The Upper Tampa Bay Trail is a wonderful recreational green space, winding through magnificent trees, providing shade and a bit of nature in urban Hillsborough County. The 16.5-mile stretch offers hikers and cyclists a bit of “raw” Florida. Huge live oaks festooned with Spanish moss line much of the path, and visitors relax from the daily stress of urban living. It’s part of the movement across the country to repurpose railroad tracks to usable paths for “active” recreation: hiking, biking and jogging.
“It has about 800,000 users a year,” Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp said. “It’s very popular and several local schools use it for track training.”
Now Alliance Residential Company, development group, wants to swap a portion of the trail and realign it closer to Gunn Highway. Their proposed new apartment complex abuts the trail in Citrus Park, and they want a section for a parking lot to accommodate new residents. The folks who use and love the trail are fighting back.
The portion of the trail in question traverses Citrus Park in residential northwest Hillsborough County, paralleling the west bank of Channel A, from a trailhead just off Memorial Highway, north to Gunn Highway and Ehrlich Road, eventually connecting to the Suncoast Trail at the Veterans Expressway.
Kemp said she felt blindsided when the issue of selling or swapping a portion of the trail was raised. She cast the only opposing vote.
“[The county commission] brought it up the Tuesday before Labor Day and scheduled the vote for the following Thursday,” said Kemp. “I was shocked because that was the first time I’d heard it mentioned to the board.”
She voiced her concerns immediately, and trail users have taken to Facebook, Twitter and other social media to raise awareness and protest the proposed zoning change. When the swap was announced, they quickly organized a public meeting to discuss what to do. Forty-four people attended, but when the news was posted on the trail’s Facebook page, 206 of 210 comments opposed the zoning change.
A student group held a meeting where they garnered 1,000 signatures opposing the rezoning.
“We’ll cut down the trees so you won’t run into them,” a spokesperson for the developer reportedly replied when asked about removing trees.
Kent Bailey, Chair of the Tampa Bay Sierra Club (that includes Hillsborough, East Pasco and Hernando), said the developer’s request to move the trail about 100 feet would put it right next to busy Gunn Highway.
“Being right next to the highway would affect the aesthetics of the trail, which is now a lovely sylvan, wooded path,” Bailey said. “It also creates a safety issue, because there will be a road crossing the trail and if it’s that close to the highway traffic will be going fast… it’s a speed issue.”
Kemp also has safety concerns.
“If it’s right next to Gunn Highway, then it’s right next to high-speed traffic and cars go off the road if there’s an accident,” she said. “Hillsborough is already number two in the nation for pedestrian fatalities, so that’s a big issue.”
The document presented to the commissioners authorizes the Director of Real Estate and Facilities Services to sign required applications for zoning and other related approvals on a parcel of county-owned land “for the development of a 20-acre apartment complex located along Gunn Highway in Citrus Park.”
That parcel is part of the Upper Tampa Bay Recreational Trail.
Chris Daye, a consultant working with the developers, has been attending the commission meetings. He and the developer are not speaking to the media about the project’s progress, however he did say he felt aspects are being misrepresented.
“I am not the developer, I’m just a consultant, not a principal,” he said, adding he felt unfairly targeted. “There are false accusations all over the trail group’s Facebook page and people are telling lies.”
Daye said the project is in compliance with the Citrus Park Community Plan set out by the county in 2003.
“It’s zoned for multi-family housing and if you wanted to build a single family home you’d have to apply for rezoning,” he said.
However, Kemp said he’s not following the 2003 plan or he wouldn’t have a zoning change request to move the trail.
“There’s nothing in that plan,” she said, “about changing the trail.”
The rezoning request also states the realignment of the trail will have no financial impact on the county because the developer will shoulder the costs, but Kemp said that’s untrue.
“County staff have already spent hundreds of hours researching the impact of changing the trail,” she said.
The requested realignment of the trail is only one of the challenges accelerated development poses in the Tampa Bay area. Kemp said developers keep spreading out to undeveloped areas when they should be looking at infill.
“Not only Hillsborough, but Pinellas and Pasco are all allowing too much spread,” she said. “People want walkable spaces to live so they don’t have to drive everywhere. It’s not sustainable to continue new development, and opening new land costs taxpayers so we need to redevelop where infrastructure exists.”
Right now the realignment of the trail is on hold, and there is no hearing scheduled. The developer cannot move forward without the board of commissioner’s approval.
Kemp’s most recent concern is the removal of some trees near the trail; she's checking to see if permits were issued.
“We have to fight for little slivers of beautiful land.”
Stay tuned.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 5, 2018.