Category: News

Wesley Chapel Borders To Be Defined By April?

Pasco County planner Matt Armstrong and Wesley Chapel borders — Pasco County planner Matt Armstrong hopes to settle the debate over Wesley Chapel borders.

Following presentations last month by both the Greater Wesley Chapel (WCCC) and Central Pasco (CPCC) Chambers of Commerce, the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) could be set Wesley Chapel borders with Lutz/Land O’Lakes that ultimately should finally settle a long-simmering dispute at the BCC’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 26.

The commissioners are expected to vote on a recommendation from Pasco planners on definitive borders between the two Census Designated Places (Wesley Chapel and Land O’Lakes/Lutz together are both CDPs) during the meeting at the West Pasco Government Center Board Room in New Port Richey.

Until then, county planners and administrators are poring over a stack of documents from each side — and even getting some help from the folks at Google maps —interpreting where those borders should be.

“We are looking to establish a city boundary by legislative action,’’ said Matt Armstrong, the county’s executive planner. “None of these areas that are Census Designated Places have that. That’s some of the reason people have struggled with this.”

After separate meetings with the two groups last month, Armstrong said representatives from both areas will meet with each other in the next few weeks, with the county’s planning department serving as the moderator.

“Ultimately, we will be bringing a report to the Board of County Commissioners with a recommendation on what we think the boundaries will be,’’ Armstrong says. “The Board can hear public comment, and then we will be asking them to establish the borders.”

When broken down, the primary dispute seems to be over the slice of land between Wesley Chapel Blvd. and I-75 in the Cypress Creek Town Center Development of Regional Impact (DRI), which has been exacerbated recently by the steady business development in the area.

Armstrong said he was at one recent border meeting where a representative from one of the new businesses on the east side of Wesley Chapel Blvd. said they were happy to “be here in Lutz.”

But, take a look at the web page for Culver’s, which calls its restaurant on E. Bearss Ave. in Tampa “Culver’s of Tampa,” its restaurant in Largo “Culver’s of Largo,” and its restaurant in Port Richey “Culver’s of Port Richey.” At its brand new location on S.R. 56 west of the Tampa Premium Outlets mall, however (which physically is located on Sun Vista Dr. in Lutz), it is called “Culver’s of Wesley Chapel.”

And it isn’t alone. While all of the area being debated by the WCCC and CPCC has either Land O’Lakes or Lutz addresses and zip codes, many businesses in the area identify themselves as being in Wesley Chapel.

“It’s just a mess,’’ Armstrong says.

Where Are The Wesley Chapel borders?

While the current debate is about borders, it originally began, as we detailed in our last issue, as a disagreement over the renaming of the Wesley Chapel Blvd. extension where the extension now crosses southbound over S.R. 56 and continues toward County Line Rd.

The southern portion of the extension, said CPCC member Sandy Graves at the time, needed to represent Lutz-Land O’Lakes, the area through which it cuts. A petition requesting that the name of the southern portion of the extension be changed to Circle O Ranch was presented to the BCC on Jan. 19. But, Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce CEO Hope Allen protested, saying it needed to remain Wesley Chapel Blvd., as all of the businesses in the area already call it that and have for years.

Instead of making a decision, the BCC decided to explore the issue further. The Board members decided that defining the borders between Lutz-Land O’Lakes and Wesley Chapel needed to be settled first.

That set off a fact-finding mission by each side, in an effort to buttress their respective arguments. Representatives of Lutz-Land O’Lakes believe their border extends west to I-75. The Wesley Chapel side thinks its western border extends to Wesley Chapel Blvd. So, essentially, the area between Wesley Chapel Blvd. and I-75 is at the heart of the dispute.

The Wesley Chapel Chamber met with Armstrong and his staff Feb. 19, two weeks after he met with the CPCC.

“I think the meeting went fine,’’ said Allen. “I think we got our point across and delivered the message we went to deliver.”

Allen said her group presented a 70-page document backing their claims, as well as a 2005 Vision Report that the WCCC says was approved by Pasco commissioners.

The CPCC countered that its 2003 Vision Report was adopted first, and brought noted USF political science professor Susan McManus to its meeting with Armstrong to help make their case. McManus has co-written books on the history of Lutz and Land O’Lakes.

Armstrong jokes that he is becoming an expert on the histories of the two places, thanks to all of the material that has been presented to him to help settle the dispute, including volumes of McManus’ work, a trove of newspaper articles and even local historian Madonna Jervis Wise’s book on the history of Wesley Chapel (see pg. 1). The book, entitled Images of America: Wesley Chapel, says that Wesley Chapel was founded in the 1840s, and is shown on a 1879 survey map of Pasco County, before Land O’Lakes was established in 1949.

