Lauren Ritchie, Orlando Sentinel
COMMENTARY
March 12, 2010
Late last month, Lake County commissioners sent Clermont's elected officials home angry after an attempted land grab of epic proportions.
The city had tried a maneuver that would have resulted in the annexation of 5,700 acres stretching from the southern limits of its joint-planning area with the county nearly to the development surrounding U.S. Highway 192 and Four Corners.
That would have been funny — if only Clermont City Council members hadn't been so serious.
Council members have said they want the area for economic development, but they conceded that any job base would need 640 homes for every 1,800 acres. Just what Clermont needs with hundreds of houses already on a sputtering market: more houses.
Ugh.
No one had brought any kind of plan to the city for building businesses, and the city was wholly unprepared to serve the area with police or fire. County commissioners did the right thing when they sent Clermont on its way.
However, they left open a little window: It's a meeting set for 6 p.m. March 29 at Cooper Memorial Library. Elected officials from the city and the county are expected to hash out the future of the U.S. Highway 27 corridor in south Lake County.
Developers in a rush
Since commissioners turned down the request Feb. 23, there have been private attempts to persuade commissioners to do a turnaround and support the plan. That didn't work.
Apparently, council members finally are beginning to get the message that the county isn't likely to approve bureaucratic-rule changes that would result in opening thousands of acres to even more sprawl over the rolling hills — and especially not on a deadline set by developers, no less. Amen.
So now, Clermont managers and council members have been tossing around ideas behind the scenes in an attempt to find a middle ground that would suit both them and county commissioners.
Nothing has been discussed publicly yet, and some of the council members haven't even heard about some of the ideas.
But there's still a push to get it all done before November, when Florida voters will decide whether they want to take the power to control development from elected officials and hold it in their own hands. Each big land-use change would have to pass a public ballot if Amendment 4 is approved by voters in November. Developers fear this possibility and are in a rush to get land-use approvals.
Alternative ideas
Here are some ideas Clermont officials are batting around:
•One notion is to completely remove any housing from the plan. If Clermont were to annex properties south of the city, all of the land would have to be used for economic development — retail, commercial, an industrial park or an office park, Assistant City Manager Darren Gray said.
That idea is an attempt to soothe the feelings of people who do not want any more houses in a community where so many are languishing on the market.
•A second plan, which seems a more likely proposal, is that the city would stake a claim to 3,700 acres rather than 5,700 acres. The line for property that eventually would be annexed would take in the proposed controversial Karlton development and stop at its southern border.
The land, Gray said, would come into the city designated as rural, and the developers who had been in such a hurry to have that moniker lifted would have to ask the people of Clermont, rather than the whole county, to approve it in a vote.
Gray said the whole fuss began when Clermont moved to take in 2,252 acres in south Lake belonging to Orange County and Orlando together. That land is used to produce water for reuse, and Clermont has been wanting some of that water for eight years now.
That triggered a domino effect on properties to the south whose owners saw a chance for annexation and a more favorable land designation.
‘Real' planning
Now, however, the two big governments who own the Water Conserv II project backed away — warned by Lake Commissioner Elaine Renick that this was becoming a bitter issue. They're in no rush to get anywhere near the stink.
Renick said she'd be willing to talk about Clermont's two new ideas — but she still has reservations.
"If they're still trying to take in the whole Karlton property, they're taking in a huge environmentally sensitive area out there," she said. "There's a reason it is set aside for rural protection."
She said that her preference is for all the parties involved to hammer out what in bureaucrat-speak is called an Interlocal Service Boundary Agreement, in which all the governments and landowners decide together how to develop the area.
"It's real planning with all people affected," Renick said.
But here is the best part: During that meeting March 29, the two governments together will take comments from people with an interest in that area. Live in Clermont and have an opinion about what the area should look like when it grows up? Then this is your meeting.
Officials from both governments should be listening closely — and do what people want done, not obey the commands of developers whispering in their ear outside public meetings.
Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com You may leave her a message at 352-742-5918 Her blog is at OrlandoSentinel.com/ laurenonlake.
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