Tucked within congested areas of central Seminole County — near the strip malls, parking lots, high-rise apartments and bumper-to-bumper traffic — sit quiet rural enclaves of large oaks, dirt roads and homes on expansive lots.
But now residents of these rural havens worry that as development pressures grow, they could lose their neighborhoods’ rustic charms to dense clusters of houses, residential multiplexes and traffic.
Seminole officials have started taking note of their concerns.
The county recently kicked off a yearlong study of how to protect these rural pockets from new developments with densities of more than the current one house per acre or per 3 acres. The study could lead to county commissioners enacting tougher land-development regulations within rural enclaves by next fall.
Rebecca Hammock, Seminole’s development services director, said many residents of these rural areas have increasingly voiced concerns as developers ask to build more homes on less acreage.
Residents fear, for example, a 3-acre parcel could be subdivided to allow four homes per acre — for a total of 12 — if a developer were to ask the commission for a zoning change — as they currently can. Residents would like the county to make it more difficult to allow such zoning changes — perhaps by requiring four votes from the five-member county commission instead of the current three.