State to review St. Lucie plan to preserve rural land

By Rebecca Panoff
Staff Writer
September 23, 2005

Despite concern about the density of a potential new town in the north end of the county, the St. Lucie County Commission voted unanimously Thursday night to send the Rural Lands Stewardship program to the Department of Community Affairs for state review.

The program is a partnership between Adams Ranch and developer Family Lands Remembered to conserve rural land on the ranch in return for raising the density on the developer's property known as Cloud Grove.

Adams family representative Mike Adams said the program is in keeping with his family's history of preservation.

"We tend to look down the road ... look generationally how our land is going to look 20 years, 30 years in the future," Adams said.

The partnership would give the family of Alto "Bud" Adams Jr. financial incentives to permanently protect from development a large portion of their 16,466-acre property in unincorporated St. Lucie County west of Fort Pierce. The family would sell "stewardship credits" to Family Lands Remembered, and those credits would be worth higher density on the Cloud Grove property.

The value of the credits would be based on the quality of environmental resources on the Adams property.

Plans for the Cloud Grove property call for a mixed-use, pedestrian friendly community with about 10,000 to 15,000 homes, according to project consultant Al Reynolds. The almost 5,000-acre property is now zoned for about 1,200 homes.

After DCA review, the plan will return so the county can address any concerns the agency raises. The last step in the process is final commission adoption.

"Tonight is not the final. This is not the end, it is really the beginning," County Commission Chairwoman Frannie Hutchinson said. "This should reassure the public there will be plenty of opportunity for input."

County Commissioner Doug Coward said although he favors the plan, he is not comfortable with the proposed density for the Cloud Grove property.

"I think we're giving too much (density)," he said.

The county planning and zoning board also raised questions about increased density when it reviewed the plan earlier this month.

Some Indian River County residents raised concerns at the meeting because their aviation community is just the other side of the county line from Cloud Grove.

Fly-In Ranches resident Susan Harris said her fly-in home was her husband's dream, and she worries that new residents of the Cloud Grove land will complain about aviation noise when it's a town.

"We have an opportunity, and opportunity can go both ways," she said.

Hutchinson said one cure for the aviation noise might be for the county to require more sound insulation in the Cloud Grove homes.

rebecca.panoff@scripps.com

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