’re giving without consideration to the growth factor for the infrastructure,” Bruscino said. “The problem has been they’ve been rubber-stamping issues, and I’ve been to several of them and they say they’re at capacity. Each time they bring this to the (school) board they say they’re at capacity. How many times can you be at capacity before you are past capacity?”

As for rentals, Bruscino said, “We have Bridgewaters, and we have enough problems because of that.”

(The Bridgewater Club Apartment complex is close by.)

Resident Paul McQuarry said children from Bridgewater Club have tried to enter the Lake in the Woods developments, and added that after the bars close on the weekends people park at the edge of Bridgewater Club and blast their car stereos late into the night. 

He said he hasn’t complained to the management but has called the police, but after the police leave the noise starts up again.

What’s really frustrating for the residents is that they have no idea what the new development will look like since there is no final site plan yet; all they know is that the apartments probably will be atop a parking area and will be tall enough so that Lake in the Woods residents will be able to see the buildings, and vice versa. 

As for the commercial development, the stores will not be “mom-and-pops” but outlets of large chains, residents say.

County commissioners don’t comment on issues on future agendas, but Chairman John Allocco has said numerous times that the board is not just “rubber-stamping” developments without regard for rules or current residents.

It’s a tough job, commissioners often say, balancing landowners’ rights against those of people who live on adjoining properties and don’t want construction on lots that have never been built on or used for agriculture.

“I can't comment on the project merits specifically, as they haven't been presented in a hearing yet,” Allocco wrote in an email in response to a request for comment. “However, based on the statement that we (the BOCC) just approve everything; why would this project along with several others in the last year, have requested postponement to reconsider the project merits prior to coming before us?”

Further down U.S. 19, at Spring Hill Drive, the commission called for a traffic study for a proposed commercial development that some members said was too intense for the area.

They’re letting developers know, Allocco said, what will pass and what won’t pass via the actions the commission has taken.

“I would say that these developers recognize that we (the BOCC) don't want the product that is commonly presented in counties to our south and east,” Allocco wrote. “We know development is coming; we just want a better product here in Hernando County.”  

Longtime residents vs. newcomers

The community dates back to the early 1980s. On its website, a newsletter from the winter of 2014 gives a brief history: “When incorporated in 1982, Lake in the Woods was really in the woods. By 1990 there was one traffic signal between Spring Hill Drive and Route 50. Route 19 was two lanes and totally dark at night — there were no lights or stores in that stretch. Most of the east side, and all of the west side of 19 were pine forests.” 

Residents said recently they can’t understand why when there’s so much development on the stretch of U.S. 19 already and with so many failed storefronts that there needs to be more commercial development, but invariably it comes back to the 500 apartments, the behavior and lifestyles of the potential tenants, the cars they will own, the children they will have, the disruption their cars will create on the roads and the overall impact they will have on property values.

On a drive through the communities, Caskey said the current wall is hardly a barrier to what will be next to them.

“That’s only a six-foot wall, five-foot wall,” Caskey said. “They’re going to be over here trying to use our stuff.”

“It’s not that we’re trying to be snobs or anything, but low-income or whatever they want to put in, it’s just not compatible,” Bruscino said.

While the main opposition is to the 500 apartments, the hotel also upsets residents who say there’s no need for another hotel or motel in an area with four or five such businesses that have about 45% to 55% occupancy.

McQuarry said another concern about the apartments is that the residents of the 500 new units plus the residents of the 192 units in Bridgewater Club will be able to outvote the Lake in the Woods residents on local issues.

Road frontage

Future land use in Hernando County is a difficult topic. The people who live here or have moved here from other fast-growing parts of Florida and other states say they just want peace and quiet.

Landowners, developers and builders want to do their thing.

At government meetings across the region, they square off and demand that the elected government officials decide in their favor. 

When it comes to land in areas that already have plenty of development around them, the fight can escalate at times, though mostly through legal action and the threat of legal action.

It’s just a reality, Allocco said in an email, that lots with “significant road frontage” on Commercial Way (U.S. 19) eventually will be developed.

The residents of Lake in the Woods say that might be so, but they’re going to have their say.

Martino said he isn’t taking this lying down. 

“The strategy is we have to pull out the fangs,” he said. “We can’t do this softball. It has to be hard.”