Higginbotham Vows To Hear All Big-Box Questions Tonight (June 10)

Expect a long meeting tonight, June 10, at the Brandon Recreation Center on Sadie Street, where Hillsborough County Commissioner Al Higginbotham said in a pre-meeting interview that he plans "to stay until everybody has an opportunity to speak."

"If it's two hours or four hours or five hours, I intend to be there," Higginbotham said in a telephone interview today.

"I'm coming against the advice of the county attorney," he added. "Too often people say elected officials won't go out to speak to the residents."

Higginbotham made clear the parameters.

"This is a listening session and I'm here to listen," he said. "I can't offer anything, I can't make suggestions, because I don't want the matter to end up in court."

At issue is the expected development made possible with zoning that permits Redstone Properties to develop a 158,800-square-foot big-box retail store, five commercial outparcels and 260 apartments on a 43.5-acre parcel off Bloomingdale Avenue, just east of Bloomingdale High School and the Bloomingdale Regional Library.

Residents meeting under the auspices of the Coordinated Active Neighborhoods Development Organization (CAN-DO), also known as, "Say No to Bloomingdale Big Box," have been actively protesting the project and meeting to discuss possible strategies for blocking what has been described as a done-deal.

That's where tonight's questioning will be centered, said Dan Grant, a CAN-DO organizer, in a phone interview today.

"I guess the first question is, 'What is he going to do to help us stop the project in our neighborhood,' " Grant said. "The second question is, 'What does he think is appropriate for this tract of land?' Does he really think a big-box store, like a Walmart, and 260 apartments are appropriate for this parcel? If not, what does he think should go there."

Higginbotham said that he had no agenda for tonight's meeting other than the county attorney will make brief comments before the residents will be invited to speak. At most, Higginbotham said, he will have a dozen slides to share, concerning the project's background.

He added that he had invited the developer, Redstone Properties, and its attorney, David Singer, to the meeting, but "Mr. Singer said it would not be advantageous to his client to attend tonight."

The commissioner said that he, too, like the citizens, is frustrated by the situation. The zoning passed in 2003, by a different board of county commissioners, he said, "and there's nothing we as a board can do without ending up in court."

The matter addressed in 2011, Higginbotham added, "actually improved the site."

According to Grant, Higginbotham was referring to a vote by the commissioners in December 2003 to change the zoning of the land to Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Greenfield.

In 2010, according to Grant, Redstone Properties applied to have the property rezoned to TND In Transit, but that move was blocked by community residents who met with Redstone representatives at a November 2010 meeting at Bell Shoals Baptist Church.

Then, in Decembe 2011, Grant added, Higginbotham "made the motion to make a change in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code, which would apply to every parcel in the county zoned that way."

"At that time," Grant added, "the only paracel in the county zoned that way was the Bloomingdale parcel."

Higginbotham said in today's interview that the people who owned the property in 2003 applied for the initial zoning change, "and then sold it to Redstone."

"It was the people who lived there, on Bloomingdale Avenue," who moved for the zoning change, Higginbotham said. "The county didn't do it. The developer didn't do it. It's the people who lived there who did it."

As for Grant, he takes greater issue with the code change.

Issues such as these are likely to be raised at tonight's meeting, at the Brandon Recreation Center on Sadie Street. Higginbotham said it was his fudiciary responsiblity to hold the meeting at an affordable location, and that the recreation center was less expensive than meeting space at Bloomingdale High School.

CAN-DO organizers, after hearing in May that the meeting was scheduled for Sadie Street, booked the school and were planning to pay for it themselves, Grant said.

Higginbotham said the move "created a lot of questions and havoc over in county offices," and it was decided to keep the meeting where it was.