Potbelly Update — Still No Time Soon! 

Updating the story that we last updated in our May 28 New Tampa issue, despite some other recent published reports that said that Potbelly Sandwich Works was getting ready to announce an opening date in the former Oronzo Honest Italian space in The Walk at Highwoods Preserve plaza on BBD, I can assure you that the earliest the popular sandwich shop with more than 425 locations across the U.S. is still at least several months away from being able to open here. 

Yes, Ron Asmar, the president of RTA Restaurant Group, LLC, has added four additional Potbelly locations to his commitment, with the New Tampa shop expected to open in “late spring/ summer” of this year, but based on what I’ve seen inside (right photo above, taken July 11), and what the person working inside said, there is little chance the new Potbelly will be open before the fourth quarter of 2024, and could even take until the start of 2025. 

That is bad news for the multiple people I’ve seen since our last story ran two months ago, who told me they love Potbelly’s “Hot Sandwiches (and soups) and Chill Vibes,” as well as for anyone in our area (like me) who is always on the lookout for new places, even if they are national chains. 

As I also said in May, feel free to visit the location at 4738 N. Dale Mabry Hwy. (near Raymond James Stadium) or the one at 2520 S. Falkenburg Rd. (near Brandon) for the Chicago-based chain’s “famous toasty sandwiches, soups, salads, fresh-baked cookies and hand-spun milkshakes.” — GN 

Cold Stone Creamery Has New Energy To Go With Its New Owners! 

At the Cold Stone Creamery located off Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in New Tampa, co-owner Sunny Chaudhary (in white shirt) and his happy crew are always happy to fold in your favorite mix-ins into your favorite flavor (below left) from the store’s huge selection (below). (Photos by Charmaine George)

When we first brought up the idea of doing what we call a “Dining Feature story” about his Cold Stone Creamery location off (but visible from) Bruce B. Downs (Blvd.) in New Tampa, franchise co-owner Meet “Sunny” Chaudhary said he saw no reason for us to do so. 

“Pretty much everyone knows Cold Stone,” he said. “We’re a chain, like any other national chain restaurant.” 

But, while that is true — as Cold Stone has about 1,000 U.S. locations and another 300 around the world — I told Sunny that since his ads with us tout “Under New Ownership & New Energy,” didn’t he want to share that new energy with, oh, 80,000 or so of his “closest friends” in New Tampa’s 33647 zip code? 

So, Sunny — who only officially took over this 18-year-old location in May, with his partner, Sunny (not a misprint) Patel — did ultimately agree to be interviewed for this story. 

“Most of the people who had worked at this location didn’t stay when we took over,” Sunny admits. “But, we took that as a positive because we were able to bring on a whole new crew of young people, mostly high school students, who understand that Cold Stone Creamery isn’t just an ice cream place, it’s an experience.” 

To illustrate his point, he adds, “Every time someone walks in, we make sure every team member yells, ‘Welcome to Cold Stone!’ (Yes, they also sing songs for tips!) And, watching the crew mix in your favorite toppings on our cold stone counter is always fun, too. And, we stand behind our ice cream as the best, too!” 

The married Wesley Chapel resident says that when his uncles opened the new Cold Stone location in the Shoppes at New Tampa plaza on BBD in Wesley Chapel last year, he worked in the store as a team member, receiving the same training as any other employee, “So when this store became available, my partner and I decided, ‘Why not? Let’s run our own Cold Stone!’ even though we really were hoping to open a brand new location.” 

He notes, however, that he and Sunny still plan to open a new second location of their own, but in the meantime, he is focused on making sure that every time someone hears “Welcome to Cold Stone!,” they leave with a smile on their face. 

About The Ice Cream & Mix-Ins 

According to the company’s website, “After 35 years in business, Cold Stone Creamery continues to thrive by offering the Ultimate Ice Cream Experience¼: a super-premium, artisanal ice cream that is made fresh in our stores, with an endless array of mix-in combinations that allows customers to dream up their own Cold Stone Signature Creationsℱ.” 

My current favorite flavors are both new — Caramel Truffle and “Despicamallow” (the latter is marshmallow-flavored ice cream turned “Minion Yellow” to coincide with the release of the “Despicable Me 4” movie)— although I also am partial to Cold Stone’s banana, peanut butter, cake batter, “Classic Cookie Doughℱ” and cheesecake flavors. I also was a little surprised that even though I’m not usually a sorbet kind of guy, I genuinely enjoyed the peach mango sorbet, as well as the “SilkÂź Chocolate Almond Milk Frozen Dessert,” which is perfect for those who are lactose-intolerant. 

