Breaking news! July 30th Open House

Keystone community - please attend!!

D.R. Horton and their attorneys are holding a community "open house" next Wednesday, July 30th from 6pm-7:30pm at our Keystone Park and Recreation Center.

HC/CPA 25-11 and HC/CPA 25-12 are intertwined and seek to expand the urban service area in our rural service area to allow densities not allowed in Keystone.

The Planning Commision found these applications INCONSISTENT with the Unincorporated Hillsborough County Comprehensive Plan.

This proposed development of up to 153 townhomes by D.R. Horton (Major Modification rezoning 25-0808) goes against the Keystone-Odessa Community Plan.

Urban expansion into Keystone-Odessa goes against not only our Keystone-Odessa community plan but our way of life.

This urban expansion undermines the peaceful and harmonious community that generations of Keystone-Odessa families have worked hard to build and robs us of our precious resources.

Based on the traffic analysis and information provided by the applicant and the Planning Commission, there is not adequate capacity to accommodate the additional generated trips. This assumes that all the 2045 Cost Feasible improvements will be constructed.

This increase in traffic affects ALL who travel Van Dyke Rd. It affects Cheval West who use Ramblewood Rd to access Van Dyke Rd, it affects those using the Suncoast and as a reminder, we have a state of the art hospital with St Joe’s North on Van Dyke Rd. Traffic congestion significantly impacts ambulance response times.

A portion of this site contains wetlands and a portion of the site is in Flood Zone AE which indicates a 100 year floodplain.

The build up needed for up to 153 townhomes with potential of commercial along with needed paved parking would be catastrophic to the neighboring homes surrounding this property with an average thunderstorm. The county is still recovering from flooding from last years hurricanes.

Fire Rescue Department:  The proposed changes to this land would have an impact on HCFR as additional dwellings would increase call volumes and response which could require the department to add an additional unit (Rescue/Ambulance) to the Van Dyke Road Fire Station 34.

Are there plans for another Fire Station to be built by this developer? Nope. So if your house is on fire, do you want to wait on a longer response time for help to arrive?

School Capacity: Most families with kids move to an area based on schools. Overdevelopment puts schools over capacity. In this case, Steinbrenner High School.

Does that mean the developer will build a new school? Nope.

The way Tallahassee wrote the bill, it doesn’t matter if there are no seats at local schools where a developer wants to put in a subdivision as long as there is a seat anywhere in the school district. Obviously that doesn’t make sense so someone’s gonna have to be shifted to a different school. Well guess what? The law also states that the new kids are not allowed to be sent to a different area. The existing students must be moved to a different school. A developer just has to write a check based on a formula of how much per student the existing school will be over capacity if you allow them to build the new subdivision and then the school board puts it into an account that is supposedly not able to be spent. As of the last report there is $95 million sitting in that account.