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By Melody Jameson
melody@observernews.net
SUN CITY - A multi-modal container shipping center, proposed near here at the Port of Manatee, promises hundreds of jobs but also is prompting a number of concerns.
The advantages are financial, environmental, location and transportation-related, say proponents. But problems may result from those same factors, concerned residents counter.
The shipping center is being proposed by California-based Inland Port Systems (IPS) on about 400 acres formerly used for agriculture and owned by the Reeder family. The property is west of U.S. 41, north of the port entrance and within Hillsborough County.
If built on the site, the center would serve as a sort of clearing house, managing and handling large shipping containers arriving by truck or rail and departing aboard freighters from the port. The center also would receive shipping containers arriving by vessel to be dispersed to land-based locations via rail or roadways. The center could deal with either the loading or unloading of containers on site as well as with empty or already-loaded containers passing through it.
IPS, through the Tampa office of development consultant WilsonMiller, wants to add a land use code amendment to the county’s Comprehensive Plan allowing rezoning of the property to accommodate the shipping center development. On behalf of its client, WilsonMiller personnel have been making informational presentations promoting aspects of the proposed development.
At such a presentation for members of the Southside Community Plan advisory group in late February, WilsonMiller outlined several advantages of the center as proposed by IPS. Attributes of the site and its plan relate to the location, transportation features, environmental matters, and, of course, financial aspects, the consultants said.
The site currently is isolated from residential sections, is outside the urban services area, is near local port operations and adjacent to a major port with close proximity to the Panama Canal, consultants noted.
Additionally, the site, with immediate access to U.S. 41, would be close to I-75 via either S.R. 674, Moccasin Wallow Road or a not- yet- constructed connector just south of the Hillsborough-Manatee County line.
From an ecological standpoint, the IPS plan includes environmental wetlands restoration work as well as upland conservation/habitat creation and coordination with Southwest Florida Water Management District efforts . Under the IPS proposal, however, Hillsborough County’s environmental lands acquisition (ELAPP) endeavors to preserve the property would end.
Financially, consultants asserted, the IPS development would bring at least 1,800 new jobs to the area and provide high tax revenues while requiring a low level of governmental services. Such facilities also serve to lower the costs of goods and reduce fuel consumption, they added.
Property owners in Sundance, though, are not so sure the trade-offs are warranted. Speaking for about 2,000 residents in the rural community between U.S. 41 and U.S. 301 developed intentionally for families interested in mini-ranches, Ralph Greenlee said the Sundance HOA has multiple concerns about the potential IPS impacts.
Foremost is the possible transport of containers, some of them perhaps loaded with hazardous materials, on flatbed trucks cutting through Sundance from one highway to the other. Greenlee said he asked for a pledge from IPS and its consultants that the community would not be used by truckers as a shortcut to and from the shipping center. He was told there would be no such promise, he said this week.
Sundance is a community of horses, riders, youngsters, walkers, joggers as well as bicyclists, and putting 18-wheelers on the two-lane roadways through the community would endanger many lives, Greenlee emphasized. “Our roads are designated with signs ‘no through traffic’ and ‘not a truck road,” he added.
Residents also are worried about which routes trucks leaving the center would take once out on U.S. 41, Greenlee noted; whether they would travel north to four-lane S.R. 674 and its interchange with I-75 or to two-lane Moccasin Wallow and its interchange or south to a new road and interchange yet to be built.
Another concern raised by the Sundance HOA involves disposal of wastewater on the shipping site. While consultants promote the fact the site is outside the urban services area, meaning services such as water and sewer lines will not be furnished by government agencies, it is this very situation that has caused questioning in Sundance, Greenlee said. Sundance properties have septic tanks, but this form of wastewater management surely would not be acceptable on a site so close to Tampa Bay, he added. Neither the developer nor the consultant has provided any answers to the wastewater questions, Greenlee said.
Mariella Smith, a Ruskin environmental activist, took issue with the IPS proposal on the basis of its ecological outlook, noting “several serious environmental concerns.” The prospective developer “acts like because the site already is disturbed it therefore is best suited for development,” she said. But, “we’ve acquired and restored plenty of land that’s been previously mined or farmed.”
With other protected property adjacent to it, the entire site is “valuable for completing the restored system,” not just the northwest piece which Smith characterized as “pristine” and IPS has indicated it will preserve.
Smith also questioned the IPS position that the proposed development is advantageously removed from residential areas. “The development actually will attract more dense residential construction as close as possible” in order to meet the demands of workers at the shipping center, she said. “And then will come commercial development, and then schools and then…. We simply cannot afford to extend services to the far reaches of the county and we cannot afford to maintain them.”
Whatever advantages the proposed shipping center offers, Smith summed up, “they accrue largely to Manatee County residents. The proposal is contrary to the policies of Hillsborough’s Comp Plan and doesn’t fit with the Southside Community Plan.”
The procedure for consideration of a proposed comprehensive plan amendment such as IPS is seeking spans eight to nine months, said Pedro Parra, a Planning Commission professional who has been serving as facilitator during the Southside planning process. The developer also can pursue a rezoning and project permits concurrently with the plan amendment procedure, he added.
The IPS website lists and shows the Port of Manatee two-phase facility as among its U.S. facilities.
Adam Carnegie, the WilsonMiller project manager on the IPS proposal, did not respond to telephone calls on Monday concerning this article.
©2009 Melody Jameson
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