However, the dispute is not over what town existed first. And, even in carefully-researched historical records, there are no definitive boundaries laid out because neither area was ever incorporated, or essentially created as its own city with its own governmental structure.

But, the respective “hearts” of both areas — U.S. 41 in Land O’Lakes and the area around Boyette Rd. and S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel — are unmistakable, says Armstrong.

“The history points to early beginnings, and we know where the hearts of those communities are,’’ Armstrong said. “But, the boundary in between gets a little fuzzy.”

Pasco County currently only has six incorporated areas — the cities of Zephyrhills, Dade City, San Antonio, Port Richey and New Port Richey, and the incorporated town of Saint Leo.

The rest of the county is comprised of unincorporated Census Designated Places, like Wesley Chapel, Land O’Lakes/Lutz, Trinity and Hudson, to name a few. And, Armstrong says that 450,000 of the 490,000 people living in Pasco reside in those currently unincorporated areas.

Armstrong admits that so many areas without defined borders can create the kind of confusion we are seeing in Wesley Chapel and Lutz/Land O’Lakes, where postal zip codes have changed and there is a myriad of other “boundaries,” which can be confusing.

“Part of the frustration for the citizens who lives in any one of these places is, ‘What the heck, the zip code says this, the Census Designated Place says something else, my kids are going to school based on other boundaries and my voting precinct is somewhere else,’’’ Armstrong says. “It’s been like this for years, and now, it’s coming to a head.”

That’s actually a good thing, he says, because it is being done in the open and publicly. Much of the Lutz-Land O’Lakes anger stems from the belief that past decisions made by the BCC cut the area out of the process to accommodate Wesley Chapel’s growth and ongoing “branding.”

Wesley Chapel Blvd. is an example, according to Graves. It sprouted as a road name for the portion of S.R. 54 from S.R. 56 to Lexington Oaks when the Lutz-Land O’Lakes contingent thought it was going to be Worthington Gardens Blvd., a decision she said “happened overnight.”

The former “Wesley Chapel” placemaker sign was another example cited by Graves. It was put up a few hundred feet west of where Wesley Chapel Blvd. begins, clearly in Lutz’s 33559 zip code. Armstrong said the sign’s arrival “lit a match” in Pasco, and Graves led the fight to have the sign removed — which it was.

“The whole process hasn’t been completely transparent,’’ Armstrong says. “But, this time, it is.”

Both sides have been passionate about their arguments. The claim that the area, its residents and businesses would be much better served if the area was clearly defined as theirs. And, both claim history is on their side.

History, though, may give way to common sense.

“We will collect all of the history from both groups and look at some of the rational (potential) boundaries between the two things,’’ Armstrong says. “There may be a natural feature that divides the two, or a major road. But, it needs to make sense today, and that may be separate from history.”

Local Historian Publishes The Definitive History Of Wesley Chapel!

DanielSmithWesleyChapelCrackerHouse — This house was built for Daniel H. Smith and Elizabeth Geiger, who were engaged, in 1894. It was donated in 1979 by the Smiths’ grandson, Willie Smith, to the hands-on exhibit at the Florida State Fairgrounds known as “Cracker Country.” Photo courtesy of Ernest Wise.

As Wesley Chapel grows and adds shiny new housing development after shiny new housing development, businesses as far as the eye can see and all the comforts of modern living, it’s hard to imagine our area as a hardscrabble agricultural and rural town with a long, rich history.

Author Madonna Jervis Wise, however, brings that unique history into focus with her latest book, Images of America: Wesley Chapel, a fresh glimpse of Wesley Chapel’s history through extensive research and hundreds of old photos and maps being officially released on Monday, March 21, by Arcadia Publishing/History Press. A launch event for the book will be held on Thursday, March 31, at the first annual History Fair at the Pasco Hernando State College (PHSC)-Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch off S.R. 56, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., in the conference room.

The president of the Pasco County Historical Society and a Pasco County resident for 43 years, Wise has written nine books — including Images of America: Dade City and Images of America: Zephyrhills — and was asked by her publisher to do a book about Wesley Chapel.

While her previous books on Dade City and Zephyrhills were written with a wealth of information in library and government archives, Wise says her Wesley Chapel book required more digging. But, with each layer she peeled away, new stories emerged.

“It really became a labor of love,’’ says Wise, who lists the Douglas family who ran the K-Bar Ranch (south of the Pasco line, in New Tampa) and many of the Porters, who developed the Wiregrass Ranch area, as her friends.

