Golf Course or Home Sites?

The Pine Ridge appeal has been filed and it has been posted to the clerk's site. For those that wish to read it, the details are below:

Citrus Clerk's SCORSS Website
Search by Case Number: 2025CA000756A

If you dont want to read all 35 pages nor the 690 pages of exhibits, I will break it down for you in as simple terms as possible.

First, why am I even talking about this? Well for one, its not often the county's decision is appealed... and if there is one appealed, its appealed by the developer (Cardinal Farms for instance). This is an unique case because Pine Ridge got intervenor status, which basically makes them a party to the entire process.

That does not happen very often. Normally its the developer and the county. Tuscany had an intervenor at first, but then they pulled some of the parcels from the application and the intervenor went away since they were trying to stop those exterior parcels from being developed. So it was just Tuscany and the county. The public showed up, but I highly doubt anyone from the public is going to file a formal appeal and risk spending thousands of dollars.

Pine Ridge is willing to have that fight... but it is clearly dividing the Pine Ridge community. But their elected board decided to fight it... similar to the BOCC, not everyone agrees with board decisions. So here we are.

For those that live under a rock and do not know the specifics, Dix Developments wants to change the overlay of the Pine Ridge Golf Course from a golf course to a residential development with 80 homesites. This came to the BOCC in January of 2024 and was declined 5-0. Back then, it included 85 homes and the idea was for a gated community.

Today, not much changed aside from removing 5 homes and saying it will no longer be gated, although, the county admits it can still be if he desires and does not need permission to do so. This time it passed 3-2 (Bays, Davis, Kinnard voted to approve. Barek and Finegan voted to deny).

So, all caught up.

This is going to be an interesting one. Their appeal reads a lot like their hearing presentation did.

Their argument relies on two things:

1) "The County Departed from the Essential Requirements of Law"

2) "The administrative findings and judgement were not supported by competent substantial evidence"

The first argument is based on the premise that the county did not follow state and county laws when accepting the request to rezone the property. It is a lot of legal jargon that I wont get into, but basically the claim is that Dix should not be allowed to develop the golf course with 80 homes as it falls into the DRI and also includes RUR zoning which is limited to 5 units per acre. This would allow only 40 homes, if everything else is also met.

They argue the county has to follow the DRI change process, which they did not do. They failed to follow the State Statute 380.06(7), the LDC and the Comp Plan. They also allege the county failed to meet the plain meaning of the LDC and Comp plan by approving higher density than allowed in RUR zoning.

The 2nd argument is that the county and applicant only chose portions of the LDC and Comp plan to follow while ignoring others that are relevant. Also they claim statements made by BOCC were not based on fact and conclusions of law and some statements "demonstrated there was no foundation to find in favor the affirmative vote".

They go on to cite case law and mention a dozen or so cases that support their argument.

Phew. There is a lot more to it, but you get the idea.

Why am I pointing all this out?

As I mentioned, this is an interesting case. Basically we have a development suing a developer and the county to try to keep them from building on a now defunct golf course. We have several of those in this area, so this will set a precedent. I have seen emails talking about Sugarmill Woods and a development on one of the courses out there. Lakeside is another that is potentially a developers dream. How this plays out could certainly impact those.

But the interesting thing here is that Pine Ridge is making the same argument they did during the hearing. Rather than using words that were said by commissioners that were pretty shocking... or pointing to statements they made on social media after the vote... or mentioning the 100s of emails that were not included in the official record, but were referenced as a reason to support the development... Things that they could have used to show potential bias towards them... they are sticking to the legal argument they tried to make at the hearing.

The difference between now and at the BOCC is that now the judge is reading these arguments and NOT the BOCC members... who are NOT lawyers... and likely do not understand the complex land use laws mentioned during the hearing.

I was sitting there listening to the argument the Pine Ridge attorney made and knew that they lost the BOCC. It was over their heads. He then made the mistake of blaming it on staff for them not understanding, which the Dix attorney latched onto and presented during his closing argument, defending the staff.... but lost in all that was the legal argument that Pine Ridge is making.... the proper processes are not being followed and the Comp Plan/LDC are being ignored.

That is not lost on a judge. Falvey is the judge assigned to the case. While she may not be a land expert either, she certainly has staff and other means of getting answers... but more importantly, she understands the legal argument.

Does that mean Pine Ridge is correct in their interpretation? No, not at all, but the person deciding that is much more qualified to make that determination than the 5 members of the BOCC... which is why they likely made this appeal in the manner they did.

Pine Ridge is asking for her to quash the previous vote and remand it back to the County for them to apply the correct law on another hearing.

So now, the waiting game begins. The county will issue its response sometime in the next 30 days or so most likely. I am sure Dix will issue a response as well. Then Falvey gets her say.