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Planning Committee Seeks To Include All

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By TOM BRENNAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 15, 2007

Updated: 09/13/2007 07:11 pm

BRANDON - It's not like a local version of Manifest Destiny.

Brandon residents aren't trying a land-grab.

But a number of them believe surrounding communities would be better off joining forces in a planning effort that is in the early stages.

'Planning together will allow each community to remain individual but to have some type of unified component,' said Laura Simpson, vice president for business and community development for the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce. 'If we do it piecemeal, that isn't going to happen.'

The subject came up when residents began working to establish boundaries for the Brandon Community Plan - an effort to determine what is unique about the area; create a vision of how the community should grow; and establish benchmarks to achieve those goals.

It is one of a number of such efforts throughout the county, designed to give residents a sense of self-determination, even if it may be limited by other county rules and regulations.
County planners put the starting borders at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Bloomingdale Avenue, U.S. 301 and Valrico Road.

Those will be debated at the next meeting of the plan's working committee at 6 p.m. Sept. 24 at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 402 E. Lumsden Road. The meeting is open to the public.

Simpson and others have said the margins should be nudged out to at least include Bloomingdale, if not Valrico.

'Since we are just starting, this is the time we should be having the discussion,' she said.

The expansionists have an ally in the Bloomingdale Homeowners Association.

'If Bloomingdale is not included in the overall Brandon Community Plan, it possibly would not be for several years until another attempt by the county would address our issues and needs,' said Joe Hickle, the association's president.

'Bloomingdale is a vital part of Brandon and chooses to be included.'

Bloomingdale is scheduled for its own community plan, but the effort isn't budgeted to begin until 2011.

'With all the money problems, who knows if they will have the cash to implement it?' asked George May, Brandon's honorary mayor who is active in the chamber and the homeowners group.

'I don't like the way they are dividing all the communities up,' he said. 'I don't want Bloomingdale to be left out.'

Joe Incorvia, the county's chief of community planning, said such boundary tussles are common.

'We have the discussion in every single community plan,' he said. 'About 90 percent always want the area bigger at the beginning, and in 90 percent of the final plans it always shrinks.'

Incorvia said the starting boundaries were drawn with an eye to other community plans that have been completed, are under way or are slated for the future.

Riverview and Palm River residents are doing one. Those living in Seffner are slated to beginthis month. One for Valrico is on tap for fall 2008. Those in Thonotosassa have completed theirs.

Residents wanting a broader approach said individual community character could be protected but still give those passing through a sense of continuity.

'Whether it is landscaping or design elements, I don't know,' Simpson said. 'But it can be done.'

Hickle said traffic is a major issue for Bloomingdale, and it could only be improved by a unified approach throughout the area.

Incorvia said the county will agree to boundaries the residents set.

'It all gradually sorts itself out on its own,' he said. 'These plans are supposed to give individual unincorporated communities a chance to plan their future in a unique and special way.'

IF YOU GO

WHAT: The Brandon Community Plan working committee meeting, open to the public

WHEN: 6 p.m. Sept. 24

WHERE: Westminster Presbyterian Church, 402 E. Lumsden Road

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 657-4528 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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