Wise says she was shocked to learn that Wesley Chapel actually is older than Zephyrhills — it was settled in the 1840s, when land was granted to Edward Boyette, Sr., in the Florida Armed Occupation Act of 1842. It was so sparsely populated, however, there were few historical references for Wise to draw upon from that era.

She did, however, find the remaining turpentine foreman’s house on the Barnes Ranch, which is 150 years old, and Daniel Smith’s pioneer cracker home, which was donated to the Cracker Country Hands-on Museum (currently located at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa) in 1979.

Much of Wise’s research on Wesley Chapel’s beginnings in the 1840s took place in Brooksville. Because Pasco County didn’t exist until 1887, locals had to travel to Brooksville for marriage licenses and other official documents.

“I discovered a very rich history as I uncovered it,’’ Wise says. “I had to go back and do a lot of interviews.”

Wise did more than 30 original interviews and reviewed hundreds of photos from family collections. She connected with Marco Stanley, who had been researching his own family’s Wesley Chapel beginnings, on Ancestry.com. She met David Brown from the Barnes family, who had a wealth of information and connections. The First Baptist Church of Wesley Chapel, located on S.R. 54, east of Saddlebrook Resort, let her examine its records, which dated back to 1878.

Wise’s book is 128 pages and six chapters of family histories with more than 300 photos, including of families whose names are still familiar still to us: Boyette, Gillette, Godwin, Kersey and Wells, and others.

“There was a cohesiveness to these settlers,’’ Wise says.

The Double Branch Baptist Church (which is what is now called the First Baptist Church of Wesley Chapel) was the focus for community life, and Wise was told by dozens of people that the Fifth Sunday Sing, called the “Grand Ole Opry of Wesley Chapel” by one of the people she interviewed, captured the spirit of frontier Wesley Chapel, which was highly regarded for its singing.

Wesley Chapel also was known for its lumber harvesting — much of it under the control of Standard Oil Company founder and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and others – as well as for turpentine production. The area was known by various names over the years, like Gatorville, Double Branch (for the twin creeks that flowed through Edward Boyette’s property) and Godwin.

The plucky community also had a reputation for its moonshine production. During prohibition (in the 1920s), Wesley Chapel was the only town in Pasco county that was opposed to it. The community was accused of being home to 90 percent of the stills producing the liquor that was sold to Tampa.

And, the frontier women of Wesley Chapel were lauded for their hard work, as they ran many of the ranches, some even serving as the county’s supervisor of elections. “I’ve never seen such interesting women,’’ Wise says.

Wise, who developed her passion for historical research by compiling her own family’s history as a young adult, says she has received “overwhelming response” for her book, much of it from the families who are thrilled to have their history officially recorded.

Wise’s book is full of interesting nuggets, like the time the area once applied for a U.S. post office under the name Lemon, but was denied. Wesley Chapel did get a post office, located at the site of today’s Quail Hollow Country Club, from 1897-1902, although we do at least have a Contract Postal Unit on Boyette Rd. today.

S.R. 54 was originally Denham-Dade City Rd., an old dirt road used to transport lumber and turpentine, although Wise’s book says many referred to it as “2-2-20” after gravel replaced the dirt: 2 years to build, 2 years to wear out, 20 years to pay for it.

And, James H. Porter was called “Wiregrass” because every Christmas, Dade City Buick dealer Ed Madill would send Porter a box of matches to burn the wiregrass on the ranch, so the ashes fertilized the grass for the cattle.

“It’s fun with these books, because once they are published, people will find more information,’’ Wise says.

The First Annual History Fair at Pasco Hernando State College-Porter Campus will host a book launch reception for Images of America: Wesley Chapel on Thursday, March 31. Wise also will do a book signing on Saturday, April 2, 9 a.m., at the Florida Old Time Music Championship & Spring Fest at the Pioneer Museum & Village in Dade City.

For more information, visit Wise’s author page at Amazon.com/Madonna-Jervis-Wise/e/B003RGSJB6. Images of America: Wesley Chapel can be purchased on Amazon, Google Books or at Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Editorial: Quail Hollow Residents Oppose Converting Golf Course Into Residences

Quail Hollow meeting When I got the call from my friend and Quail Hollow resident Bill Sanders, who works at the New Tampa Postal Station in Tampa Palms, it was Friday afternoon, a few hours before I went to press with this issue.

I told him I didn’t think I could attend an impromptu meeting at the home of Quail Hollow HOA president Mark Patterson (who also goes by “Dan”) at 7 p.m., because it was too close to my midnight deadline and I didn’t think I could find space for it in this issue, as I had another editorial all ready to go and precious little other space left at that late hour.

