Article Courtesy of The Gulf
Breeze News
By Pam Brannon
Published May 23, 2016
Between 95-100 residents showed up at Tiger Point Golf Course
and Country Club last week for an Oak Pointe homeowners association meeting to
hear answers from developers as to why a new Sacred Heart facility will have its
entrance and exit off Tiger Point Blvd instead of off Hwy. 98. Then about 25 of
those homeowners from the area showed up again Thursday morning at Tiger Point
Recreational Community Center for the county commission meeting to voice their
concerns directly to the county representatives.
The group said it is
hoping to get all the homeowners’ associations in the area to
band together to fight to have the entrance/ exit moved to Hwy.
98 and out of their quiet neighborhood.
After a few representatives of the group spoke to county
commissioners Thursday during Open Forum, commission chair Lane
Lynchard told the group, “I share a lot of your concerns. I live
in Tiger Point East and that is the entrance and exit I use,
also, every day. “ He said he had spoken to the county engineer
about the project and entrance as soon as he saw the very first
signs of construction.
“But DOT (Dept. of Transportation) has some regulations about
the number of entrances -the number of intersections – along
Hwy. 98. They have spacing requirements, and this does not fall
within the right spacing to have an entrance on Hwy. 98. And if
we did put an entrance there, we could not put up a traffic
light, so what would that do to traffic flow? We also would have
to have a mandatory U-turn, and every time you or I have to go
in we would need to make that mandatory U-turn.” |
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Darlene Smith and Earl Culver picket in Oak Pointe to
change the location of Sacred Heart’s new medical facility.
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However, Katherine Brown told commissioners that she walked
that area with a pedometer and the spacing requirements could be met if there
was an entrance off Hwy. 98.
“They are simply not telling you the truth – these developers. We checked and
they didn’t even ask DOT for any kind of variance, even to have an entrance
there. It would cost a lot more money, of course, and delay the project to have
an entrance on Hwy. 98, but it would be so much safer for everyone living off
Tiger Point Blvd. Oak Pointe, right there at the entrance they have planned, is
a 63-home subdivision. We are going to have laundry trucks, garbage trucks, food
service trucks going all times of the day and night and early morning. We
believe it is the responsibility of this commission to try to alleviate our
problem there.”
Her husband, Richard Brown, told commissioners, “The main entrance to this new
Sacred Heart facility being built on Tiger Point Blvd, near the golf course, is
on a blind curve, and we have children on bikes all day long on that road, and
people jogging and walking and dogs and there will be noise pollution and safety
issues if the entrance stays there. We would like you to work with the state to
try to move that entrance and exit to the new facility onto Hwy. 98 so our way
of life is not ruined.” Brown also said, “We found out at our homeowners meeting
that Sacred Heart sold the property to the developers and now Sacred Heart is
leasing it from them. We also found out they plan to have seven doctors in
there, and if you add up how many patients a day there would be coming and going
for seven doctors, that is a lot of cars. A retired doctor that was at our
homeowners meeting estimated each doctor would see at least 40 to 45 patients a
day. And there is supposed to be an extended hours clinic in there, too.”
The homeowners at the meeting held the night before, at the Country Club, asked
questions of the developers for over an hour, then held a board/ membership
meeting after the developers and Sacred heart Hospital representatives left.
They decided their next step was to get in contact right away with all the other
homeowners’ associations off Tiger Point Blvd and people living around the golf
course to try to set up a joint meeting of board officers to band together to
protest the project.
Brown told commissioners that a petition of area homeowners has been circulating
to protest the Tiger Point Blvd entrance and “already” over 900 signatures had
been gathered. “I don’t think Sacred heart wants all those people living around
that golf course to be angry or upset with them, because most of those people
are among the aging population and could really use that facility.”
He also said they were informed that this facility being built is not the only
plans by Sacred Heart for property and facilities off Tiger Point Blvd. Since
Sacred Heart has two more parcels and is already planing future facilities
there.
Brown said, “We in no way want you to think we are not in favor of this new
facility being built right there, at our back door. It could be very convenient
for many of us. But we just don’t want that entrance and exit to be right there
where we live. I already have to wait often at least two cycles of the traffic
light at Tiger Point Blvd and Hwy. 98. If this happens, since there is no right
turn lane off Tiger Point Blvd, there will be no telling how long we would need
to wait to even get out onto the highway. There are serious safety issues at
stake here.” |