But, no matter which flavor is your favorite, or whether you order yours in “Kid’s Size,” “Like-It¼” (small), “Love-It¼” (medium) or “Gotta Have It¼” (large) at Cold Stone, you always get to make your ice cream unique with the huge variety of available mix-ins. 

From fresh fruit, like bananas, raspberries and strawberries, to candy like M&Ms¼, Kit Kat¼ and gummy bears, plus nuts like pecans and roasted almonds and “toppings” like real (not served hot, though) fudge, caramel, frosting and whipped topping (and too many more to name them all here), you can try different combinations every time you visit Cold Stone Creamery. Can’t decide? There also are plenty of actual Cold Stone “Signature Creationsℱ,” from the “Mega Minion Marshmallow Meltdown” and “Peanut Butter Cup Perfection¼” to “Mud Pie Mojo¼” “Founder’s Favorite¼” and many more. If you want to know what’s in each of these “Creations,”, visit ColdStoneCreamery.com or (my suggestion) stop into the store. 

And of course, not only is all of the ice cream made in-store, so are the waffle cones and bowls. 

“You can smell that, right?,” Sunny asked during the interview, as photographer Charmaine George and I nodded in approval. “I just love having that aroma hit me when I walk in the store.” 

Cakes, Shakes, Smoothies & Treats 
In addition to making your favorite creations in-store, Cold Stone also offers Reese’s¼ Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cups (above), Signature Ice Cream Cakes (below) like “Cake Batter Confettiℱ” & ice cream cookie sandwiches (below) in its freezer case at the front of the store.

In addition to those freshly made cones and cups, Cold Stone also offers other specialties, including fresh fruit smoothies (try the strawberry and blueberry) and hand-spun shakes (with your favorite ice cream flavor and mix-in). And, in the freezer at the front of the store, there’s also a variety of pre-packed quarts in four of those “Signature” flavors, as well as an even larger selection of Signature ice cream cakes, including the new “Heist Cream Cake” (featuring that Despicamallow ice cream), Cake Batter Confettiℱ (photo on this page), “Midnight Delight¼,” Oreo¼ Cookies & Extreme Cream” and many more in small (serves up to 8 people) and large (up to 14 people) round sizes. And of course, you can order completely customized cakes, with your favorite ice cream flavors, mix-in and frosting, in a number of different sizes. 

“I was never a big fan of ice cream cakes until I had ours,” Sunny says. “And we usually can create your custom cake within 24 hours.” 

Also available in the freezer at the front door are four-packs of ice cream cookie sandwiches and six-packs of ice cream cupcakes and my favorites, the Reese’sÂź Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cups. 

So, what are you waiting for? As Sunny says, “Ice cream brings out the kid in all of us!” 

The New Tampa location of Cold Stone Creamery (17519 Preserve Walk Ln.) is open every day at 11 a.m. and stays open until 10 p.m. Mon.-Thur. until 11 p.m. on Sun. and until midnight on Fri. & Sat. For more info, call (813) 977-0024, visit ColdStoneCreamery.com or see the ad below, where you’ll find this month’s Daily Store Specials. For special orders, call Sunny directly ay (813) 469-7954. 

Dr. Martha Tapia — Why This Former NYC Cop Should Be Your Therapist! 

Psychotherapist and hypnotherapist Dr. Martha Tapia, who has an office in the Medallion Corporate Park north of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, can help children, adults, couples and families with a variety of issues, from PTSD to chronic pain, with her unique combination of experience and, she says, her faith in God. 

Martha Tapia, Ph.D., and her Community Family Counseling provides family counseling to help with a variety of mental and emotional issues for children, adults, couples and families. She also is a certified clinical hypnotherapist who can help people dealing with post-traumatic stress, anger and depression. She approaches every case she handles holding firm to her deep commitment to her Christian faith. She brings her own unique background and training to her job and has helped many people in the three years she has worked as a therapist, since moving to Florida from New York in 2016. 

When I say unique, I’m guessing that most psychotherapists in our area probably were not working as a New York City police officer when 9/11 changed life in the United State forever. But, Martha was at Ground Zero the day after the towers fell, only two years after joining the police academy. 

