LAKELAND, Fla. \u2014 One of Lakeland\u2019s oldest golf courses will soon be home to new development.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Lakeland commissioners approved more housing units on the former Wedgewood Golf Course
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Neighbors say the development could worsen traffic and flooding, blaming poor maintenance of the property
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SJD Development says its latest plan will add a second access point, realign a street and upgrade the site\u2019s outdated drainage system<\/p>\n
City commissioners recently approved 973 housing units to be built on the former Wedgewood Golf Course. That\u2019s an increase from the 954 homes included in the developer\u2019s previous plan \u2014 a proposal that faced pushback from the start.<\/p>\n
Like many first-time homebuyers, Joshuah and Garion Wolverton put in hours to make their house a home. But since moving to Rockingham Road in October, the two say they\u2019ve learned their efforts could soon be in vain. The planned development would sit close to their property, with the former golf course connecting directly to their backyard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is a shame, because if you look at it, we have kind of a nice, expansive hill back there,\u201d Joshuah said.<\/p>\n
Besides changing their view, the couple worries the planned multifamily, single-family and townhouse developments will bring more traffic to an already busy neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially with my commute, I work at Tampa Bay International Airport and it takes about 45 minutes, but if we have more people here, that commute is going to be longer because a lot of people are going to be leaving in and out of the place,\u201d Garion said.<\/p>\n
During Monday\u2019s commission meeting, residents also shared concerns about flooding, pointing to the property owner\u2019s failure to maintain the course.<\/p>\n
However, SJD Development\u2019s new plan will add a second access point and realign a street to improve traffic flow. Founder and President Scott House said he also plans to work with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, known as SWFWMD, to fix the land\u2019s outdated drainage system once building permits are approved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a lack of wanting to do it. It\u2019s a lack of not being able to do it,\u201d House said. \u201cJust can\u2019t get a permit. So as soon as we can get approval and get into January and I can get my development agreement approved, I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Joshuah and Garion, they question whether the project is still the right decision for the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we have our main road here, which is nice, but there\u2019s no telling what is going to go behind us. I don\u2019t exactly know what\u2019s going to go behind us,\u201d Joshuah said.<\/p>\n
Commissioners must approve a development agreement before construction can begin. The first hearing is scheduled for Jan. 5, with a vote expected Jan. 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKELAND, Fla. \u2014 One of Lakeland\u2019s oldest golf courses will soon be home to new development. What You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[91699,427,3,57711,99,624,13309],"class_list":{"0":"post-360605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-alexis-jones","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-polk-county","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}