By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
A 33-acre tract of land in Williston adjoining Peggy O’Neill Basham Nature Park will be cleared of all trees in the near future to make room for 98 homesites in the Country Lane Estates subdivision along NW 4th Ave.
The park won’t be impacted.
Williston City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to give Armstrong Homes the green light for site plan improvements and a developer’s agreement, but the company can’t build homes without final city approval.
The property is the site of many hardwood trees that will be lost when the land is clearcut for the housing development, but engineer Troy Burrell said the company has no choice.
He said a couple of feet of fill dirt must be added to the entire site to meet drainage requirements of the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Adding that much fill dirt around the base of large trees would kill them.
Under the developer’s agreement, the company plans to add two trees per lot that will eventually grow into shade-bearing trees for the homeowners.
“Because of the earthwork on the site, there’s just no way to save the trees,” Burrell said. “I’ve done development for many, many years and we went into many places and tried to save the trees, here and there, and within a year or two they died.”
Council President Debra Jones said she was one of the people that reviewed the development along with the city’s planning and zoning commission. Jones said she and the commission were concerned about the loss of all the trees on the site.
“Just going in and clearcut everything knowing the big beautiful trees are in there…it was disturbing and it disturbed me as well and I heard the explanation a couple of times from staff. I guess we’re going to have to live with it,” Jones said.
Burrell responded he was involved in the Terra Vista development in another community, in which efforts were made to save three or four big trees, but he said the trees died in a couple of years.
Jones said she the fact that the developer plans to plant a couple of trees on every lot in the subdivision doesn’t mean the trees will provide shade anytime soon.
“As somebody who lives on a lot where they clearcut it, I’ve lived there since 1974 and I’ve just now got trees of any size that are providing shade of any kind, so it takes a long time to make a tree that does any good. The beauty may be there but the shade they provide, it takes a while for them to get there. I just hate to cut huge trees. I know there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said.
City Planner Laura Jones told the council that “a tree survey won’t be conducted because they won’t be able to save any trees, but they will reinstall two trees per property.”
The developer will install a new lift station at company expense to serve the new residential development. The existing lift station isn’t large enough to accommodate 98 new homes. It will be constructed next to the old one.
Williston will provide water and central sewer to the development as well as electricity and natural gas. The city anticipates recouping the costs of providing the utility infrastructure within five years.
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City of Williston Regular Meeting December 8, 2021; Posted December 8, 2021