“I missed the last police van to go to Ground Zero that day, so they kept me patrolling on Staten Island until the next morning,” she says. 

“The things I saw and smelled those days,” she says. “No one should have to see that. The body bags, the devastation. There’s no doubt that I had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) myself after what I saw and went through because of 9/11.” 

Like so many who worked at Ground Zero, Martha developed major health issues, including severe asthma, which she was diagnosed with in 2005, only three+ years later. She was pregnant with her daughter Marlene when she had issues with the pregnancy, especially great difficulty breathing. Marlene also has been diagnosed with asthma. 

“A lot of the kids of those first responders are having health issues, too,” she says. “But that’s not something that most people talk about.” 

“Breathing that air and eating food with white ashes that we would just wipe off, eat and keep working — we were all poisoning ourselves. Many of my fellow officers and firefighters lost their lives to the cancers and illnesses we were all dealing with.” 

Martha did end up retiring from the police force, but not until 2008, while working at Precinct 50 in The Bronx, after trying to arrest a suspect and having multiple people end up on top of her, herniating two of the discs in her back. 

“They put me on medication for my back, but it reacted with the asthma medication I was taking and I got more sick from it,” she says. “I went into a deep depression because I didn’t know how I would be able to take care of my kids. I just knew I had to survive for them.” 

With her early retirement, Martha went on to become a leader of a Girl Scout troop and went back to church, where she became a volunteer in the women’s group. “I couldn’t just be retired,” she says. “I had to stay busy.” 

Two years later, she met and married her husband John Bevilacqua, who worked for a labor union, but when he retired in 2016, they did their research and ended up buying a house in Wesley Chapel. 

Martha and John have seven children and a grandson (named Zion) and granddaughter (Antonella) between them — Martha’s sons Matthew and Adam and her daughter Marlene. She also raised her niece Keren and nephew Phillip. Her other nephew Geovanny, who is a autistic, but high-functioning and in his 40s, and John’s daughter Madison also live with them. 

More Trauma & A Life Change 

“I understood what happened to me after 9/11,” Martha says. “What I didn’t know is how that trauma affected my older son Matthew. He was only 8 years old at the time and he had a panic attack because he was so worried about me. He was diagnosed with anxiety, so we put him in counseling, but eventually, they said he was fine.” 

Unfortunately, Matthew’s anxiety resurfaced in high school and got even worse with each move the family made and worst of all when the family moved to Florida when he was in his 20s. 

Dr. Martha can provide both traditional psychotherapy (above) and hypnotherapy (below) to help adults, children & couples. 

“Matthew was having panic attacks all the time — he was afraid of dying —and all anyone did was put him on medication, which made him sick. I knew I had to find another way.” 

That different way came in the form of Dr. Henry Castellanos, a Bible-based “Theo-Therapist” who was preaching at Martha’s Spanish-speaking church in Zephyrhills. Dr. Castellanos, an expert in what is known as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) therapy, is from Puerto Rico and he teaches EMDR therapy at the Ecotheos International University Bible College & Seminary he owns in Toa Baja, PR. 

“Once I learned about how EMDR therapy works from Dr. Castellanos and he tried it with Matthew, I saw how effective it was and I knew I needed to find out more.” 

Martha asked people to hook her up with Dr. Castellanos so she could learn more about EMDR and she sat and talked about it with him at an event. “I told him I was desperate to figure out how to help my son,” she says. “He’s about to lose it and I’m afraid he’s going to end up in a mental institution.” 

Martha ended up bringing Dr. Castellanos to her house because Matthew was still in her car having a panic attack. “He said his English was not very good, so he would need someone to be the translator between him and Matthew, so of course, I agreed to be the translator.” Martha is from Ecuador, so she was fluent in Spanish and, since she had lived in New York since age 16, she also is fluent in English and her Latin accent makes everything she says in English sound better. 

She says that where eight other therapists had failed, Dr. Castellanos was able to get through to Matthew with EMDR. “We took a family cruise to Puerto Rico, so I told my husband to take the kids to the beach because I was going to take Matthew to see Dr. Castellanos again at the University. He did a few intensive sessions with him and I saw an instant change in my son. He totally healed him and Matthew has never had that type of anxiety since then.” 

