Drug treatment center OK for Hillsborough neighborhood. Here’s why.

The Hillsborough County Fee wrongly turned down zoning for a residential compound abuse centre in a Carrollwood community, a circuit court docket choose has dominated.

The March 28 decision from Hillsborough Circuit Decide Mark Wolfe implies Northdale developer Stephen J. Dibbs, a longtime critic of the county’s land-use rules, can move forward with plans to flip a one-loved ones household on Hoedt Road into a 25-mattress therapy facility.

Dibbs sued to overturn commissioners, who voted 4-2 to reject the rezoning ask for final yr. Prior to the vote, Commissioner Ken Hagan stated the zoning improve would allow commercial exercise to intrude into a residential neighborhood.

The county’s development expert services employees, Setting up Fee and land-use hearing officer all said the proposed zoning modify was permissible less than the county’s codes and in depth approach.

Neighbors, however, objected and sent the county 62 letters and a 268-signature petition in opposition. They cited the likely for diminished home values, further website traffic and safety issues stemming from feasible criminal activity at a drug rehabilitation centre.

“We have been doing work really hard for several years to maintain our neighborhoods secure and establish our reputations as family-pleasant. This proposal put our neighborhoods’ risk-free popularity at possibility,” said Jeff Cain, head of the Neighborhood Check out for Hampton Lakes.

Residents opposed to Stephen J. Dibbs' proposal to rezone a single-family home for use as a 25-bed drug addiction treatment center are shown on this screenshot of an HGTV broadcast of the May 10, 2022, Hillsborough County Commission meeting.
Citizens opposed to Stephen J. Dibbs’ proposal to rezone a single-loved ones house for use as a 25-bed drug dependancy therapy center are demonstrated on this screenshot of an HGTV broadcast of the Could 10, 2022, Hillsborough County Fee assembly. [ Tampa Bay Times ]

A number of people also appeared at the May possibly 10, 2022, fee hearing carrying purple outfits to present their opposition. They observed a sympathetic audience.

“I stand with the inhabitants,” Hagan explained in transferring to deny Dibbs’ request during that hearing.

Commissioner Pat Kemp and then-commissioners Stacy White and Mariella Smith voted with him.

Wolfe, however, observed that prior courtroom rulings have said “that denying proposed growth dependent on a ‘popularity poll of the neighborhood’ is impermissible.”

Neither residents nor commissioners cited factual facts to again up the statements of decrease residence values and other assertions.

Wolfe’s ruling quashed the commission’s final decision and granted the rezoning “because the county commission departed from the necessary prerequisites of law, and the document has no proficient, substantial proof for the dedication that denial of the proposed rezoning advances a reputable general public reason,”

Kemp said it was inappropriate to comment on Wolfe’s ruling given that the commission served in a quasi-judicial purpose when it voted on the zoning ask for. Hagan did not reply to messages trying to find comment.

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Dibbs, in a text message to the Tampa Bay Situations, explained, “a rehab heart is a superior for the local community and no threat to the neighborhoods.”

Dibbs has butted heads with the county multiple periods beforehand. He unsuccessfully sued in federal court docket to test to void the neighborhood plan for rural Keystone/Odessa and also led the charge to try to overturn the county’s wetlands protections governed by the Hillsborough Environmental Defense Commission.