HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Some Town 'n' Country residents are concerned over a development proposal in their neighborhood.
“Just in general, we think it’s a bad idea,” said Susan Pritchard, President of the Twelve Oaks Civic Association.
The property sits at the corner of Soccer Avenue and Armand Drive, right next to Morgan Woods Elementary School.
The site is also the former Barry Road Landfill.
It’s vacant now, but on Tuesday, there’s a rezoning hearing about changing the zoning to allow for the development of 52 lots for homes on the property.
People in the surrounding Twelve Oaks neighborhood have concerns about the proposal.
“Traffic issues. We have a school right here. As you can imagine, pick up and drop off, the roads back all the way up to Hanley Boulevard. Every morning and afternoon, we have huge traffic jams coming in and out of the school. And now we’re going to add another 50-plus homes to that,” said Pritchard.
She believes the current infrastructure can’t keep up with the added volume.
“Our roads are already in bad shape, and now we’re going to add another 100-plus cars to it. It doesn’t make sense,” said Pritchard.
While there are traffic-related concerns with this potential project, Pritchard said that’s not what’s top of mind for neighbors.
“Our main concern is because this used to be a landfill,” she said.
According to county documents, the Barry Road Landfill was operational from 1964 to 1970 and received residential, commercial and industrial solid waste.
“This was a landfill that had a lot of industrial waste and things like that dumped on it,” said Pritchard.
She’s worried about how disturbing an old landfill site would affect the health of people living nearby.
“It terrifies me that they’re gonna do more damage to the environment,” said Pritchard.
ABC Action News reached out to Hillsborough County with questions about this potential development. This is what a spokesperson said about the environmental concerns:
Right now, this project is in the zoning stage with a current pending application. Any potential environmental impacts will be reviewed by Natural Resources staff through the site and subdivision development plan, when/if the project gets to this point.
In the meantime, neighbors have started a petition with more than 500 supporters. They plan to bring it to county leaders at Tuesday’s zoning hearing.
“This development is not wanted by anyone that I’ve spoken to in the Tampa Bay area,” said Pritchard.
ABC Action News reached out to the developer for comment, but we haven’t heard back from them yet.
The zoning hearing is at 6 p.m. on Feb. 20.