In 2019, she decided that since she was retired and was looking for something to do, she would enroll online at Ecotheos University to get her degree in Christian Clinical Counseling. She also attended two one-week sessions in person at the University, where she became certified in EMDR by Dr. Lucina Artigas, the creator of what is known in EMDR as the “butterfly hug,” which is used worldwide. 

At the same time, Martha and John were opening Martha’s Grill & Bar in Dade City, but when that shut down due to Covid in 2020, she decided to fully dedicate herself to becoming a therapist. In Oct. 2021, she had earned her Ph.D. degree (graduating Summa Cum Laude) in Philosophy Counseling and Theo- Therapy Systemic Therapy. She also is certified with the International Reciprocity Board of Therapeutic Professionals (IRBO) Therapeutic Family Counselor II and has earned a Certificate of Completion as an EMDR Therapist for Children & Adolescents. 

To enhance her skills as a therapist, she also began studying how hypnotherapy also can help patients and, in 2022, she was certified as a Hypnotherapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist by the Institute of Hypnotherapy in Tampa. Earlier this year, she also has added ZYTO Link scan services, which uses your smartphone to scan your face and read the biometrics and emotions that help people improve their wellness while working on their negative emotions that needs to be addressed. 

“We recommend selective natural products that assist your body and lifestyle system to help your body feel healthier and have an energetic balance,” Martha says, adding that her daughter Keren Bolanos is the ZYTO Link technician, who handles the scans. 

She wasn’t planing to open a private practice, “but my husband convinced me that I could do it,” Martha says. “And, here I am!” 

Starting with counseling only for individuals, she says that she believes that God shifted her direction, “like he wanted me to do this. I wouldn’t be where I am if not for Him.” 

“I wanted to specialize in helping kids, with EMDR and Play Therapy, that’s why I got my child EMDR certification,” she says. “But somehow, my practice has evolved into nearly 80% marriage and couples therapy. The Christian base helps a lot with that, as long as both partners are still wanting to stay together. I help them find common ground.” 

With all of these tools at her disposal, Martha says she is proud to be able to help people, “one family at a time. It’s OK to feel angry. It’s OK to feel sad. It’s not OK when it lingers.” 

As for her foray into clinical hypnotherapy, Martha says that, “Sometimes, you have to go deeper with people, reach their subconscious mind and hypnotherapy is a relaxation technique. Especially as a Christian, hypnotherapy gets a bad rap, but I have used it to help so many people. It allows me to get to a deeper level with them.” And, never fear, you never lose consciousness and Dr. Martha won’t turn you into a chicken or get you to bark on command. 

“Some people do get stuck with EMDR, but hypnotherapy helps me get you un-stuck,” she says. “It’s just good to have many options to help people.” 

Martha also wanted me to mention that she is very committed to her new church — the new Paradise Community Church on Boyette Rd. She also occasionally posts on Facebook that she hosts Christian-based events at her home. She also sponsors the annual “Dance Your Dream” gala hosted by Hope Services, a not-for-profit vocational service organization in Wesley Chapel that helps people living with disabilities find jobs. “My son Adam (who is developmentally disabled) and nephew Geo (who is autistic) have enjoyed attending the gala, too, “ she says. 

I also can give a personal testimonial about Dr. Martha. Jannah had some PTSD of her own following the serious car accident we had in 2017. She had spoken with other therapists since then because driving on the highway since that day had terrorized her. 

But, two hypnosis and EMDR sessions with Dr. Martha seems to have helped Jannah get over her panic while being a passenger in a car. Hearing how much better she’s doing made Martha very happy. 

“I just love helping people,” she says. 

Dr. Martha Tapia’s Community Family Counseling is located at 2604 Cypress Ridge Blvd., For appointments and more info, call (813) 803- 5968 or visit CommunityFamilyCounselor.com. 

The Nagers Are Thankful For The Local Businesses That Helped Us Move Into Silversaw 

Neighborhood News deadlines are almost never easy for yours truly, but the deadline week to get our July 9 Wesley Chapel issue to the printer was surely more challenging than pretty much any since I suffered a detached retina in my left eye in September of 2023. 

Jannah and I signed a lease to move into the beautiful new Silversaw Luxury Apartments (next to the Hyatt Place Hotel on the north side of S.R. 56 at I-75) a couple of months ago and we both did the best we could to try to get as much done every off-deadline week since signing that lease to make the packing and moving as painless as humanly possible. 

