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Plans for new
town on St. Lucie, Indian River border will be
revisited
Date: January
26, 2006
Edition: Scripps Newspapers
Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News/The Tribune
By
REBECCA PANOFF
rebecca.panoff@scripps.com
More brainstorming was the theme of Wednesday
night's forum about a new town planned to straddle
the border between St. Lucie and Indian River
counties.
Most of the meeting, at the FAU-IRCC St. Lucie
West Campus, was spent revisiting ideas discussed
roundtable style at an initial meeting Jan. 5.
Those ideas included creating a network of pedestrian
paths for recreation, improving the reservoir
environment and recreational use of a reservoir,
providing joint facilities such as a community
park and school, and promoting art in public places.
One thing people stressed at the first meeting
was accessibility to the area for different types
of transportation.
"We need to be able to get there by foot, by
bike and auto and we need to pay attention to
that...," said Anita Jenkins of consultants WilsonMiller
Inc.
As with the first meeting, tables were set up
for people to discuss topics like natural environment,
education, the town center and cultural amenities.
Prototypes of what parts of the town might look
like made it easy for attendees to see their ideas
from the previous meeting take shape. The town
center prototype, for example, showed the town
center next to the reservoir with a public space
meant for art.
"With the town center, you want to have as much
activity 24 hours a day that you can," Jenkins
said.
The next step for planners is to take the information
from the meeting and "test it" Jenkins said. They
also plan to do a summary of what they learned
at the dual meetings and eventually post it on
their Web site.
The plans are all for a new town on a 7,400-acre
old citrus grove, which is part of the Adams Ranch
Rural Land Stewardship comprehensive plan amendment.
It is being developed by Florida Conservance &
Development Group, a joint venture of developers
Lennar Corp. and Centex.
The project is still a few years in the making,
with plans to start development work two years
out and homes three years away.
"It's not going to spring up tomorrow," said
Ernie Cox, an attorney for Family Lands Remembered,
a Fort Pierce business involved with the project.
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