Parks, trail among ideas for St. Lucie grove enclave

Date: January 26, 2006
By Jim Reeder Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

PORT ST. LUCIE — A 5,000-acre town with 12,000 residential units is taking shape, at least on paper, in western St. Lucie County.

Several dozen residents have attended two sessions this month to tell developers what they would like to see in this town, which will start from scratch in a canker-infected citrus grove.

Their wishes weren't too surprising.

They want plenty of parks, a system of trails and sidewalks, and recreational use of a 640-acre reservoir that already exists on the property.

There should be educational opportunities for children as well as senior citizens and public places — plazas and lawns — where people can meet at festivals, green markets and similar events.

"We've had a lot of good feedback," said Stephen Kaufman, director of planning for Florida Conservancy & Development Group. "We hope to incorporate it in our plan."

About 30 to 40 people showed up at Indian River Community College campus during the latest meeting Wednesday night to discuss the town.

Developers of Cloud Grove at the St. Lucie-Indian River county line are trying to design all their ideas into neighborhoods and towns that will have a mix of housing types and the proper amount of commercial area to serve the people in those houses.

"This is in the very preliminary stages," Anita Jenkins of WilsonMiller planners in Naples said. "We hope we'll have something this year to show people."

The development will provide houses and businesses, but it also will help preserve the 16,000-acre Adams Ranch, known for its environmental preservation as well as for its Braford cattle.

Alto "Bud" Adams and his family could have built thousands of houses on their property, but instead decided to sell the development rights to the Florida Conservation & Development Group, which will construct the buildings on Cloud Grove.

It's one of the first efforts under the state's Rural Lands Stewardship Program, an effort to save environmentally sensitive land and help farmers stay in business.

The developers will get bonus development rights according to the type of land that is saved on the Adams Ranch. They might get no more than one unit per 5 acres for land with little environmental value, but will be able to multiply the units for saving wetlands or other environmentally sensitive property.

Another public workshop will be held this year as the development plan nears completion.

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