What the *shell* are you looking at? Credit: Cathy Salustri

Gopher tortoises at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in St.Petersburg can rest a little easier since neighboring development plans have been amended. The St. Petersburg Country Club adjacent to the popular preserve plans to sell four parcels of land from its golf course for home development, requesting a zoning change from “recreational open space” to a designation of “residential low.”

“With any nearby development there is always an impact to the preserve,” said Jason Cowan, president of Friends of Boyd Hill. “The gopher community is just inside the fence line, so there’s not a lot of buffer there now.”

The parcel tagged “Area D” raised concerns because it’s less than 100 feet from the preserve’s protected gopher tortoise community, as well as one of the park’s areas for prescribed burns. The country club requested the rezoning to accommodate new homes on what was formerly just golf course.

“We have no problem with the three other parcels,” said Cowan, “Area D was just too close to the tortoises and the park because Country Club Way is a very narrow road.”

Area D, where a house will be built, is located along the fairway for the 18th hole, between Country Club Way and Fairway Avenue.

Cowan and other Boyd Hill board members finalized a compromise with the country club Tuesday, September 11, at the Community Planning & Preservation Commission hearing at City Hall. “Area D” will now move to the opposite side of the 18th fairway. It still needs approval from the city zoning commission.

“A house will still be built on the lot, but the back yard will now be on Fairway Ave., and the entrance on Country Club Way,” said Cowan, explaining that will have less impact on the park and its protected tortoise colony.

Gopher tortoises, designated as a “threatened” species under Florida law, prefer a sandy scrub habitat for their extensive burrows, which is often an area attractive to residential developers. Gopher tortoises live in large colonies that must be relocated before any land clearing or development takes place, and The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Comission (FWC) requires property owners have permits before relocating a colony.

The St. Petersburg Country Club and the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve coexisted peacefully for years, but recently the private club, which features golf, tennis and social activities, has experienced financial difficulties forcing it to sell some of its green space for development so it can stay in operation.

In 2014 the country club sold property to a developer, who built two-story “McMansions” targeted exclusively to high-income buyers at prices between $400,000 and $500,000.

“In 2014, when they sold that acreage they marked trees along an easement by the preserve without notifying anyone what they were doing,” said Jim House, a Boyd Hill board member and former president of Friends of Boyd Hill. “They asked the city to vacate the easement so the developer could build townhomes, and they wanted the city to cut a new buffer that would mean cutting down those trees.”

In this case, the city sided with the preserve and bought the 36-acre easement for $1.1 million, adding it to Boyd Hill.

House said recent unchecked development and rezoning changes are troublesome.

“Developers have a sense of entitlement, assuming that the city will give monied interests whatever they ask for,” he said. “They just assumed the city would go along with them and allow trees cut down, but it didn’t.”

Area D is also right next to one of the park’s prescribed burn sections, which should be considered when building homes. It’s an area of pine flatlands and scrub, a native Florida ecosystem that thrives on fire for regeneration. Prescribed burns curtail dangerous wildfires by burning off the natural buildup of dead underbrush under the watchful eyes of experienced park rangers. Fire also encourages new vegetation for foraging wildlife, and replenishes soil nutrients. The state governs controlled burns, so the forestry service can refuse to allow a fire if there is a threat to preserve management.

At Boyd Hill there’s usually a controlled burn about once a year; rangers set fire to 40 or 50 acres. The preserve’s most recent supervised fire was this past February.

“People living in the area have advance warning when we’re going to do a controlled burn,” said Cowan. “Also, Florida requires deed notification so property owners are informed that they live near an area where prescribed burns will occur.”

“Country Club Way is a really narrow road going through there and there’s a sidewalk, but that open green space is very important,” Cowan explained. “It’s a buffer that’s important for wildlife that leaves the preserve and comes back, like the gophers sometimes do, and also to make sure that preserve management won’t be having prescribed fires really close to someone’s house.”

With 245 acres, Boyd Hill Nature Preserve is one of the largest urban preserves in the nation and home to the largest sustainable colony of gopher tortoises in Pinellas County. It also features six miles of trails and boardwalks winding through unique ecosystems of pine flatlands, sand pine scrub, willow marsh and swampy woodlands along the shore of St. Petersburg’s Lake Maggiore. Formerly called Lake Maggiore Park, the city renamed it Boyd Hill in 1958 after a park superintendent who dreamed of bringing undisturbed nature to city dwellers.

Today it’s considered a jewel among the county’s urban parks, and serves the community with its many educational events and activities centered around Florida’s environment.