“But, we really need some help,” Bill told me. “Did you know that they’re going to close the golf course (Quail Hollow Country Club, or QHCC) and replace it with more than 400 residences?”

I had actually read an article on TampaBay.com in May of last year about the possibility that golf course owner Andre Carrollo was “considering” rezoning the 175-acre property but that it wouldn’t be “anytime soon.” I also heard rumblings at my Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon meeting two days before Bill’s call to me that the course either had been sold or was going to be sold for development.

“I just don’t understand how we can be sold ‘golf course view’ lots at a premium (of the 30 or so Quail Hollow residents, who attended the meeting on March 4, all of whom live on Gentle Ben Cir., most paid at least a $10,000 lot “premium” to build their home with a view of the Quail Hollow golf course),” Bill said, obviously exasperated. “If you could attend the meeting, maybe you could get the word out that most of our neighbors are opposed to this.”

To his credit, Carrollo has invested millions in renovating the course and the clubhouse after buying it for $1.7 million about two years after QHCC was declared bankrupt and shut down. Carrollo has the right to try to finally turn a profit on his investment, and he already has approvals in place to build a little less than 300 single-family homes without going for a rezoning, but his in-house development division, which is a separate Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) from the course itself, wants to increase that total to more than 400 townhomes or attached houses.

“That means that many of us could have new homes in our backyards,” Patterson told the crowd. “I know some people think that the new homes will add value to our homes, but we don’t believe it’s true.”

All told, Gentle Ben Cir. has about 116 homes, at least 60 of which included those $10,000 lot premiums (totaling more than $800,000 that community residents paid to have “golf course views”). One resident told me that there are about 100 other homes which currently border on the golf course and about 400 total homes in all of the neighborhoods around the course.

“Those new homes are going to cause a lot of runoff,” Patterson said. “About 70 percent of what is now golf course will be impermeable land. They’ll have to build those homes up several feet, and the water will run off into our neighborhood.”

In addition to traffic and safety concerns, several residents noted that during the rainy seasons, the roads throughout Quail Hollow already flood badly. Patterson agreed that although the Southwest Florida Water Management District (aka “Swiftmud”) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers don’t allow water from one development to be “dumped” onto another, those entities won’t even get involved in looking at the project until after the rezoning hearing, which had not yet been scheduled at our press time

(Note-The rezoning application was submitted to Pasco County on Feb. 6, and representatives of the developer were set to meet with Pasco zoning officials the week of March 7.)

The meeting at Patterson’s house was primarily for informational and organizational purposes. He said that state law prohibits HOAs from using association funds to pay to fight rezonings, so he and a couple of other attendees were forming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and trying to raise money as individuals to retain an attorney. There’s even a GoFundMe page up and running. I told them I would try to get the group a meeting with Dist. 1 Pasco commissioner Mike Moore (who is a member of my Rotary Club) to at least apprise him of how they felt about it, even if there ends up being no way to stop it.

I’ll keep you posted. I also apologize in advance for any factual errors in this story because I threw it together so quickly.

Wesley Chapel High Hosts Relay for Life

The Wesley Chapel and Wiregrass Ranch Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society (ACS) will be held from Friday, April 1, at 6 p.m., until 6 a.m. on Saturday, April 2, at Wesley Chapel High on Wells Rd. The annual event will be fun for families while it’s open to the public Friday evening until 10 p.m., and event organizers invite everyone to attend.

Last year, 28 teams raised more than $50,000 at the Wesley Chapel/Wiregrass Ranch Relay. The money is used for cancer research, to support cancer patients (with rides to chemotherapy, help paying medical bills, information about cancer treatments and more).

This year, there are 32 teams signed up, and more than $30,000 already has been raised to date. The event organizers’ goal is to raise $65,000. Of the 32 teams signed up, eight are from local schools. Multiple teams are registered from both Wesley Chapel and Wiregrass Ranch high schools, and elementary schools including Watergrass, Wesley Chapel, Veterans and Quail Hollow also are supporting the effort.

Each team will display a booth exhibiting this year’s theme, Dr. Seuss. Each booth will be decorated to reflect one of Dr. Seuss’s books. There will be food vendors, plus drinks, snacks and treats available for purchase at some of the booths. Crafts, jewelry, scarves and other items also will be available for sale, and there will be face painting and other fun for the kids. There also are always plenty of prizes, and many baskets will be raffled off. All proceeds raised will benefit the ACS.

