Residents worry
Markham Woods Road rezoning approved despite protest
a proposed subdivision along Markham Woods Road in Seminole County will disturb the low-traffic peace and quiet in their neighborhood.
Kristopher Thorpe bought his home on an acre of land off Markham Woods Road nearly a decade ago because of the surrounding woods and quiet pastures nearby.
Markham Woods Road is a scenic two-lane thoroughfare in west Seminole County that winds its way through some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Central Florida.
Many of the mansions in subdivisions along the road sit on large tracts of land.
And they are home to local celebrities, including Magic players and well-heeled attorney John Morgan, who hosted visits from President Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton at his house in the Alaqua neighborhood. But Thorpe and his neighbors are now concerned that a developer’s plan to build 29 homes on roughly 15 acres of wooded land just east of the intersection of Markham Woods Road and Michigan Street will add more traffic to an increasingly congested road.
They say it’s too many homes in an area that Seminole County designated decades ago for one home per acre.
“With all that traffic this is going to bring, it’s going to be a nightmare,” said Thorpe, who is a board member of his homeowners association. “We’re not saying that nobody should develop this land. But we need better planning. … It’s just a bad idea.”
He was among dozens of residents who live along Markham Woods Road who turned out for Tuesday’s Seminole County Commission meeting to voice their concerns regarding the Lake Marietta Estates subdivision proposal.
In the end, commissioners sided with the developer and agreed in a 3-to-2 vote to change the zoning on the land to allow up to two homes per acre.
Some residents groaned loudly as they walked out of the meeting following the vote. Commissioners Brenda Carey, Carlton Henley and John Horan voted in favor. Commissioners Lee Constantine and Bob Dallari opposed the zon-
ing change.
“The area has changed, and the way the land is developed [in that area of Seminole] has changed,” Carey said in support of turning the zoning from agriculture to planned development.
She pointed out that she lives in one of the oldest subdivisions along Markham Woods Road. And over the years, the pastures and woods along the road have been replaced by rooftops.
“I have concerns about the traffic on Markham Woods Road,” Carey said. “But I think that in all fairness, they are proposing slightly larger lots than those in [the nearby] Heathrow [neighborhood].”
Constantine, however, blasted Carey’s comparison with the wealthy Heathrow subdivision. He said allowing a greater density of homes per acre than currently allowed by county development rules would set a bad precedent for one of the most scenic areas of the county.
“Heathrow does not have access to Markham Woods Road,” he said. The Lake Marietta Estates developers “are currently allowed 14 units per acre. … But they can’t make more money with 14 units per acre than they can with 29 units per acre. I’m sorry but that’s not our problem. The people here bought their properties based on the fact that their neighbors would have one-acre lots.”
Residents pointed out that traffic becomes more congested in the morning and afternoons hours when students enter or leave the nearby Markham Woods Middle and Heathrow Elementary schools.
“It’s so dangerous that we sometimes have to get a cop to help us with traffic,” Norrel Chambers, who lives along Markham Woods Road, told commissioners. “I’m asking — I’m not begging — but I’m asking if there is a chance to make this development as one-acre lots.”
County traffic engineers said Markham Woods Road cannot be widened from the current two lanes with a middle turn lane because of the lack of available land on either side.
State figures show nearly 15,000 vehicles use that section of the county road every day. Seminole’s planning and zoning board recommended that county commissioners deny the zoning change at its May meeting.
Tom Daly, of Daly Design Group in Winter Park, one of the applicants for the project, said developers are willing to work with the county to ease the flow of traffic near the Michigan Street intersection.
“There are opportunities to add left turn lanes and right turn lanes to improve that intersection to the greatest extent possible,” he said. “We should make it a better intersection.”
Homes in Lake Marietta would range from 4,000 to 5,000 square feet and start at $500,000 each, according to the application from PulteGroup, a home construction company.