Campaign finance conflict could push development through

Contractors and officials connected with one of the largest proposed developments in Seminole County helped finance the campaigns of at least four Commissioners who have voted on it.

Just across the street from a pocket of Seminole County neighborhoods, a cow pasture and forest, filled with indigenous wildlife including hawks, eagles, boars and deer that had lured residents might be on the verge of being developed into a 900-home community, 450-bed nursing home, 110-room hotel, and shopping plaza.

And now the residents of those homes near Howell Branch Road are fighting against Central Florida’s largest catholic organization to try to stop it.

Companies and officials involved in the project have played roles in getting the majority of the County Commission elected.

At least four county commissioners have been partially funded by Reserve at San Pedro project officials and contractors. The project's authorized agent and lawyer, Alberto Bustamante III — in combination with his firm, Baker and Hostetler LLP — gave Commissioner John Horan $600 toward his ongoing campaign for re-election this year.

In August Horan, running for re-election, told the Orlando Sentinel "I do not want to see dense residential developments out in the rural areas.”

That money helped Horan win his primary on Aug. 26. His campaign in 2010 was also heavily funded by developers.

The Diocese project’s attorney also helped finance Commissioner Carlton Henley’s campaign in 2010. This year Henley ran for re-election unopposed.

Orlando firm CPH Inc. is the engineer, and twice helped fund Commission Chairman Bob Dallari's election campaigns. Baker and Hostetler has also helped finance Dallari's campaigns multiple times, and Commissioner Brenda Carey's campaign in 2011.

The Catholic Diocese of Orlando’s proposed 468-acre development, named the Reserve at San Pedro Center, would consist of 400 homes and 500 apartments and condominiums, an assisted living facility, hotel, as well as an expansion to an existing cemetery and spiritual center. And just a mile down the road, an already choked intersection during rush hour commutes — funneling traffic from Oviedo and UCF toward Winter Park and Orlando — could get worse if the development is approved.

Howell Branch Road is rated by the county as capable of handling 43,000 vehicle trips per day. Currently it funnels 26,000 cars per day, though at the intersection of State Road 436 and Howell Branch Road traffic during morning and afternoon rush hour routinely backs up more than a quarter of a mile, likewise at the road’s southern terminus at University Boulevard.

The project is estimated to add nearly 70 percent more cars to Howell Branch Road.

“This development would place hazardous, unsafe conditions upon our roadways and create potential accidents resulting in serious personal injury and/or death to our school children and the general public,” wrote Bernard Cote, president of the Citrus Point Homeowners Association, in a letter to the County Commission.

“We overwhelmingly urge you to vote no to this development.”

It’s a project that’s been in the works for more than a decade, though the organization has owned the land for far longer. The Catholic Diocese bought the land in the 1940s and 1950s, enjoying tax-exempt status for the ensuing six decades.

This isn’t the first time the Diocese has attempted to transform the area with a large development. The Diocese submitted a proposal in 2004 for a land-use change allowing for 1,750 homes and 100,000 square feet of “church-affiliated” retail space, but that request was pulled months later, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The Catholic Diocese came back before the Seminole County Commission once again in 2010 with the current project and was given the green light for initial approval.

The potential approval of the project may not come until later this month though. A public hearing for the project's final approval was pushed back during the County Commission's Sept. 9 meeting – the Catholic Diocese requested to have the item pushed back to Sept. 23 and the County Commission obliged.