After some four months of often emotional entreaty from Santa Rosa Groves residents to the Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors, earth is being moved and culvert pipe is being laid that will allow a renewed connection between Carol Street and 60th Street.
Through a subsidiary, developer GL Homes is providing an 80-foot-long pipe and installing it free of charge on the canal that runs along 60th Street and 59th Lane North. The Cypress Grove Community Development District owns the canal, but ITID owns the underlying land. Cypress Grove will continue to maintain the canal around the crossing.
“It sounds like we reached a happy medium,” ITID Supervisor Patricia Farrell said this week.
The culvert was removed in April due to long-term structural damage, leaving Santa Rosa Groves residents with only one way in and out of their rural tier neighborhood.
Initially, ITID Engineer Jay Foy estimated it would cost $334,000 to install a new culvert engineered to district standards. That would have required a $3,400 per lot assessment to Santa Rosa Groves property owners.
That’s when GL Homes, one of the area’s largest landowners, stepped in with an offer to return the crossing to its previous agricultural standard.
ITID expressed legal and engineering concerns about restoring the crossing in such a way, but GL overcame them and filed for a permit in July. However, the agreement nearly hit a snag at the Wednesday, Aug. 21 ITID meeting, when GL seemed to seek greater control over possible future changes to the crossing.
“I cannot and I will not support giving up our rights,” ITID Supervisor Betty Argue said. “We cannot have developers dictating to us what the terms are.”
GL holds permits to build 3,897 housing units, 300,000 square feet of commercial space and 50,000 square feet of office space on the nearby Indian Trails Grove property. Most of the land currently is being leased for farming.
Looking to the future, Argue said, “I want it to be understood that this is an agricultural crossing, period.”
During discussions the following day, GL backed off, and the permit was issued.
“We went back and forth for weeks, but in the end, we reached agreement,” ITID President Elizabeth Accomando said, adding that while she was not “100 percent happy” with the outcome, she was glad to see the issue put to rest.
Accomando, a Carol Street resident, was vilified by some neighbors for how the culvert removal was handled. She has repeatedly said that public safety was her only motivation in bringing the deteriorated culvert to the attention of ITID staff. The board accepted the staff’s recommendation and voted 5-0 for the removal.
In other business:
- The supervisors voted 5-0 for staff to move forward with negotiations with Diamond Communications to place a 120-foot-tall cell tower on property owned by ITID at 15955 71st Place North at Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
The tower would be disguised as a pine tree on a 40-by-40-foot portion of the larger property and host relays for at least four cell phone carriers. Diamond Communications would be seeking a 40-year lease.
During the discussion, it was noted that the land was being held for a possible future fire station. A Diamond Communications representative said his company would work with the district to locate the tower in such a way that there still would be room for a fire station.
Argue also asked ITID’s attorney to make sure that allowing a tower of such height would not set a precedent and create a loophole for future construction of equally tall structures.
- The supervisors approved up to $340,000 for a new or used guardrail to block illegal access to the district from the Town of Loxahatchee Groves at 162nd Drive North.
- The supervisors heard that renovations to Temple Park — including restoration of the tennis, basketball and sand volleyball courts — could cost between $350,000 to $500,000. “They’re not in good shape… [and] there’s no way to simply repair them,” ITID Executive Director Burgess Hanson said.
- An Aug. 28 workshop with the Acreage Athletic League was canceled while the AAL works through some internal issues, Hanson said this week. The AAL is seeking a new service provider agreement with the district. The supervisors were expected to vote on the issue at their Sept. 18 regular meeting.
