Seminole County looks at protecting rural enclaves within urban areas

November 11

Tucked within congested areas of central Seminole County — near the strip malls, parking lots, high-rise apartments and bumper-to-bumper traffic — sit quiet rural enclaves of large oaks, dirt roads and homes on expansive lots.

But now residents of these rural havens worry that as development pressures grow, they could lose their neighborhoods’ rustic charms to dense clusters of houses, residential multiplexes and traffic.

Seminole officials have started taking note of their concerns.

The county recently kicked off a yearlong study of how to protect these rural pockets from new developments with densities of more than the current one house per acre or per 3 acres. The study could lead to county commissioners enacting tougher land-development regulations within rural enclaves by next fall.

Rebecca Hammock, Seminole’s development services director, said many residents of these rural areas have increasingly voiced concerns as developers ask to build more homes on less acreage.

Residents fear, for example, a 3-acre parcel could be subdivided to allow four homes per acre — for a total of 12 — if a developer were to ask the commission for a zoning change — as they currently can. Residents would like the county to make it more difficult to allow such zoning changes — perhaps by requiring four votes from the five-member county commission instead of the current three.

“A lot of them have lived there for many years and want to maintain their lifestyles and [neighborhood’s] rural character,” Hammock said. “They’re fine with their wells and septic. … And they like that you can have a horse [near a home]. But you’re still 15 minutes away from a Publix.”

The rural enclaves county staff and consultants are studying include:

• The area between Orange Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, just south of the Black Bear Wilderness Area, where homes sit on an average of 2 acres.

• Lazy Acres, east of Lake Emma Road and north of Longwood Hills Road, near Longwood. The average residential property is nearly 3 acres.

• Oak Hollow, east of Dean Road and State Road 426, just north of the Orange County line, where the average parcel is nearly 4 acres.

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“We’re not opposed to growth,” said Scott Richards, a self-described “country boy” who bought his home on 2½ acres off Michigan Avenue about two decades ago because of the area’s rural character. Many of his neighbor’s homes are on 5-acre lots.

“What we’re asking for is that if there is growth, that it looks like it’s part of our community with large open lots,” Richards said. “What people come out here for is the natural space and the forests and the wildlife. … And we don’t want to lose that.”

In recent years, several gated subdivisions with hundreds of homes homes on small lots were built near Richards’ community. Those developments include Astor Farms, The Retreat at Wekiva and Somerset.

Despite its rural charms, property owners along Michigan Avenue often deal with flooded roads after heavy rain events because it’s near the St. Johns River. Residents fear denser developments would exacerbate flooding.

As Seminole’s population is expected to grow from its current 485,000 residents to nearly 600,000 over the next 20 years, county officials say land for new homes and apartments will become increasingly scarce. Most new growth will occur within Seminole’s center straddling Interstate 4 and U.S. Highway 17-92.

Another rural enclave near Longwood’s dense urban area is Lazy Acres, where homes are surrounded by towering trees along with dirt and gravel roads.

“I moved here eight years ago so that we could enjoy a quieter neighborhood,” resident Tom Daly said. “We enjoy the large acreage. And we’re within minutes of all the urban services and grocery stores. It’s really a unique place.”

Commissioner Amy Lockhart said Lazy Acres residents have “chosen to live in the middle of so much development” and the county should protect their area.

“I begged my husband to move there many, many years ago. And he said: ‘I don’t do dirt roads,’” Lockhart said about Lazy Acres.

In September and October, Seminole had community meetings at each of the three rural enclaves to get residents’ feedback.

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Many said they’d like to see new subdivisions have decorative signs with a rural character and fencing instead of concrete walls. They also propose stronger stormwater and wetlands protections, and lot sizes of at least one acre, for new subdivisions.

Eliza Harris Juliano of Kimley Horn, an Orlando consulting firm hired by Seminole for the project, said more than 80% of the people at the meetings support the county establishing rural enclaves with specific development regulations.

But at a recent county meeting, commissioners wanted to make sure new development restrictions would not impede on rights of a property owner asking for a land-use change for denser development. They directed the county attorney’s office to look into how much legal leeway Seminole would have.

“I suspect the county’s attorneys will have a lot of work to do,” Commission Chair Jay Zembower said.

Additional community meetings are planned for April and May. Commissioners will then discuss the proposals at a workshop next summer. Any new regulations would likely be enacted next fall.

“This has been called for by the citizens of all three of these areas for a long time,” Commissioner Lee Constantine said. “And I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

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