Proposed 55-and-over community wins key approval

A 170-home development in Parrish will be passed on to county commissioners for the final say.

Planning commissioners voted 5-0 in favor of the recommendation of approval of the general development plan for Woodlands of Manatee LLC’s Coventry Park on Thursday, with Commissioner Mike Rahn absent.

The development is designed as a 55-and-over and over community for attached and semi-attached homes on a 105-acre triangular piece of property off of Erie Road and south of 69th Street East. It abuts the Thousand Oaks and Oakleaf Hammock subdivisions to the south and Sheffield Green to the north.

Assistant County Attorney Sarah Schenk told commissioners they should not take into account the age restriction, as the county has no purview over such specifications.

The development had originally been approved by county commissioners in 2009 as a 256-unit project, and before that it was the Woodlands Golf Course.

While the new version of Coventry Park says it will have 70 percent open space and no impacts on its 44.69 acres of wetlands, some of the proposed development’s neighbors took issue to a few of its features.

Don Cox said he chose his home on 79th Avenue East nearly two decades ago because there was privacy at the dead end. Coventry Park plans to put an emergency access into the property on 79th Avenue East, made possible by a culvert proposed to be built on Cedar Drain, which runs between the two properties.

He was concerned that the structure would flood his house.

“I’ve lived there for 17 years,” Cox said. “I’ve seen that ditch full.”

The residents who spoke at the meeting also said that a similar gated access between Oakleaf Hammock and Thousand Oaks, which they believed to also be restricted to emergency access, saw dozens and dozens of cars use transponders to go through their neighborhood.

Other concerns addressed included more traffic on Erie Road, where the proposed entrance and exit to the development is set. Erie Road is set to be widened to a four-lane road.

The applicant’s attorney, Ed Vogler, suggested to the residents that if they believe people are improperly using an emergency access gate, they should take it up with code enforcement.

Vogler also advised that the residents wouldn’t be given a code or transponder for the emergency access gate, and that the culvert wouldn’t restrict water flow.

The proposal will go in front of the board of county commissioners on Dec. 7.

This story was originally published November 9, 2017 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Proposed 55-and-over community wins key approval."