No fair! It's still a golf course

The developer who wants to build houses on the Pine Ridge Golf Course is not taking his defeat lying down.

You may recall that last month, after an hours-long hearing before a crowd of Pine Ridgers, the County Commission voted 5-0 against Southern Oaks Property Group’s changing of the Pine Ridge master plan to allow 85 homes on the closed golf course.
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Now Southern Oaks has filed a “request for relief” with the county, claiming the board's vote was unfair.

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I had a Cattle Dog chat a few weeks earlier with James Dicks, manager of Southern Oaks, and am not surprised at all by this relief action. If Dicks tucked tail every time a board caved to the pleas of locals, he’d get nothing built.

Dicks claims the board placed an “unfair burden” on him by denying the Pine Ridge master-plan change. He bought a golf course, and he’s stuck with a golf course. Somehow that’s the county’s fault. Well, I’m not a lawyer, but that sounds like horse hockey.

This is going to be the common cry from developers who don’t get their way with Citrus County commissioners.

We’ve covered how zoning cases have become mini courtrooms with testimony, evidence, and such, meaning the decisions must be based on “competent, substantial evidence.”

In you-and-me terms, that means by the book. Commissioners aren’t to vote on cases with anything other than what’s presented during the public hearing, just as a judge isn’t to decide someone’s fate in court based on his opinion of their appearance.

Developers think any “no” vote is unfair if they meet the minimum criteria for approval. In general, that makes sense. If they check the boxes, they should get the zoning.

Except, this isn’t a robot operation here. These five decision-makers are elected by voters to represent them. If voting against homes on a golf course satisfies constituents, how in the world is that wrong?

Let me dial it back a little further.

When someone applies for a zoning change the first line of defense is the staff review. Land Development Director Joanna Coutu and her staff do a marvelous job summarizing these applications in great detail. If the application doesn’t check all the boxes, the staff will say so.

Then it’s the Planning and Development Commission (PDC), a seven-member volunteer board that conducts hearings on these cases. This is the first public airing, and the exciting ones draw large crowds. The meetings go on for hours, and PDC votes are recommendations to the County Commission.

Stop there a minute. There are some who believe that if the staff says it’s OK, the PDC and County Commission should automatically say OK as well. In other words, remove all human elements from the equation. That’s why there’s a push every so often to do away with the PDC and replace it with a hearing officer, similar to what the county has done with code compliance.

Big difference. Code cases are enforcement actions. Someone violated a rule and they’re being held accountable for those actions. Don’t need a seven-member board to review that stuff.

Zoning cases, however, are like the opening tip of a basketball game. The ball isn’t controlled by anyone yet. Because of these quasi-judicial rules, neither the developer nor the public has any leg up on the other. We’re all on equal footing.

Once upon a time, the County Commission and PDC were of a similar mindset. Some developments were approved, and some were not. But I haven’t sensed the disconnect that we’re seeing today.

How so? The PDC voted 6-1 no on the Ozello glampground. The County Commission voted 5-0 yes. The PDC voted 6-1 yes on the Pine Ridge Golf Course houses. The County Commission voted 5-0 no. The PDC unanimously said no to Meadowcrest apartments; the County Commission voted 3-2 yes.

Does this mean a major philosophical split between the County Commission and PDC? I don’t think so. Rather, the split is in their specific duties. The PDC reviews the applications and then makes a decision based on that review.

County commissioners are, well, how best to say this, um…politicians. Sorry, but it’s true. Far, far different view from a County Commissioner’s standpoint when hearing from voters and taxpayers. As we saw with Ozello that doesn’t mean folks will always get what they want. But the dynamic is totally different at the County Commission level.

I don’t know whether James Dicks gets the relief he wants or not. Something tells me he won’t be the last to ask.

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