Pine Ridge and Dix Round 2

Coming up on Tuesday is the golf course development project in Pine Ridge. This has the potential to be a doozy. Last time this came forward, the room was packed with residents from Pine Ridge who opposed the redevelopment of the golf course to single family homes. It was the most organized opposition I had ever seen. It lasted over 6 hours.

Will that happen again? We will see, but I am told its different this time and to not expect the same number of people in opposition. Should still be interesting to watch.

This came to the board originally in January of 2024. It was an election year and the last thing they wanted to vote on was a project a large number of people didn't want to see come to Pine Ridge. Pine Ridge is a very large voting bloc and I imagine the 3 commissioners running for re-election didn't want to upset them, although, Commissioner Schlabach pinched her nose when she voted stating that she liked the project and that the golf course was private property and the county cannot tell the owner to keep it a golf course. The BOCC took the political route and voted against it 5-0.

So what has changed? Aside from being an election year, this application removed 4 homes from the original application and has removed the gated entrances that Pine Ridge residents had an issue with. That is it, as far as I can tell.

Here are the highlights:

Key Proposal Highlights

• Property size: ~221.9 acres, located along N. Elkcam Boulevard, between W. Pine Ridge Blvd. and W. Hampshire Blvd.
• Current designation: Park/Recreation (former golf course use) with zoning classified as Rural Residential (RUR). Future Land Use (FLU) designation is Residential Mixed Use (RMU).
• Proposed change: Amend the Planned Development (PD) master plan to reclassify the land from Park/Recreation to Residential.

Development Plan

• Density & lots:
  • Total of 80 single-family homesites.
  • Minimum lot size: 1 acre (43,560 sq ft).
  • Lot width: 100 ft minimum.
  • Overall project density: 0.36 dwelling units/acre. .8 dwelling units/acre when excluding the conservation lands.
• Home design standards:
  • Minimum home size: 1,800 sq ft.
  • Maximum height: 2 stories.
  • Lot coverage: up to 50% (individual lots), capped at 20% project-wide impervious coverage.
• Community features:
  • Clubhouse & active recreation area.
  • Over 50% of property (≈120 acres) reserved as open space/conservation.
  • Walking trails woven through conservation areas and along old fairways.
• Environmental considerations:
  • Site has no wetlands, but gopher tortoise relocation permits will be required.
  • Project maintains a 20-ft natural buffer around its perimeter, exceeding county code minimums.

James Dicks had a town hall meeting on August 16th for the residents of Pine Ridge. It has been posted online for those interested in watching it. You can view it here (Dix Development Town Hall). I suggest everyone take an hour or so to watch it. It is very informative.

A few takeaways for me:

1) His dad owned Port Paradise for a long period of time. He also was married to Jewel Lamb. I am not sure why people call Mr Dicks and outsider, but he certainly has strong ties to Citrus County, including one of the most influential families in the county.

2) He agrees that he purchased the golf course to keep it a golf course, but failed to do proper due diligence. He found out that most of the equipment was leased and not part of the sale, that the sprinklers were in operable and the golf course lost its liquor license. He told a story of the ATF coming into the clubhouse to seize the liquor license shortly after the purchased was completed. He said it could not be transferred, but the state clearly allows transfer, so perhaps it was revoked by the state prior to his purchasing it? Not sure.

4) He did a phase 1 and phase 2 environmental study to make sure the ground was no contaminated and would be safe to build on and uses other than a golf course.

5) Claims to be keeping the existing zoning in place, just changing out the golf course overlay for a PUD. More on this in a bit.

6) Decided that it is best to do their own HOA in Pine Ridge Preserve rather than joining the Pine Ridge POA. This is because he wants more strict terms and it will be more expensive. By all appearances, he plans for this project to be a high end community, similar to Black Diamond, within the overall Pine Ridge community. He would love for it to be gated, but residents pushed back on that previously, so he removed that from the plan.

7) Claims he would sell the golf course for someone else to keep it a golf course, but has not seen any concrete offers for it. He said he had a contract to sell it to a lady who wanted to do a horse farm type thing, but the contract was cancelled with the Pine Ridge board would not approve that use.

So there you have it. It was very informative and he did not back down from questions, so bravo to him. Perhaps other developers could take note and do it like this to help the community understand their plans. I would have LOVED to see Metro do this with Tuscany Ranch... but we did't get that and turns out, they didn't need it.

Here are my thoughts on this project.

The first thing that stands out are the commissioners comments from that January 2024 hearing.

• Commissioner Finegan: "When an application comes before us, everyone meets the requirements of the application. We don't have to make changes to these communities or to our zoning ever just because someone is able to bring it to us or threaten us in a veiled way"
• Commissioner Kinnard: "I have been as pro-development, pro-growth as anybody on this board during the seven years I have sat here. However, what had kept running through my mind tonight and listening to tremendous testimony on both sides, that just because we can make a change doesn't mean we should make a change. I don't believe that this serves the greater community of Citrus County."
• Commissioner Davis: "I do believe they have met all the regulations of our LDC and Comp Plan, but after the testimony of residents, I do not believe that this change would serve the greater public interest of Citrus County."