What’s poet Robert Burns’ old saying about the “best laid plans of mice and men?” 

In other words, despite all of our efforts 6-8 weeks before the move — although we moved into our incredibly spacious and comfortable new apartment on the usually quiet Monday of the deadline week for this issue — I guess we should have given ourselves at least one additional day to get moved in. It’s now clear to me that unpacking — and finding a place for everything in a new place — is infinitely harder than throwing out as much old “stuff” as possible and putting the rest in boxes and suitcases in anticipation of a move. It’s as though our entire previous apartment — located less than a mile from our new one — was one giant junk drawer and both Jannah and I were (and still are) determined to not let the same thing happen to our new digs. 

The truth of the matter is that other than brief interludes during my breaks between working on both ads and stories for this issue, Jannah did most of the actual unpacking, while I covered for her as much as possible to get all of our ads done. But, getting the multiple stories I had to write to fill the space in that issue to my satisfaction was an even tougher task for me. 

In fact, as I wrote this editorial on Sunday evening, with the paper due at the printer early on Monday, I still had three more stories to write, so I actually missed my deadline by a few hours, but the issue did still arrive in mailbox by (or before) its cover date of July 9. But, it sure wasn’t easy. 

Thanking Those Who Made It Easier 

The good news is that a number of local companies, only one of which is one of our advertisers, helped immensely with even making it possible for me to get the July 9 issue done on time. 

The first is Bull Moving, located on N. Florida Ave. a little north of Fowler Ave. These guys are pros. From just one phone call with Jannah, they determined what size truck we needed and how many guys (three) it would take to get our short-distance move completed on Monday. 

The crew showed up on time, worked pretty much non-stop to get everything neatly loaded onto the truck and bring it all in one trip into our new second-floor apartment. And, even though the job took longer than what was estimated, it most definitely wasn’t the fault of these three very courteous young men, who never stopped giving their all, making sure they carefully dropped off each piece of furniture and every box where we directed them to do so. 

Of course, not moving very far helped keep our cost down, but I don’t really believe any company could have done a better job for less money or in less time. For more info, call Jeremy at Bull Moving at (813) 943-6043 or visit BullMoving.com. 

Of course, whenever you leave an apartment, you have to leave it “broom clean” and our friends Erica and Reggie of Final Touch Quality Cleaners, who also have provided our regular clean-ups every two weeks, specialize in “move-out” cleans. Erica handled our job herself in just a few short hours, wiping down every surface (especially those we hadn’t seen behind furniture that hadn’t really been moved in five years), packed up and threw out all of the garbage we left behind, swept and mopped every floor and vacuumed every inch of carpeting in our two bedrooms, fully cleaned our two bathrooms, our refrigerator and freezer, our oven (which we rarely used) and even our laundry room. If you’ve been looking for a new residential or commercial cleaning service, you won’t find better than Erica and Reggie of Final Touch. 

For more info, call Final Touch Cleaning at (813) 530-5591. 

And finally, although our air conditioning works great in our new place, Jannah and I have always had ceiling fans in our bedrooms and living room and we realized that there were none in our new place, which has a third bedroom that we are now using as our first dedicated home office space. 

We bought four nice-looking ceiling fans from a local home improvement warehouse and rather than pay that company to install the fans, we hired our friend (and licensed electrician) Jorge Gonzalez of GQ Electric. The day we brought the fans home, Jorge (left in photo) and his assistant showed up to professionally install all four fans in about two hours, cleaned up after themselves and did it for less than what the home improvement store would have charged — and Jorge is just the nicest guy and super-trustworthy. For more info, call (352) 467-2412 or visit gqelectricneartampa.com. 

And, for more info about Silversaw Luxury Apartments, visit SilversawApts.com.

Hillsborough Seeking New Hearing In Pebble Creek Rezoning Case 

 Judge ‘Quashes’ County Commission’s Decision To Prevent Rezoning Of The Golf Course. So, What’s Next? 

Long-time Pebble Creek resident Leslie Green, who started the “Save Pebble Creek” organization, says her only motivation is to preserve the natural beauty of her community. Green is waiting to see what happens next in the attempt to rezone the Pebble Creek golf course.

 Long-time Pebble Creek resident Leslie Green is still in limbo, but it’s nothing new for the founder of “Save Pebble Creek,” the organization she started two years ago in an effort to prevent Pebble Creek Golf Club owner Bill Place and his Ace Golf from rezoning the golf course land to allow for further residential development. 