Parks Ford of Wesley Chapel will be there with new cars available for a test drive from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. Everyone who is 18 or older is invited to test drive a Ford at the event, and Parks Ford will donate $20 to the Relay for each test drive, up to $6,000.

“It’s not too late to join a team, form a team, or donate to a team,” says Barb Chenoweth, a member of the event’s leadership team. She adds that organizers are still looking for sponsors, which will receive benefits such promotional signage at the event, names on t-shirts, and on the event website. “We need the community to support the cause of finishing the fight to end all cancers from claiming people we love,” Chenoweth says.

The cause is dear to Chenoweth’s heart, because she herself is a cancer survivor. She will participate in the kickoff to the evening’s events, which is the “survivor lap,” where all cancer survivors and caregivers walk a lap on the track together. The survivors and caregivers are then treated to dinner.

All cancer survivors in the community are invited to register and participate in these events. To register as a survivor or caregiver, please e-mail amanda.aufiero@cancer.org or call 949-0291.

At 9 p.m., luminarias that have been decorated in honor of cancer survivors and in memory of those loved ones lost to cancer will be lit, which is always a beautiful tribute around the track. The event will be closed to the public at 10 p.m., while registered team members will continue walking the track throughout the night and into the morning.

Another way to support the event is to come to a wine and food pairing, hosted by A Time for Wine, at A Dash of Salt N Pepper on Cross Creek Blvd. in New Tampa on Tuesday, March 15, at 6 p.m. Tickets are $30. Make your reservation by calling A Time for Wine at 664-1430.

To learn more about Relay for Life, visit the event website at RelayForLife.org/WesleyChapelFL.

Pasco County Trying To Figure Out How To Pay For Parks Upgrades

Pasco County is looking to improve its parks and recreation facilities, but just how far the county can go to pay for sweeping changes and improvements could depend upon whether or not county residents are willing to pay for the upgrades.

A series of town hall meetings will be scheduled to sell and market the county’s Parks & Recreation department’s ideas to Pasco residents, who will likely have the last say in a voter referendum sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Some of the changes and enhancements being proposed include a recreation center and pool or splash pad at Wesley Chapel District Park on Boyette Rd., adding a playground, basketball courts, walking path and picnic shelters to the park in Meadow Pointe (I and II), and new parks at Wesley Chapel Lakes (Meadow Pointe III and IV) and the Wiregrass Ranch area.

County planner Justyna Buszewski presented a draft of the proposed 10-year Park & Recreations system master plan at Board of County Commissioners (BCC) chair (and District 3 commissioner) Kathyrn Starkey’s town hall in Lutz on Feb. 18.

Money is still a big issue, as Pasco’s parks are still recovering from the recession of 2008.

Three community centers, two parks and two pools were closed as a result, and 48 positions were eliminated. Staff reductions led to reduced maintenance, and some projects in the 2001 master plan were never completed.

Buszewski said that the deferred maintenance costs alone are $14 milllion.

The current draft shows that the county is interested in spending more than $200 million to repair and replace existing parks, put new facilities in existing parks, build new parks and perhaps adopt a premier park model, which would include things like splash pad playgrounds, shade structures for playgrounds and access to special-value facilities supported by the parks system, like wakeboard parks, aquatics complexes and even equestrian centers.

Some funding options mentioned by Pasco’s executive planner, Matt Armstrong, include a municipal service taxing unit (MSTU), with a focus on taxing “market areas” where the monies raised in each zone can only be used on parks in that zone. Other potential creative taxes, grants and partnerships with local businesses, schools and neighborhoods also are being considered, Armstrong said.

“The message we got (from county commissioners) was guys, go back out to community and tell them what the plan is,’’ Armstrong said. “Show pictures, show the way it is and show how it could be and tell them how much it will cost and ask them what they want to do about it.”

In a recent survey sent to 3,000 county residents, an impressive 621 respondents (more than 20 percent!) replied.

They were asked if they were given $100 to spend on park improvements, what would they use the money on? On average, the respondents said $20 should go to improved maintenance, $19 for improved maintenance on water-based facilities, $15 on acquiring new park land or open space, $12 on the improvement and maintenance to existing trails, $11 on the development of new trails, $9 on the improvement and maintenance to wildlife areas and campgrounds and $8 to the development of new sports facilities.

Also, when asked about establishing a dedicated funding source that could only be used to pay to operate and maintain parks and recreation facilities and programs, 45 percent of respondents were very supportive, and 25 percent were somewhat supportive.

Only 10 percent said they would not support spending the money.

“The survey says that they want stuff, and hopefully we get the same support when we go out there,’’ Buszewski said.