Aside from not being an election year, I do not see how this new application changes anything that the commissioners said before. It is pretty much the same thing, although, if there are less people in the room this time, that might give them an out... But again.. not an election year is likely the biggest factor.

That said, we often hear the BOCC talk about what people purchased and people knowing what they purchased. We see this often come up with the Inverness Villages 4 discussion. We hear them tell the residents of IV4 "You purchased on a dirt road" when they talk about the county having their hands tied.

Does this not apply to Pine Ridge Golf Course? Did Mr Dicks not knowingly buy a golf course? Yes, he has the right to try to get it rezoned as something different, just as anyone else does, but the by right development is a golf course. He does not have the right to develop it however he wants. Is it the county's responsibility to bail him out on a bad business decision? I wonder if any of them make that reference to IV4.

The biggest issue for me though isn't building on the golf course, it's removing the golf course/recreational overlay on the master plan. He told the group of people in attendance to reach out to Joanna Coutu at the county to have her answer the question on zoning. Well, I did just that and here is the response:

So it is correct that he is not technically changing the zoning and only changing the master plan. But that master plan IS changing and that dictates what can be done with the property. This is also a PUD, which allows greater flexibility than just zoning, although, as noted, he would have to stick to the PUD and go through a process to change the PUD if they want to do something different.

However, what I didn't see discussed what how the recent changes to the Live Local Act would affect this property. Ms Coutu did not want to speculate on that and I do not blame her, so I did my own research.

For those not aware, the Live Local Act was passed to allow developers greater flexibility in building affordable housing. Basically, they can take any parcel zoned Commercial, Industrial or Mixed Use and add multi-family housing and affordable housing in the highest densities allowed by LDC, as if it was zoned for multi-family WITHOUT going to the board for approval. But that does not apply to masterplans/PUDs that have a recreational element overlay.

So the golf course has that overlay. Dicks is proposing to remove that overlay for this project. Yes, they will add a conservation overlay on approximately half of the land, but the other half will not have that overlay.

So what is the big deal. It's zoned as RUR according to them. The problem is that the future land use is RMU (Residential Mixed Use). This would then allow Live Local to apply to the half of the property that does not include the conservation overlay. That means that if Dicks changes his mind or sells it to someone else who changes their mind, that they can potentially use the Live Local Act to build multi-family housing in Pine Ridge. Uh. What?

I found a couple of cases in Florida with similar things happening.

Walden Lake, LLC v. City of Plant City is almost identical to this Pine Ridge. They are trying to use Live Local to build multi-family on a defunct golf course and the city claims the developer's plan for Live Local would not apply due to the recreational overlay on part of the property.

Lone Pine Golf Club is another one. The developer is trying to remove the recreational overlay of the defunct golf course to allow them to build homes. So far that has failed and they have threatened to use Live Local to build the homes they want to build.

Now, Dicks has said that his plan is to build these 80 luxury homes. If you look at his portfolio, he does not build properties that would qualify for Live Local most likely. I do not think that he would do that. But he did say that he was open to selling the property if there was a buyer out there. Does that new buyer have the same ideas? Does removing the golf course overlay make the property more appealing to someone? Afterall, Dicks has spent a ton of money going through this process. That saves a potential buyer hundreds of thousands of dollars AND time. That has to account for something right?

Now, I admit, all that is speculation. However, some of this requires speculation. You see, the county has experienced developers saying something to their face and then changing plans. The vote the board made was regarding changes in zoning, PUDs, Plats, etc. Many times, the developer said something to appease the board, but they were not tied to what they said.

Could the same thing happen here? Could Dicks be telling the board that he has a plan for 80 high end homes in a master planned community and then have an idea of using Live Local to change those plans or plans to sell it after approval? Absolutely.

Remember, it was 2021 or so when the BOCC voted to approve apartments in Meadowcrest. The ONLY reason the board approved it was that the developer was going to bring affordable apartments. The board recognized a great need for something affordable, so they approved it.

A year or so later, the developer changed their mind and sold it to another developer who is now building luxury apartments. That should appease Meadowcrest more than the affordable apartments, but they did not want any, period. Oh... and that new developer? None other than James Dicks. So he took advantage himself of buying land another developer went through the process to change the zoning on, so certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

Be careful what doors you open because it may have unintended consequences.

One other thing worth noting. Dicks also is the person with a contract to buy Betz farm... you know the property that was "sold" over a year ago that the board decided to approve an amendment to the contract to allow him to keep it from closing until ALL of his approvals were approved. That was over a year ago and there is still no closing date in sight.

The skeptic in me feels that the closing has not happened yet on that because he is waiting for approval on this project. He knows that the BOCC badly needs the $6m from the Betz farm sale. So would it be a coincidence for this project to get approved and then we see the sale finalized for Betz farm and the money coming before the animal shelter is bonded? Or if this is not approved, Betz farm sale doesn't go through.... hmmmmm.

Just me thinking out loud. Have a great weekend!