Lake Pickett Cluster Plan Community Meeting Notice
On 1/13/2015, I attended and spoke at the BCC meeting regarding the Lake Pickett Cluster Plan which allowed a nominally higher density on the property going from .85 units per acre to 1 unit per acre effectively adding 50 units to the property.
I was not in opposition to the re-zoning but I was also not in favor of it in other words I held a neutral position. The reason is because I didn’t feel I had a right to directly oppose the re-zoning as I live a good distance from the land being re-zoned and I knew the Lake Pickett Rural Settlement where the property resides was in favor of the density change. However, I spoke at the BCC meeting because of our traffic situation and wanted to impress again that any additional re-zoning will have an impact on the traffic in the area.
So why is a very minor change that would add about 50 units allowing instead of 325 homes to 383 homes so important. Again it is about the traffic. Two other residents who are also members from SOC were there in opposition to the re-zoning. One lived adjacent to the property. SOC and I agree that re-zoning land in this area will adversely affect traffic. Allowances such as this have caused our traffic problems with the most major allowance being “Entitlements” granted in 1991 that spawned Cypress Lakes HOA and Corner Lakes HOA at 419 and 50 and more. These developments were allowed to be built with no infrastructure improvements to 50. I have heard the number of 1,200 more units that are entitled but that number is yet to be verified. SOC is working on getting the actual number of entitlements left to be built.
Before throwing blame at the county for all this, understand that the community has vehemently opposed any changes to the rural area which in the county’s eyes means no infrastructure changes. There are other factors that have contributed to additional traffic on the roads such as more people coming in from the coast, more people in Wedgefield and the opening of Avalon Parkway to 50. I am sure you can think of many more but the bottom line is more cars on the road with no changes. But because anything east of the Econ is in the RSA (Rural Service Area), no funding is allocated to fix the roads. We need to change this mindset and get the county focused on road improvements to keep up with the demand.
This particular re-zoning was on the Consent Agenda. That means it was really already approved and needed to be rubber stamped. The three of us speaking at this hearing should not have even been allowed as you will hear the mayor say. So in my mind there was no point in opposing it. My focus was on the traffic.
Below is the entire hearing which lasted about 17 minutes.