Bella Vita developers hear community's concerns

GOTHA — Residents of Gotha attended a meeting Sept. 2 to learn from county representatives and project leaders about a preliminary subdivision plan for a future property in their area.

The subdivision, located on the south side of Park Ridge-Gotha Road just east of Maguire Road, is tentatively named Bella Vita.

The property covers 13.81 gross acres and will accommodate 11 single-family residential dwelling units. Each house will be a minimum of 3,000 square feet, but most will be around 3,800 square feet, and each lot will be at least one-half of an acre.

Pricing will start in the low $600,000s for each home.

“I anticipate that some of these homes will sell up closer to a million,” said Stephen Polachek, vice president of land operations for the Orlando Division of Standard Pacific Homes, which is developing the subdivision. 

Residents expressed their concerns about the subdivision at the meeting.

“I don’t think that you should put in new houses with septic that are that close to the lake,” said William Waymier, a board member for the Windermere Downs HOA. 

City officials said septic is the only option because it would be expensive to construct sewer lines in that area. 

Trees were also a conservation-related concern. Polachek said builder Standard Pacific typically goes to great lengths to keep trees around, especially because they enhance property value.

“I’m a big tree-save guy,” he said.

There were also questions about whether the architecture would fit in with the historic character of the Gotha Rural Settlement, but Eric Ross from the Orange County Planning Division said there weren’t any standards in place for architecture in rural settlements in particular. 

Some residents had seen construction crews moving sand near the site for Bella Vita, but District 1 Commissioner S. Scott Boyd said that a South Florida Water Management District water filtration project there has been planned for years and unrelated to any plans for Bella Vita. 

“There is a series of ponds that are a primary source for a lot of nitrate that gets put into Lake Down,” Boyd said. “(The project) is to help reduce a lot of nutrients that flow into the Butler chain.”

Standard Pacific Homes will be merging soon with The Ryland Group and then operating under the name CalAtlantic Group. The company is currently building in about 20 communities in the Orlando area, the closest of which is Waterside on Marsh Road in Winter Garden.

There are three models open in Waterside that will give residents a good idea of what the homes in Bella Vita will look like.

“It’s going to be almost identical,” Polachek said. “Compared with some of the other large-scale builders, we spend significant time and resources on design upfront, so you’ll see that.”

Kathleen Klare, a local historian, encouraged changing the name of Bella Vita to something more familiar. 

“This isn’t Italy,” she said. “It would be nice to come up with something that has to do with our community.”

She suggested naming the development after the Fischer family, who owned the land for three generations. Mary Fran Fischer Howard sold the land for development, but her grandfather, who was the minister of Gotha’s first Lutheran church, had first purchased it in 1894. 

There will be a public hearing regarding Bella Vita at a Board of County Commissioners meeting in four to six weeks, but an exact date has not been set. After the public hearing, the county commissioners will review construction plans and then permits. 

Contact Catherine Sinclair at [email protected].