Commission rejects rezoning

By John Labriola - After hours of impassioned testimony from residents, the Citrus County Commission on Thursday voted 5-0 to deny a developer's request for a zoning change that would have brought 250 rental units into the heart of a single-family neighborhood in Homosassa. 

Sweetwater Homes of Citrus wanted the county to rezone 49 acres in Sugarmill Woods' Oak Village community to more than double the amount of housing they could build on the land.

Oak Village residents packed the chamber to oppose the project, saying the zoning change would transform their neighborhood into the kind of high-density, traffic-congested area they deliberately sought to avoid when they bought there. 

"I moved here two and a half years ago from Pittsburgh. I just wanted to have peace and a nice place to raise my daughter," said Theresa Healy. "There's no place else that I've ever seen like Sugarmill Woods. A lot of people moved here for peace and the beauty, and we love it here, so please consider the residents. That's what counts because we have to live there."

Donna Rummel of Inverness spoke for residents outside the area who worried about the bad precedent the rezoning could set for the rest of the county.

"I want to know who's going to benefit from all this home expansion and urban sprawl. We're going to need more police, more medical facilities, more and better roads. There will be more eutrophication in our lakes, more garbage, more accidents," Rummel said. "I want to protect Inverness and Citrus County from a very bad precedent. When Nature's Coast is gone, it's gone, and we'll never get her back."

Roseann Ambrico said the rental project would destroy the natural wooded beauty and greenbelt that convinced her to move to Oak Village six years ago. 

"There is absolutely no condos, no townhomes or any other multifamily homes in Oak Village, so how can these 90 buildings of 250 rental units be compatible?" she said.

In the end, commissioners agreed.

"Government has no place interrupting the lives of these planned neighborhoods," said Commissioner Diana Finegan, who set the tone for the discussion on the dais as the district commissioner for Homosassa. "Even if we need rentals, we cannot start doing land changes slap in the middle of these defined neighborhoods. I just think it sets a bad precedent in government."

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