Santa Rosa County will allow construction of a controversial East Milton subdivision
The perceived need for attainable housing for military personnel and workers arriving to take jobs within Santa Rosa County's growing transportation/distribution sector took precedence Thursday over concerns of citizens living now along Hickory Hammock Road in East Milton.
County commissioners voted 4-1 to allow developer Alexander Pryor to build 109 homes on Hickory Hammock Road east of its intersection with Coachman Road.
To obtain the requested residential zoning he needed to squeeze the subdivision onto 25 acres, Pryor had to make a couple of key compromises. He agreed to build a Septic Tank Effluent Pump or STEP waste treatment system to handle sewage flow off of the property and to put 20 acres of land at the southern end of his 66-acre parcel into a conservation easement that could never be developed.
Another 20 acres will remain zoned agricultural.
Pryor also agreed not to clear cut the property he is developing and to leave lots wooded until home building commences.
Residents living in the vicinity of the planned subdivision argued that new homes, along with the traffic and pressure on existing infrastructure, are the last thing fast growing East Milton needs right now.
"Subdivisions are being allowed to be put anywhere and everywhere," Hickory Hammock Road resident Jessica Hierholzer told commissioners. "I don't know who thinks it's a good idea to keep moving more and more people to our area when we can't handle the traffic now."
More: Hickory Hammock Road area residents say proposed subdivision threatens their way of life
County Commission Chairman Sam Parker countered those arguments by talking about a briefing he had recently attended at which an Air Force general said a lack of available housing is hindering the military's Northwest Florida mission. He said he's hearing the same thing from leaders at the county's Whiting Field.
"What we're hearing from our military leaders, is that if you want to keep the military bases here, they've got to have housing," Parker said.
Pryor, who had a more sophisticated presentation for county commissioners Thursday than he'd provided to the county's zoning board earlier in the month, provided statistics showing that the average median housing cost in the county today is $330,000, up from $225,000 in 2020.
Information provided by Pryor also showed a deficit of available housing, and though he did not provide information as to what the home prices will be when his subdivision is completed, he has said his goal is to construct attainable housing.
County Commissioner Kerry Smith, in whose district the new subdivision will be constructed, reinforced the need for area housing.
"We need housing. We don't have houses. We don't have plenty of houses. That's what's driving the prices so high," he said.
Pryor entered Thursday's meeting with drawings showing plans to build 144 homes, some of which would have been constructed in the agriculturally zoned parcel behind the rezoned 25 acres. He agreed to limit the development to 109 homes, which he told commissioners was the minimum he could put in to make the entire project "feasible" given the other concessions he was making.
"That's the minimally feasible number in order to check all the boxes on the STEP system and being able to fulfill our promises," he said.
The STEP system sewage treatment facility Pryor has said he will construct at the development site is similar to a sewage package plant in which household waste will be treated on-site and cleansed "effluent" deposited onto the ground at a Rapid Infiltration Basin System, where it will evaporate or is be absorbed.
Pryor said Milton Public Works Director Joe Cook has assured his development team that the Hickory Hammock station can be tied into the city's wastewater treatment system when lines from a new treatment plant are extended to Hickory Hammock Road.
Smith, who made the motion to approve the Pryor development with the compromises agreed to, said Pryor's willingness to utilize sewage treatment rather than install septic tanks within the proposed subdivision had helped convince him to go along with the plan.
Among those protesting the rezoning request was Tim Evans, who owns an RV campground and owns and operates a public water system south of where the development will be. Evans has expressed fears that contaminated water leeching off of the subdivision will impact his high quality artesian spring fed water.
Evans expressed Friday his disappointment not only with the Thursday rezoning decision, but also the way commissioners had treated him and other people attending the meeting.
"They treated all of us like they had already made their minds up," he said. "They were like faceless mannequins that only listened to us because they had to."
He said the only consolation he had taken from the meeting was that Commissioner Ray Eddington had opposed the rezoning and argued that the commission should slow down the pace at which it is approving development.
"It didn't matter to any one of them but Mr. Eddington that I had spent my entire life building this life," he said. "There's not question what will happen when you build a sewage waste system that's literally sitting upon a natural spring system. It's just very discouraging."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa County approves controversial East Milton subdivision