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Community Built In '80s Still Has Many Original Owners

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By LAURA FRAZIER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

BRANDON - Pearl Chiarenza toured dozens of houses for sale in Hillsborough County, but she said the minute she pulled off Bell Shoals Road to see a listing in South Oak, she knew she had found her family's new home.

"I didn't even care what the house we were going to see looked like inside, I knew I wanted to live here," Chiarenza said. "It just looked so quaint and friendly and very established."

Roger Ehau, who has lived in South Oak for nearly a decade, said at least a third of the 80 residences are occupied by original owners who built custom houses in the 1980s.

"It's the type of place that once you live here, you don't want to live anywhere else," said Ehau, a past president of the neighborhood's homeowners association.

The majority of home sites, which range from 1 to 7 acres, center on nearly 50 acres of heavily wooded conservation land, Ehau said.

The area is home to a host of wildlife seldom seen in such suburban environs. Neighbors frequently spot bobcats, foxes, hawks, ospreys, owls and gopher tortoises.

In March, residents whose property abuts a man-made retention pond on the outskirts of the community got together to clear tangles of overgrowth from its banks and remove a slimy, green slick of duckweed that had accumulated on the water's surface.

Resident Dave Cooley coordinated the project, with the help of student volunteers from Bloomingdale High School, homeowners from Sandy Creek Manors in Bloomingdale - whose homes abut the other side of the pond - and Hillsborough County Adopt-A-Pond staff.

Some homeowners went door to door last fall with a petition asking Hillsborough County to remedy inadequate street lighting. As a result, the county installed 22 new light poles in the spring.

"There are a lot of people who go out and walk at night, and we wanted to make sure the neighborhood was well-lit," Ehau said.

The neighbors faced another safety concern head-on this fall when changes to the Hillsborough County School District's transportation plan called for Cimino Elementary School students living in South Oak to cross Bell Shoals Road to catch the bus.

Chiarenza rallied neighbors to picket at the bus stop and launched an e-mail and phone call campaign to get the stop changed. By October, the group persuaded district officials to pick up children inside the subdivision, away from busy, two-lane Bell Shoals.

Chiarenza also serves as chairwoman of the neighborhood social committee, which organized a yard sale in November and has plans for a Christmas cookie exchange, bunko group and spring festival. She said she loves the neighborly atmosphere of the community she moved into two years ago and was recently impressed by the spirit of friendship evident in South Oak on Halloween night.

"Almost everyone was handing out candy to the kids, and a glass of wine or soda to the adults. I called my friends up north and told them, 'We did trick-or-treating all wrong!'"

SOUTH OAK

WHERE: Off Bell Shoals Road south of Bloomingdale Avenue in Brandon.

HOMES: 80 single-family homes ranging from 2,400 to more than 3,000 square feet on home sites from one to seven acres.

ESTABLISHED: 1981

HOA: The South Oak Homeowners Association will hold its annual board meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 6 at Bloomingdale West Park, 3940 Canoga Park Drive, Brandon.

INFORMATION: Chris Lewis, (813) 689-5777

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523 or lfrazier@tampatrib.com.

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