Leesburg city commissioners gave initial approval to the Oak Ridge development on Monday, part of one of the largest proposed projects in the city.
Oak Ridge is a planned 596-acre neighborhood, slated for 910 dwelling units, directly across from The Villages’ border along the east side of County Road 48.
The neighborhood is one of three that will be integrated into the Oak Ridge Community Development District, a 752-acre master-planned community by Dix Developments that will merge three subdivisions and generate up to 1,466 new homes once complete.
Developers are seeking to annex the subject property into Leesburg, amend the future land use designation from Lake County Rural to City of Leesburg Estate Residential and change the zoning from Lake County Agriculture to City of Leesburg PUD.
On July 31, the Leesburg Planning Commission recommended denial of the project by a 5-2 vote, citing concerns about water consumption, the disruption of nearby wetlands, density and the lack of childcare or education options. But commissioners decided 4-1 in favor of moving the project forward and transmitting the land use ordinance to state officials for approval. Commissioner Jay Connell was the sole ‘no’ vote, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.
Earlier this year, Dix Developments purchased the 84-acre Huntington Oaks property for $6.65 million and the 74-acre former motocross track that will become Blake Ridge for $4.875 million to complete land acquisition for the Oak Ridge CDD.
Huntington Oaks and Blake Ridge will serve as the respective northern and southern “bookends” for the larger Oak Ridge CDD, Dix Developments CEO and founder James Dicks said, with the 596-acre Oak Ridge subdivision in between.
“We’re excited to be in Leesburg,” Dicks told GrowthSpotter. “Everything’s going smooth and we’ve had no issues, specifically for that project. We’ve got that whole corridor there.”
Of the 910 units planned for Oak Ridge, 642 units will be detached single-family homes and 268 units will be connected as duplexes.
Each individual duplex unit will be located on a 35-foot lot, meaning each duplex will sit on a 70-foot lot, with a minimum house size of 1,200 square feet.
For the detached single-family units, 559 of the total 642 units will sit on 50-foot lots while 46 units will be located on 60-foot lots and 37 units will have 70-foot lots.
Under design and architectural standards, according to Leesburg planning director Dan Miller, the units are required to have two floors as the minimum height and two off-street parking spaces for each unit.
Miller said 4.18 acres of the project area will be designated for recreational use and the area is set to include a pool, cabana, children’s playground, dog park and a walking natural trail designed “to blend into the neighborhood and the wetlands areas”.
Doubling the 35 percent open space requirement, at least 70 percent of the Oak Ridge project area is to be left as open space.
Darcy Unroe of Unroe Engineering, representing Dix during Monday’s meeting, said the land was previously used for cattle operations and sod stripping, leaving portions of the project area with drainage and runoff issues.
To circumvent these issues, Unroe said the project has plenty of natural vegetation with areas dedicated to wetland creation and expansion.
“You heard me note on the sod stripping operations that a lot of that is just draining out,” he said. “So with this wetland enhancement, we’ll be able to filter that through the natural vegetation around those areas as well to properly filter that runoff and wetland surrounding areas.”
With Monday’s meeting serving as the first reading of ordinances, final consideration of the project will lay over until the October 13 city commission meeting.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at jwilkins@orlandosentinel.com or 407-754-4980. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.