State wants parkway route options narrowed to three

State turnpike officials have asked the Federal Highway Administration to dismiss seven of the 10 potential Suncoast Parkway routes to give property owners in those areas peace of mind.

The alternative alignments report, obtained by the Chronicle last week through a public records request, detail the advantages and disadvantages of each route.

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise submitted the report. It says attention was particularly paid to balance the impact on state-owned environmentally sensitive lands and impacts on private property owners.

The state needs FHA permission to remove potential routes because it may request at least $160 million for the parkway extension through Citrus County.

At a meeting of state, federal and local regulators in late February, officials suggested that routes be removed from consideration if no one seriously believes their potential exists. Officials said it is unfair to property owners whose land is in limbo on those routes.

The FHA representatives refused to do that, but they offered the chance for Turnpike Enterprise to explain its rationale in detail.

FHA officials could not be reached Friday for comment. Project Manager Carl Gibilaro said he doesn't know when he will hear from them.

The three routes that the Turnpike Enterprise wants to keep on the table include these characteristics:

• All three continue straight north from where the Suncoast Parkway now ends at U.S. 98 in northern Hernando County.
  
• Two routes take a western jog before continuing north and intersecting at State Road 44 near Crystal Oaks.
  
• One route keeps a somewhat straight path from U.S. 98 to S.R. 44 near Crystal Glen development. That route would impact both the Faith Lutheran Church and a sports and recreational complex proposed by major league pitcher Mike Hampton.

Routes the state wants to eliminate include:

• The so-called S-1 link that divides the eastern one-third of Sugarmill Woods. Citrus County commissioners have already said they opposed this route.
  
• Links that impact Central Florida Community College, county government and school board facilities in Lecanto, the county jail and a mining operation east of C.R. 491.
  
• Routes that divide the Lecanto Sandhills or Annutteliga Hammock, both state-owned environmental uplands.

Gibiliaro said the attention is focused on property in the direct path of these routes. Other indirect impacts, such as those that may be felt in the Crystal Oaks community, do not carry as much weight.

"That's one of the things that's very difficult to quantify," he said.

Gary Maidhof, director of development services for Citrus County, said he constantly hears from property owners complaining their land is within an alignment. He said property owners of the unlikely routes should be let off the hook.

Their inclusion on a proposed route hasn't impacted property values, said chief deputy appraiser Melanie Hensley.

When the state conducted a similar parkway study in the mid 1990s, Property Appraiser Ron Schultz lopped 40 percent off the value of land in the path of potential routes even though no money existed to continue the roadway through Citrus County.

After the state announced it had abandoned that study and would study it again, appraisers found little change in sale prices for those properties, Hensley said. The office then brought the properties back to their original value.