Development company GL Homes had attempted to rezone the 149-acre golf course property in order to build 250 single-family homes. At that time, Green and her Save Pebble Creek group began holding community meetings and distributing petitions asking the community to oppose Place’s plan to sell the golf course to GL Homes. And, although there were some members of the community who supported the idea of redeveloping the shuttered golf course, the campaign resulted in a flurry of emails to Hillsborough County Commission Chair and District 2 Commissioner Ken Hagan. 

Place then sued Green for defaming his character and for interfering with his attempts to find a developer. She filed a countersuit in May 2022, but then sought to have Place’s suit dismissed under Florida’s Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute. A little more than two years later, that case still has not been decided. 

In July of 2023, GL Homes’ attempt to rezone the golf course property was denied 5-2 by the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), after Hagan said he had received 1,800 letters from residents of the community, the vast majority of which were in opposition to the rezoning. 

Green, whose home has faced the golf course for more than 30 years, applauded Hagan’s efforts to preserve the beauty of her community. Hagan said at the time that Place only had a couple of options going forward: 

“He can come up with another developer with a different plan that might be more acceptable to the residents,” Comm. Hagan said after the July 17 meeting. “We’ve also discussed the possibility of the county purchasing the golf club to convert it to a county-owned course, but he (Place) would have to come down in price a lot for us to be interested.” 

Green also suggested that Place might’ve been waiting for this year’s elections, when three of the seven Commission seats are up for grabs, in the hopes that perhaps the new commissioners might look more favorably upon the rezoning proposal. 

But, GL Homes found another option. In October of last year, the home builder appealed the county commission’s denial of the rezoning request to Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Paul Huey. 

At the June 10 Town Hall meeting hosted by County Commissioner Ken Hagan, Leslie Green thanked Hagan for his efforts to prevent the rezoning of the Pebble Creek golf course.

Eight months later, on June 24, Judge Huey “quashed” the decision by the BOCC to deny the rezoning, which means, in legal terms, “to set aside or void.” (Note-For a lot more information about why the BOCC’s decision was quashed, see page 4.) It also meant that now, the county had its own decision to make: Either ask Judge Huey for a rehearing, appeal the judge’s verdict to a higher court, or allow GL Homes to proceed with its development plan. 

On July 5, the county filed a petition to the Circuit Court for a rehearing. 

Judge Huey’s ruling on the developer’s appeal was that, “The court cannot find that the Board of County Commissioners relied on competent, substantial evidence when it denied GL Homes’ proposal.” 

The judge also felt that the BOCC’s decision was more of a personal attack on Place, even though neither he nor his Ace Golf submitted the rezoning proposal. Although the Board’s original decision was based on the rezoning “not being infill and not compatible with the Comprehensive Plan,” the judge saw that GL Homes’ rezoning request was recommended for BOCC approval by the county’s Planning Commission and the zoning hearing master (ZHM), both of which said the proposed development was consistent with the comprehensive plan. 

The judge also noted that Hagan said he was basing his decision to deny the rezoning, in part, on the Pebble Creek resident emails that accused Place of “spiteful tactics, intimidation, vindictiveness, innuendo, and fearmongering.” 

But, in its petition for rehearing, the county claims that Judge Huey, “overlooked record evidence or misapprehended several points of law or fact in a manner that the County believes fundamentally affected the Court’s Order Granting Petition for Writ of Certiorari (“Order”). The County requests rehearing and requests that this Court rescind its Order Granting Petition for Writ of Certiorari and issue an Order Denying Petition for Writ of Certiorari.” 

In other words, the county said that Judge Huey did not consider all of the factual evidence upon which the county based its decision, claiming, “The Application for rezoning as proposed would result in a complete change to the character of the existing community, by eliminating the central feature of a neighborhood which has existed for decades. Further, this decision has the potential to impact redevelopment of other similar communities within the State of Florida.” 

The county’s arguments for requesting the rehearing included the following: 

1. There was Competent Substantial Evidence for the BOCC to Deny Petitioner’s Application. As the Court notes in its Order, the Florida Supreme Court has set forth a framework that requires rezoning applicants to prove that their proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan and complies with all procedural requirements of the zoning ordinance. If a rezoning applicant provides competent, substantial evidence that its application is consistent with the comprehensive plan, the Board may still deny the application to accomplish “a legitimate public purpose,” at which point the Board has “the burden of showing that the refusal to rezone the property is not arbitrary, discriminatory, or unreasonable.” 

