MURDOCK — The Charlotte County Commission declined to act Tuesday on a request to rezone land from agricultural to mining in the rural eastern part of the county.
The indefinite postponement, approved 3-2, comes after a resident filed a law suit in August against the county for approving a different site plan for housing nearby that would also allow mining.
The Tuesday request for a mining zone change is part of a proposal to turn a 164-acre dirt bike park into a personal watercraft park at 44800 Bermont Road. The Planning and Zoning Advisory Board in August voted 3-1 against recommending the project.
The mining lawsuit is about a longstanding housing project called Waterside, where rezoning and a site plan were already approved in years past, most recently in July. The plan there is to excavate an old orange grove and sell the material before turning it back into a natural Florida landscape. The restored grove would be for the enjoyment of a clustered housing development of up to 1,400 housing units. That project is at 33150 and 32990 Bermont Road.
Washington Loop Road residents Desiree Rabuse and John Salvatore filed the suit in Twentieth Judicial Circuit Court in late August against the county and Waterside developers Southwest Engineering & Design and TMV Properties Inc. The suit accuses the parties of using administrative procedures years ago to replace rezoning decisions in the housing project called Waterside. They also accused the parties of misleading the public by posting the project as a natural landscape restoration rather than a mining project.
On Tuesday, James Weeks, owner of Farabee Mines, presented his mining plan also on Bermont Road, as short term and shallow.
Weeks says he wants to use the mine for landscaping rock, not for construction materials like the Waterside project, and only after his current mine runs out. The land is currently owned by Kurt Traulson who operates the dirt bike park called the 74MX at the RKC.
Weeks told the commission a dirt bike park near the airport has drained his business, and he would like to use the large lake that would come after excavation, for a personal watercraft park.
Other business neighbors, however, who operate The Redneck Mud Park and also, children’s outdoor education programs, complained that Traulson was not able to control previous dump trucks on site that broke all the rules in the area, speeding and generating huge amounts of dust.
Weeks pointed out that those trucks are not regulated by state laws and his will be regulated to follow the speed limit of 10 mph. He has also committed to no more than 50 truck trips a day and excluding trips on weekends or outside business hours.
The commission cannot regulate how the easement for truck traffic on site is negotiated, County Attorney Thomas David told the board.
Still the board decided to postpone the vote to find out whether they can legally ensure that Weeks does not begin mining until after his current mine expires.
“Normally I would be fairly comfortable with transmitting, and I do ultimately want to get there,” said Commissioner Ken Doherty, “Two critical things are lacking — how we could institutionalize this offer to not approve a commercial operation on this site until the other one shuts down…. That may not be possible today.”
Voting against the postponement were commissioners Joe Tiseo and Christopher Constance.
“You’d have to shut down the Farrabee mine … for me to even consider transmitting,” Constance said, referring to transmitting the zone change to the state for approval. “I want to make sure it’s in our ordinance.”
David said the county would have to engage in “creative lawyering” to accommodate that request, as zone changes cannot include such stipulations.
Neighbors of the land repeated their objections to Weeks’ and Traulson’s plan.
Col. Maryann Tipton read the statement of a local expert on traffic studies, saying that the county’s analysis of Week’s traffic study was statistically inadequate. Dump truck traffic from gravel mines on Bermont Road has cause deadly accidents in recent years.
Resident Rob Robbins objected to the 500-foot wildlife corridor proposed by Weeks. Robbins presented a map suggesting that the corridor on this site would not connect to other passage ways in the eastern part of the county. County staff refuted this claim with their own maps showing proximity to the vast preserved lands of the Fred C. Babcock/Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area and the neighboring Babcock Ranch Preserve Resident Tim Ritchie commented on the project.
“This deal kept getting more complicated as I’m sitting here,” Ritchie said. “This is too close to the river and the watershed… We have got to conserve our county, and agricultural land is disappearing at an alarming rate … I love motocross and jet ski. I’m all for it… There’s a place for jet skis. This would not be it.”