Farmland Preservation Festival pg B5
VOLUME 3 ISSUE 14
$2
APRIL 8 - APRIL 14, 2022
SAVE OUR RURAL AREA A group unites to fight development in the farmland preservation area
City pays $170,000 in closing costs on loan to fund fire fee refunds By Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com
A
By Rosemarie Dowell rosemarie@ocalagazette.com
W
hen a developer asked for a troubling rezoning request for 1,000-plus acres of land in Shiloh in northwest Marion County, Jerome Feaster and other bordering property owners quickly opposed it. “It was just a handful of families but we got together and fought the development and won,” said Feaster, 72, whose family has owned the Florida Pioneer Family Farm adjacent to the pastureland for well over a hundred years. “The developer wanted to turn it into a conservation community; thankfully, there’s still nothing but cattle on it today,” he said. Shortly after their win in 2005, Feaster and his neighbors created the non-profit organization, Save Our Rural Area, or SORA, and ever since the small but feisty group has been fighting urban sprawl on farmland and defending the rural character of the area, especially within the county’s designated Farmland Preservation Area (FPA). “This year we’re looking to bring the development issue to the community more than ever before,” said Feaster, who owns 40 acres of the original 160-acre farm his ancestors settled on, with other family members splitting up the remaining 40acre tracts. “We’ve got to stop urban sprawl on our area’s farmlands,” said the father of two, who retired from Lowes some years ago after previously owning a hardware store.
Longtime SORA member Gail Stern, who like Feaster is a native Floridian, said the group is dedicated to preserving farmland and is not opposed to development – if it’s in the right places. “We have our dukes up about 99 % of the time,” she said. “If we don’t stand up for farmland preservation, we will lose chunks of ourselves at every interval.” “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” said Stern, who lives on a farm in Reddick, not far from I-75. “We’ll never get it back.” Most recently, SORA has vehemently opposed two new projects– the 450-plus acre Sunny Oaks PUD at the County Road 318 and I-75 interchange, and the 950-acre former Ocala Jockey Club development, which was purchased by the developer of the World Equestrian Center. It’s also located on County Road 318. (read more about the proposed projects here: ocal-agazette.com/county-commissionconditionally-approves-sunny-oaks-pud/ and ocal-agazette.com/mcbocc-votes-totransmit-wec-ojc-comp-plan-amendmentsto-tally/). The two developments sit outside the County’s Urban Growth Boundary and within its FPA, creating vocal opposition at public meetings from not only SORA but private citizens, the equine community, and farm owners alike. If the projects are allowed, Feaster said, SORA worries it will set a precedent for further development throughout the county’s vital FPA, and irreparably harm its environment and natural resources. “The Sunny Oaks’ rezoning request has been approved so it’s moving forward,” he said. “We’re looking at getting it rescinded
and trying to mediate by whatever means we can.” The Jockey Club project, dubbed the World Equestrian Center at Ocala Jockey Club, calls for two subdivisions, a 200room hotel, a 1o0-site RV park, and a 9,000-seat stadium. SORA recently sent a letter to the State in opposition to the County’s Comprehensive Plan Amendments, Future Land Use Element and Future Land Use Map amendments, along with companion rezoning regarding the Jockey Club project, as well as the rezoning of the Sunny Oaks property from A-1 to PUD, which will result in “high intensity industrial and commercial uses which are incompatible with the rural character of the adjacent Farmland Preservation Area.” “It is a big battle; we’re in a fight like never before,” said Feaster. “We’re praying the Jockey Club project is over the top and that we’re able to convince the commissioners it’s not right or at least trim it down considerably.” If built, the Sunny Oaks PUD development, Stern said, will completely surround a 60-acre farm that’s been owned by Dolly Strong and her tight-knit minority farming family for more than 100 years. The County has given the heavy industry project a “speed to market,” green light, without proper consideration of the harmful impact it will have on the surrounding area, she said. “It’ll have four million-square-feet of commercial and industrial space and a
t the April 5 city council meeting, council agreed to pay approximately $170,000 in closing costs associated with taking out a $60 million dollar loan from lender Truist for the purpose of paying back the $80 million they collected in illegal taxes from residents pursuant to court order. At the city’s strategic workshop, city staff indicated they are budgeting loan payments of $4.8 million in the upcoming budget year. Ashley Dobbs, spokesperson for the city of Ocala, said the remaining $20 million the city owes would be paid from the city’s General Fund Reserve for Contingencies account. The case stems from a long-running class-action suit that was filed in 2014 over the approximately $15 a month that more than one hundred thousand Ocala residents paid for fire services as an add-on to their Ocala utility bills from 2010 until 2021. During the trial, the city’s attorney, Patrick Gilligan, explained Ocala implemented the tax in 2007 to spread the cost of fire services across a broad group of citizens who wouldn’t be paying because they didn’t own real property or were tax-exempt. An appellate court found the fees constituted an illegal tax, and in October, local trial court judge Hodges followed the appellate court’s order by requiring the city to establish a common fund to refund the fees. At the last hearing Marion County Circuit Judge Robert W. Hodges dismissed the City of Ocala’s proposal that those seeking their share of the court-ordered refunds be made to apply to the city for their money. Hodges ordered the city to send out a notice to all customers who paid the fees. The notice sets the case for a final hearing on May 10 at 1:30 p.m. and proposes how the $80 million should be paid out.
See Rural, page A2
READ DAILY NEWS AT OCALAGAZETTE.COM
INSIDE:
Sidewalks........................................ A4 Juneteenth...................................... A6 State News...................................... A8 Welcome Home............................. B1 Calendar......................................... B5
Subscribers will receive their paper through USPS on the USPS schedule. Subscription orders must be received by 5 pm on Tuesday in order to be included in the following week’s delivery. Starting at $10/month ocalagazette.com/subscribe