2. The county’s petition also says, “Ultimately, the Court concluded that there was no competent substantial evidence that the Application did not comply with the Comprehensive Plan, nor was there competent substantial evidence to support the County’s legitimate public purpose for denying the Application. However, in reaching the above conclusions, the Court overlooked competent substantial record evidence on which the Board could have relied, or misapprehended several points of law or fact.” 

“Under this Court’s limited scope of review, it must be determined whether the record contains any competent substantial evidence to support the Board’s denial. In evaluating the evidence presented, it does not matter whether there is also evidence to support a conclusion different from that reached by the Board for ‘the point is that when the facts are such as to give the County Commission a choice between alternatives, it is up to the County Commission to make that choice — not the circuit court.’” 

As for the evidence that the BOCC made the correct decision, here is a summary of what the petition for rehearing says: 

1. [The Application] is inconsistent with he Comprehensive Plan. 

2. The open space character of the subject property is an integral part of the neighborhood. 

3. The removal of the open space around which the surrounding existing neighborhood was developed and constructed would not protect nor maintain the neighborhood’s character 

4. The golf course was opened in 1967, five years before the Pebble Creek Planned Development was rezoned. The golf course was included as a central part of the zoning, and integral to the neighborhood design. 

5. The golf course also was an integral part of the neighborhood’s character. The golf course is identified on the plan as the center of the planned development, around which the other uses in the neighborhood were designed and planned. 

6. Because the golf course came first, it is a central component — or cornerstone — of that planned development. To completely replace this use, which currently makes up 25 percent of the acreage of the planned development, with additional residential housing, is a significant change to the character of this golf course community. 

7. There is testimony in the record taken by the ZHM that supplements the other record evidence that the existing 150-acre golf course is the centerpiece of the neighborhood, and that to completely eliminate its use and to replace it with a residential development would be to lose an integral part of the neighborhood itself. 

8. Pebble Creek was “uniquely designed” to incorporate the golf course, and by removing it “you are removing the very thing that built the community.” The golf course was a “primary reason” or “major factor” for some of the homeowners to live in the community. 

9. In the Court’s Order, the Court notes that “[t]he Board argues logically that because the neighborhood was designed and built around the golf course, the land acts as a fundamental ‘centerpiece,’” which appears to imply that that the Board’s determination about the neighborhood having been designed and built around the golf course was based merely on logic and inference, rather than substantial competent evidence in the record. However, the County used future land use maps, zoning maps, the prior approved plan, and lay witness fact-based testimony to support its determination. 

10. The Board also cited evidence that supports that the retention of the existing zoning accomplishes “a legitimate public purpose.” As argued at the Hearing, the legitimate public purpose is to protect the character of the neighborhood, which is not only a recognized public purpose under current case law, but also a mandate of the County’s Comprehensive Plan. 

11. Judge Huey also ruled that the Board’s decision was based, in part, on the belief that the president of Ace Golf “lacks good sense and common decency.” However, the basis for the Board’s denial must be found in its adopted resolution, and not in singular comments made by a particular commissioner regarding an application or voting on an application. 

The Board’s petition concluded that, “The record contained competent, substantial evidence that the Application was inconsistent with the County’s Comprehensive Plan, and that there was a legitimate public purpose to maintain the existing zoning, and therefore support a denial of the Application. Moreover, the Court misstated the Board’s reasons for denial of the Application by relying on a commissioners’ comments rather than the Board-adopted resolution.” 

Comm. Hagan says that once Judge Huey rules on the Petition for Rehearing, the county has 30 days to accept his decision or appeal the judge’s ruling to an appellate court. 

Meanwhile, Green says, “We still feel that the BOCC made the right decision and the rehearing will give them the opportunity to give the judge more clarity to see that they did in fact use proper evidence in making their decision.” 

The bottom line, she adds, is that, “This is my home. Rezoning the golf course will change completely the character and beauty of our neighborhood forever.” 

She’s holding out hope that the county’s Tampa Sports Authority will be able to purchase the golf course and reopen it, as Comm. Hagan mentioned could happen at his June 10 New Tampa Town Hall meeting (as we reported last issue). 

In the meantime, all Leslie Green can do is continue to wait.Â