A grassroots citizens group has hired an attorney to block a proposed development on 139.88 acres in northeast Charlotte County rife with various wildlife, including protected and threatened species.
Members and supporters of No Tag Lakeside plan to attend the Feb. 25 Board of County Commissioners land-use meeting to protest the project.
“We have over 500 petition signatures from Charlotte County residents, raised more than $3,000 for attorney fees, have support from six surrounding communities, have over 200 members on our Facebook group,” said group leader Courtney Mason, who lives near the property targeted for development.
Opponents are concerned the Tag Lakeside project would negatively impact wildlife, cause pollution and potential flooding problems.
The planned development is north of Turbak Drive, south of Peace River Shores Boulevard, east of Cobalt Boulevard and west of Duncan Road/U.S. 17.
The county Planning and Zoning Board in July voted 3-0 recommending that rezoning of the land be approved, allowing for more density. Its recommendation was accepted by county commissioners Sept. 10.
If approved, the rezoning would allow Tag Lakeside LLC, represented by Robert Berntsson of the Big W Law Firm, to create 1,188 units. The acreage was formerly zoned for 135 units.
Shortly after the commissioners’ Sept. 10 meeting, Mason joined forces with residents Sara McBee and Denise Gentile, who hired attorney Richard Grosso of Plantation. Grosso recently sent a 15-page letter to commissioners citing various local and state statutes to show why the rezoning amendment should not be allowed.
He wrote that the proposed land-use amendment “suffers from major inconsistencies with the state’s land-use planning law and the county’s own Comprehensive Plan. For all of these reasons, we ask the commission to deny this request to change its Comprehensive Plan to allow this very substantial and inappropriate increase in development proposed by the applicant.”
Previously, Mason told commissioners how the development would harm gopher tortoises.
She said the acreage was found to have 254 potentially active tortoise burrows, according to a 2023 Protected Species Assessment, and 133 would have to be relocated. The gopher tortoise was reclassified as a state-designated threatened species in 2007, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission created its first Gopher Tortoise Management Plan following the reclassification.
No stranger to wildlife, Mason has followed the works and career of her late grandfather, renowned herpetologist Walter Auffenberg, an American biologist who spent decades traveling the world studying numerous reptiles.
The Tag Lakeside developer plans to have some of the tortoises removed and placed in another habitat by FWC, but Mason said the project’s proposed 48 acres set aside for wildlife under the project’s plan is not enough. She said tortoises need more than 100 acres due to available foraging foods, male territorial behaviors, burrows and protection from predators and human interaction.
The endangered Florida scrub-jay also uses the acreage as their habitat.
“The developer would have to pay over $800,000 to the county’s scrub-jay [Habitat Conservation Plan]. They are going to destroy crucial scrub-jay habitat and use the funds toward mitigating the county’s scrub-jay preserved land,” Mason contends.
An attorney from the Center for Biological Diversity found that the developer “is not preserving enough scrub-jay habitat to satisfy the HCP through FWC,” she said.
Before moving ahead with the project, the developer must provide its source of water and a wastewater plan, among other conditions, the county stipulated.
Grosso and the attorney from the Center for Biological Diversity will testify at the Feb. 25 land-use meeting, Mason said.
