A plan that would allow a developer to cut down more oak trees than originally forecast was approved unanimously Wednesday, June 7, by the Apopka City Council, but city officials said that the issue was out of their control, a point agreed to by the city attorney.
Neighbors both to the north and south of the controversial Sandpiper Road development complained that since submitting a preliminary plan, developer Allan Goldberg significantly raised the number of trees that he will cut down to prepare the property so that Beazer Homes can build 49 houses on 58 acres.
The Sandpiper Road development has been up in the air for about 10 years, including some time in unincorporated Orange County prior to annexation of the property into the city several years ago.
While there was some disagreement over what the original numbers said, neighbors opposed to the higher number of trees that will be removed and the developer agreed that the numbers had increased since the preliminary development plan was approved by the city.
This latest approval by the City Council was for the final development plan for the gated subdivision that will have homes expected to sell for $400,000 to beyond $500,000.
One of the neighbors of the proposed development is City Commissioner Doug Bankson, who expressed concerns about the trees that will come down, saying they were old growth trees that cannot be replaced with new trees that will be planted as part of the development plan.
“The fact of the matter is, the developer could say, ‘I don’t want any trees, and pay the money (to the city’s tree mitigation bank). Legally, that can’t be stopped,” Bankson said.
The commissioner acknowledged the difference in numbers of trees between the preliminary development plan and the final development plan, but said that was to be expected as final development plans must be more precise than the preliminary ones.
“The difference is there were numbers (of trees to be removed) but they were preliminary numbers that would never be the end numbers until all of these things were vetted through,” Bankson said.
Other members of the City Council expressed the same opinion as Bankson.
City attorney Cliff Shepard said the vote on the final development plan had nothing to do with the number of trees that would be cut down.
“The issue is, do they meet the (city’s development) requirements to go forward?” he said.
For more about the Sandpiper Road development discussion, as well as other highlights of the Wednesday, June 7, City Council meeting, read the Friday, June 9, issue of the Apopka Chief.
