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Proposed Mission Expansion Prompts Old Site Plan Concerns
By
Jul 16, 2009 - 9:57:38 PM

Melody Jameson
mj@observernews.net

BALM – Residents around the long-established Good Samaritan Mission
here hold strong opinions about planned expansion of the facility
that serves a mostly Mexican clientele.
But, it’s not the expansion itself that has aroused them. And their local
civic association is meeting in an especially-called session next week to
hash it out.
At issue is not so much a proposal to enlarge some of the facilities at the
mission, but rather the farm worker housing on the 10-acre site which was
approved back in 1995 and which surfaced in the public consciousness
with the current expansion announcement.
The mission, established more than 20 years ago by William and Dora
Cruz and now under the direction of their son, Bill Cruz, has applied for
a modifi cation to its planned development zoning approved 14 years ago.
Modifi cation approval is being sought for the structural addition of 6,700
square feet in church or church related use and for agricultural cultivation
use of the portions of the property formerly designated for the housing
component, said Susan Mariner, a Hillsborough County senior planner
familiar with the request. The added square footage would bring the total
under roof to 25,700 SF, she said.
The 1995 site plan shows an aggregate total of 39 housing units in three
multi-family sections at the southwest, southeast and northeast corners of
the generally rectangular acreage at the confl uence of the Balm-Wimauma
and Balm Roads. It is along the east and south edges of the property,
encompassing these prospective housing sites, that crop cultivation is
being proposed, Mariner said. But, the housing component of the 1995
site plan remains in place; it has notbeen eliminated, she added.
     And it is that latter factor which has alarmed some area residents,
said Marcella O’Steen, president of the Balm Civic Association, asked for its support of the modification petition. In a recent leadership session involving the association’s officers – of which Bill Cruz is one– it was suggested to Cruz that the
association membership would find it easier to support the modification if the farm worker housing component were completely eliminated first from the planned development, O’Steen said.
      A few days later, she added, she received a verbal message from Cruz stating that “they are willing to eliminate the housing from the PD.”
      Some members, however, would like something more reliable than words in verification. PhyllisDearden, a Balm resident as well as association officer, said “If the housing units were taken off the table, I wouldn’t have any problem at all with the modification.”
    On the other hand, Mary Capps, another area homeowner, noted that Cruz has said that, despite the existing PD site plan, the mission management has no intention of actually building farm worker housing on the site and she’s inclined
to take him at his word. “I do not feel at this time he has any intention of building the housing,” she asserted.
     Jamie Frankland, who operates a welding business in Balm, said he’s holding out for a reduction in the farm worker housing numbers on the site plan, although he’d prefer to see the housing component eliminated entirely. He doesn’t believe,
however, that his preference ever will be honored, he said.
     O’Steen also said that, personally, she wants to see Cruz actually remove the housing from the PD, a move that would make support of the modification request “much more comfortable.”
     Neither Cruz nor his representative in the modification matter,Timothy Powell, president of TSP Companies, Inc., responded to telephone messages from The
Observer.
      The civic association meeting is scheduled for 7 PM Monday, July 20, at the mission, 14920 Balm-Wimauma Road, and is open to the entire community.
     The first public hearing on the modification is slated for 6 PM the following Monday, July 27, in Tampa. A final order from the county’s board of commissioners is expected on September 8.
©2009 Melody Jameson


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