Greedy Eustis craves ugly urban sprawl.
Eustis used to be such a harmless little minnow of a town in a sea of Central Florida cities. Now, it’s the shark on the prowl, eager to profit on growth from the last stretch of the expressway loop around Orlando, the Wekiva Parkway.
The city of 20,000 is fighting with Lake County to let it annex property more than 11 miles east of its downtown — a 20-minute drive that rolls right through the heart of the unincorporated rural community of Sorrento.
If Eustis wins this one, the city would be more than 18 miles long. What is this, Los Angeles? Will SunRail build a stop at the feed store? This is delusional — it’s urban sprawl on speed.
Worse yet, it’s a clumsy grab to profit from existing upscale houses and from the growth coming to someone else’s community. The owner of a house with a taxable value of $200,000 after homestead exemptions would have to pay more than $1,500 a year in city taxes — on top of county, school and other taxes — for the privilege of living in Eustis.
Places in Orange, Osceola and Seminole threw up subdivisions and strip centers as the expressway that circles Orlando came to their area — it just happened. The land grab going on in Sorrento is more calculated and more troubling, and it’s rivaled only by similar ones in Groveland, a city where logic plays almost no role, and Apopka, the property pitbull of northwest Orange.
More than a decade ago, developers in Sorrento wanted to build in a rural area that didn’t have services for the number of houses they envisioned. They needed utilities. So they coaxed Eustis to extend them to subdivisions such as RedTail, an upscale golf community on State Road 46 in Sorrento, and Sorrento Springs subdivision at State Road 44 and County Road 437.
Those developments never should have been built, but Lake County commissioners at the time never met a subdivision to which they couldn’t gratefully affix their lips. Developers got the homeowners to sign agreements to annex into Eustis when it became possible.
Now, thanks to the Legislature, cities can annex areas that aren’t even connected to them. It’s this marvelous law that is giving Eustis the chance to compound its error, and of course, the city couldn’t resist. The smart thing would have been to acknowledge that Eustis had gotten greedy and just walk away. But, no. Eustis Commissioner Anthony Sabatini said staffers told him that annexing the stretch means city taxes could be reduced by $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value and that having the property won’t cost Eustis much because police and fire stations would be “lightly” staffed. Whatever are they smoking in Eustis City Hall?
People in Sorrento will demand the same services if they’re paying the same taxes as downtown residents.
Too bad it’s not enough that the city already charges utility customers in the area 125 percent of what city residents pay. Even so, City Manager Ron Neibert contended, Eustis has been subsidizing the cost of utilities since they were installed, and it is time for residents to become “full partners.” Full partners? More like cash cows.
“Lake County has already changed the rural nature out there by allowing subdivisions,” Neibert said. And Sabatini argued that the future of Sorrento isn’t rural.
“Presently, it’s semi-rural, but that’s not going to be the future of that area — I just don’t see it,” he said.
Thankfully, neither Neibert nor Sabatini get to decide — county commissioners do.
County Commissioner Leslie Campione is furious and fighting the proposal. Residents were never given any “meaningful” explanation when they agreed to annex, she said. Sorrento “would be destroyed,” and residents shouldn’t be forced into annexing.
She’s spot on. Sorrento, founded 140 years ago by slaves freed from the Delk Plantation near Rock Springs in nearby Orange County, is a distinct community with a quirky culture of its own.
The Wekiva Parkway is under construction right now, so things certainly will be changing. Still, the number of interchanges was limited to just a few, and the parkway was designed to disrupt the character of the community as little as possible.
Under Eustis’ proposal, the city would take in — and tax — about 1,965 parcels of land, including 800 houses. It’s hard to imagine anything Eustis could give folks in Sorrento that would be worth the kind of money they’d have to fork over in taxes.
This is the last stretch of expressway around Orlando, the last chance to get it right. But it’s not over yet. The next negotiation on the matter between the county, Eustis and Mount Dora, which also has objections, is set for 9:30 a.m. May 15 at Eustis City Hall.