ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — It appears that three time’s the charm for a proposed neighborhood in St. Johns County.
Twice, a piece of land was eyed by developers who wanted to build a neighborhood on it, but the county commission shot those ideas down.
This week, that same parcel of land just got to go ahead for a different neighborhood.
On U-S 1 South, across from the Saint Augustine Shores neighborhood, there is Bella Terra Drive. The land along that road is not developed, and it has a horse stables on it.
Twice over the last few years, developers have asked the St. Johns County Commission for permission to build neighborhoods on it.
Commissioners denied the projects, saying they proposed too many homes for the size of the land.
This week, came the third and latest proposal, and it received the commission’s approval, in a 4-1 vote.
Doug Burnett, the developer's attorney, told commissioners, that while it this particular project has the same name of Bella Terra, "This is a completely different project, a completely different developer."
This Bella Terra project is now more than 30 acres and 155 single-family homes. The previous proposals were on less land, with 240 homes, including apartments.
Judy Spiegel will be able to see the new neighborhood from her street in the Osprey Landing neighbordhood. She opposed the previous proposals, but has resigned herself to this one.
"It’s single family, residential, similar to our neighborhood, and just kind of what everyone just wanted," Spiegel said. "I would love for it to not be built at all because the land is just so beautiful."
Another abutting neighborhood to the proposed project is the one on Winton Circle.
In the past, it has dealt with extensive flooding on the streets and yards because of a design flaw in the development process decades ago. Three years ago, the county spent millions of dollars to upgrade the drainage system there.
During the developer's presentation to the county commission, its team of experts said plans are in place in the new Bella Terra so the neighboring Winton Circle neighborhood will not flood. That's even though the project will clear cut the land and build on acres of wetlands. There will be three retention ponds built.
Some commissioners had questions about the drainage plan.
County Commissioner Christian Whitehurst said he did not want to see a repeat of the Winton Circle flooding issue. He said, "You know we've had this happen before where they (developers) are showing us slides (of plans). I want to feel good that what we're seeing up on these slides is going to happen." He asked the county's attorneys if the developers will be held accountable for these plans as proposed. The county attorney said, "yes."
Spiegel said, "I believe because of the problems with Winton Circle in the past, and because of the due diligence in the past that the county has done to try to address that problem, they're not going to let anything go through that might even cause a problem.